Igor Kuchma

According to the minutes of the last ECB meeting, the members of the regulator do not rule out a sharper increase in the interest rate. It is hard to say how relevant this information is today. Nevertheless, taking into account the threat of fragmentation and recession, it is unlikely that they will “go wild”. Still, […]

Last Monday Christine Lagarde announced the regulator’s intention to raise the policy rate by 25 basis points at the July meeting. She also said that the Central bank’s goal is to keep borrowing costs under control for the eurozone’s most indebted members. Curiously, in 2020 Lagarde said it was not the ECB’s task to “tighten […]

The situation compels. The Federal Open Market Committee members voted for yet another rate hike. The new range is 1.5-1.75%. Thus, the regulator looks forward to slowdown the inflation pressures in the country. It should be mentioned that the balance sheet reduction plan remains unchanged changed: from 1 June, it will be reduced at a […]

As expected,  ECB officials pointed to a possible interest rate hike of 0.25% in July and a further tightening in September.  On the inflation side, they expect a figure of around 6.8% in 2022, 3.5% in 2023, and 2.1% in 2024. The report cites the conflict in Ukraine as the main reason for the deteriorating […]

As the latest data suggests, inflation in Europe reached 8.1%, significantly higher than April’s all-time high of 7.4%. As expected, the main driver of inflation was the increase in energy prices. Be that as it may, the market reaction was not long in coming: last week, the STOXX 50 index fell by 1.5%, while the […]

The minutes of the last FOMC meeting suggest that Fed members are prepared to raise rates more aggressively to address rising inflation. As for the balance of QT, they agreed that it would be prudent to limit sales of government bonds to about $60 billion per month and mortgage-backed securities to about $35 billion per […]

Starting from inflation, the IPP in Germany rose to 33.5% (y/y) in April. The situation is, to put it bluntly, unpleasant. The problem is that there is nothing the country’s central bank can do about it, except continue to push for an early rate hike. It is likely that the event will take place in […]

Are you ready for another recession? Economists continue to warn of yet another apocalypse, slashing forecasts for global growth. Among the main reasons, are the situation around Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Overall, analysts expect global GDP growth of 2.2% in 2022. For the United States it is 1.8% and for the eurozone […]

The vicious circle: Apple is once again under review. The European Commission suspects the company of abusing its position in the mobile wallet market. According to the regulator, Apple restricted access to NFC (Near-Field Communication) technology used in smartphones for contactless payments. Thus, the American company abused its dominant position in the market of mobile […]

Starting from Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s company reported mixed results for the first quarter of 2022. On the one hand, Meta (FB) managed to meet market expectations for revenue. On the other hand, earnings per share were below consensus forecasts. As for the impact of Apple’s implementation of App Tracking Transparency (ATT), which requires apps to […]