Today the Federal Reserve is kicking off its two-day monthly policy meeting. There has been a lot of speculation lately among investors that the Fed might change its tone a bit because economic fundamentals from the United States are improving and the vaccination campaign in the US is going better than expected.
This is causing experts to expect a faster economic recovery in the United States, while the Fed has been pretty pessimistic about it since the pandemic began. Many see now as the perfect time to change, or at least begin talking about changing the monetary policy.
The Fed’s decision will be at least partly motivated by today’s chief economic reports from the United States. These include the retail sales for February, industrial production data, and business inventories. Still, labor market statistics and inflation reports remain more important to the Federal Reserve, but today’s data can still offer a clue as to whether change is anywhere near on the horizon.
In light of the upcoming reports and Fed meeting, today US stock indices will be somewhat mixed and trading within narrow channels as investors wait for more information to determine sentiment.
Things are not looking too well in Europe, however. The region’s issue with AstraZeneca continues, as more countries decided to stop vaccinating their populations with the drug made by this company.
Though both the World Health Organization and the European Medicines Agency have declared the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine is safe, the EU seems not to think so, in light of suspicions that the vaccine may have caused blot clotting in several patients around the bloc.
Germany, France, and Italy are the latest countries to ban the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, even as they are all seeing an increase in the incidence of Covid-19. In fact, all of Europe seems to be experiencing a third wave due to the appearance of new, highly contagious variants such as the British one.
Even without the spat with AstraZeneca, the region has been extremely slow in distributing and administering coronavirus vaccines. The latest developments are only going to slow things down further, threatening the recovery of the entire European Union.
In other news, China is prepared to crack down on its digital sector with new regulations. This will not only further limit free speech in China, but will also hurt the stock value of some of its biggest tech companies.
