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Wednesday, 22 June 2016

Yellen not quite so optimistic on US economic outlook, ECB says Brexit impact unpredictable

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen changed her tune ever so slightly yesterday during her two-day testimony to Senate and House lawmakers. Yellen said she was watching for whether, not when, the U.S. economy would show signs of improvement, Bloomberg reports. Yellen told a Senate Committee that she saw “considerable uncertainty” about the US economic outlook, the FT (paywall) writes. “Proceeding cautiously in raising the federal funds rate will allow us to keep the monetary support to economic growth in place while we assess whether growth is returning to a moderate pace, whether the labour market will strengthen further, and whether inflation will continue to make progress toward our 2 percent objective,” she told the Senate Banking Committee.

Yellen also cautioned against “exaggerating” the impact of Brexit and being “overly alarmist about the probable global fallout,” as the European Central Bank said Tuesday that it was preparing for “all possible contingencies.” “It’s very difficult to foresee the various dimensions how [Brexit] will impact on the markets and the economies of the eurozone,” ECB chief Mario Draghi said. The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, writes that no matter the outcome of the 23 June referendum, Europe will “never be the same” seeing as “at a minimum [it] has delivered a shock to Europe’s political classes.”

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