Direction In Pursuit Of The Fed's

The Weekly Bottom Line : 07/01/2012 HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK United States Data released this week showed the U.S. economy gained some traction towards the end of last year. December's non-farm payrolls surpassed market expectations with a net addition of 200K jobs. This drove the unemployment rate down to 8.5%. However, we should keep our expectations on a short leash. Risks to the outlook remain tilted to the downside, dominated be a grim European outlook and its potential ripple effects on this side of the Atlantic. Canada The Canadian economy added 18,000 net new jobs in December, following two months of job losses. Despite December's gain, employment in Canada has been declining on a trend basis, with only 7,000 jobs created during the last six months, compared ...

(Reuters) - The U.S. economy is heading in the right direction and will pick up steam over the next two years, but high unemployment and low inflation still paint an unsatisfactory picture, New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley said on Monday. "The economy is healthier, but it is not yet well," Dudley said in remarks prepared for a press briefing. "In order to reduce joblessness significantly over the coming quarters, the economy needs to grow at a considerably faster rate than we have seen so far in this recovery." Dudley said persistently low inflation probably hit a trough in the second half of last year but said it would take time for the jobless rate, currently at 9 percent, to fall. He also said it could take up to a year to see a "meaningful recovery" in the housing ...

(Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke hit back on Friday at critics of the U.S. central bank's bond-buying program and issued a thinly veiled attack on China's policy of keeping its currency on a leash. Bernanke, facing a chorus of protests about the asset-buying spree from within and outside the central bank, said a more vigorous U.S. economy was essential to fuel the global recovery and dismissed charges he was debasing the dollar. "The best way to continue to deliver the strong economic fundamentals that underpin the value of the dollar, as well as to support the global recovery, is through policies that lead to a resumption of robust growth in a context of price stability in the United States," Bernanke said in a speech to a conference at the European Central Bank in ...