Central banks prove adept at listening to stock market voices

THE United States Federal Reserve has made a sharp turnaround over the stance of monetary policy normalisation towards a more dovish approach that considers global economic and financial conditions, as well as muted domestic inflation.

It was done by signalling status quo on policy interest rates for the time being as well as a willingness to stop the balance sheet runoff earlier than initially envisaged.

Markets immediately welcomed the moves with higher stock prices and a weaker US dollar in view of the Federal Reserve giving up automatic plots on both interest rate hikes and the balance sheet cut.