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  • Super Mario authority showed up to one conference this week.

  • So perhaps it's too much to expect in a second.

  • The Nintendo original stole the show at Apple's new product launch.

  • So instead it was playing all Mario Draghi who turned out to brief markets

  • on the European Central Bank's latest monetary policy thinking.

  • There was no sign of the Super Mario who was torn by charge bond markets,

  • with ever more exotic varieties of quantitative easing and negative interest rates.

  • It's not just European investors who hang on every word in Mr. Draghi's press conferences,

  • plenty around the world came away disappointed when the ECB president punted on whether QE

  • will be extended beyond next March or widened, to include a broader range of potential bond purchases.

  • US fixed-income markets are now acutely sensitive, to pronounce mounds agreements from the ECB,

  • and from the Bank of Japan too.

  • Investors are playing in an ever shallower pool of bonds of decent yields,

  • and so they are looking all round the world for income.

  • After Mr. Draghi's non-announcement, that the end of the European trading day the yield on the ten-year treasury,

  • was up by the same amount 5 places points as the yield on the German Bund.

  • Meanwhile, as Japan's government bound yields of reserve of the past couple of months,

  • so the point third of the ten year is only three bases point of negative now.

  • Japanese investors of sold US treasuries had turned to long dated local issues.

  • The government sold a new thirtieth bond this week to surprisingly strong local demand.

  • So the threat of waning international demand has kept US yields out,

  • even as the odds of the September rating increased by the federal reserve have lengthened.

  • US treasury balls rebidding on yields going back lower.

  • Faced couple of hurdles,

  • will the bank of Japan at its meeting later this month exhibit cold feet on negative interest rates, for example.

  • And has Mr. Draghi really only delayed the announcement to more bond buying as the market currently thinks,

  • or might the ECB switch policy, perhaps adding equities

  • Anything that further raises yields in Europe or Japan threatens to do the same in the US.

  • It's not just iPhone users will be happy to see Super Mario back on their screens.

Super Mario authority showed up to one conference this week.

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