Central banks take it easy to give global growth second look

Bloomberg

Central banks from Frankfurt to Ottawa appear to be taking a lower gear on the road away from easy monetary policy amid signs some key economies are slowing.
The European Central Bank avoided any discussion of its next steps toward ending bond buying and Sweden’s Riksbank pushed back a plan to raise interest rates for the first time in seven years. Just days earlier, the Bank of Canada governor said more work is needed to heal the scars of the crisis.
The Bank of Japan left its monetary stimulus program unchanged, as expected, but removed previous wording on reaching its 2 percent inflation around fiscal 2019, underscoring just how much more time will be needed to reach its 2 percent target. Its overall inflation forecasts were largely unchanged. Meanwhile in Russia, the central bank halted monetary easing after the latest round of US sanctions jolted the ruble and raised risks for inflation.
While US Fed Reserve has set the example in moving on from a decade of rock-bottom interest rates and quantitative easing, the preference elsewhere to be unhurried has been strengthened by weakening global growth prospects and threats of protectionism. Central banks fought hard to restore inflation since the financial crisis, but there’s little hard evidence as yet that the battle is won.
“The recent data create uncertainty and that, together with weak inflationary pressures, points to a very slow exit,” said Nick Kounis, an economist at ABN Amro Bank NV in Amsterdam.
“For the ECB, which which was already having doubts even against the background of a strong economy, this is a reason to go slow.”