Bloomberg Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said a healthy US economy has faced some “crosscurrents and conflicting signals” that officials in January decided warranted taking a patient approach to future interest-rate changes. With inflation pressures “muted,” the Federal Open Market Committee in its decision last month to keep interest rates unchanged “determined that the cumulative effects’’ of its actions and …

Bloomberg German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet agreed to extend Jens Weidmann’s term as head of the Bundesbank by another eight years from May as he waits to see if he is picked later this year for the top job at the European Central Bank. The decision, which needs formal approval from President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, was taken at a meeting on …

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan may resort to its least preferred tool to expand stimulus next time the yen jumps: more government bond purchases. That’s according to Takahide Kiuchi, a former BOJ policy board member who said the central bank’s favored option — deepening negative interest rates — would face opposition from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration because it would …