If the ultimate goal of lower interest rates is to spark economic activity through demand for loans, then the Federal Reserve’s first cut in more than a decade can be deemed a failure. After the central bank lowered its target rate for overnight loans between banks on July 31 to a range of 2% to 2.25%, demand for credit among ...

A type of financial engineering that proved to be toxic during the financial crisis is slowly making a comeback as banks try to offset the risk of their borrowers not repaying their loans. Capital relief trades, or synthetic deals, are making a comeback – and Europe is about to refine the rules of the game. Getting those right will be ...

The longer Hong Kong protests drag on, the less likely China will be to unleash the trillion-dollar stimulus markets seem to want. Beijing has become painfully aware that its easy-money policies of the past inflated asset bubbles and widened the wealth gap. Any repeat endeavours could risk stoking social unrest on the mainland. Over the past decade, China flooded its ...