Insight - Missing the ECB over spill

Long reach: In this file photo, two young women are seen walking in Frankfurt as the European Central Bank headquarters is seen in the background. The bank’s policy shifts affect global financial conditions in similar ways to the Federal Reserve. ― AFP

INVESTORS who obsessively monitor every twist and turn of the United States Federal Reserve (Fed) policy as the only key to how world markets play out may risk missing crucial signals from across the Atlantic.

After reading the runes from last week’s central bank gathering in Jackson Hole, stock markets powered back to record highs and borrowing rates ebbed as Jay Powell indicated no rush to wind down pandemic-related emergency bond buying despite what the Fed chief sees as transitory inflation spikes.