Aside from bringing the world to a standstill, the 2020 pandemic brought on the largest fiscal stimulus program ever seen. Two of the largest central banks in the world — the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank (ECB) — saw their balance sheets double in less than a year. The Federal Reserve increased…
The Bitcoin inflation rate fell from 50% in 2011 to 4% in 2020 prior to the halving and now stands at 1.7%, a figure way below the U.S. Federal Reserve’s monetary inflation rate target of 2%. While the rate demonstrates Bitcoin’s rapid and mainstream adoption, the digital currency’s fundamentals have remained unaffected by 2022’s negative…
Nothing shines a light on the importance of energy as much as a fast-approaching winter. When the temperature drops, the scarcity of energy becomes obvious and global efforts to preserve it begin. This year, the fight for energy is more aggressive than it’s ever been. The fiscal and monetary policies set in place during the…
When markets turn red and inflation starts soaring, both regulators and consumers turn to CPI as a gauge for the damage done by soaring prices but in the chaos that ensues as markets enter into a recession, one metric always seems to be overlooked — the M2 money supply. The M2 is a measure of…
Surging inflation and weak growth have been plaguing the global economy for months, but the rising CPI and a devaluating national currency first seen in the U.S. have now spread to Europe as well. The European Central Bank (ECB) hiked its base interest rate by 75 bps for the second consecutive time, bringing its deposit…
Bitcoin’s reputation as a safe haven asset has long been disputed by the world of traditional finance. Its lack of centralized control, extreme price volatility, and novelty made it hard to categorize as inflation-proof or recession-proof. However, in the past year we’ve seen that in times of uncertainty, investors keep choosing Bitcoin over fiat. Inflation…
Quantitative easing (QE) has become synonymous with the COVID-19 pandemic as the blowout from the lockdowns stalled the growth of the global economy and threatened to turn into a financial crisis. To artificially create economic growth, central banks began buying up government bonds and other securities, while governments began expanding the money supply by printing…
Despite their best efforts, European countries’ governments have so far been unable to curb inflation this year. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was the spark that finally triggered the crisis that loomed since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In June, EU member states released their consumer price index (CPI), showing that prices have…
Inflation has become one of the most pressing global economic issues today. Rising prices have drastically reduced both the overall wealth and the purchasing power of a huge chunk of the developed world. And while inflation certainly is one of the biggest drivers of economic crisis, a bigger danger looms around the corner — stagflation….
The macroeconomic picture is deteriorating fast and could push the U.S. economy into recession as the Federal Reserve tightens its monetary policy to tame surging inflation, Bank of America strategists warned in a weekly research note, Reuters reports. Bank of America chief investment strategist Michael Hartnett wrote, in a note to clients, that “Inflation shock”…