Monday, March 2, 2020

Professional Level Messaging: G7 Finance Ministers Plan Call For Tuesday

At the moment the Fed would prefer NOT to actually do anything, keeping policy actions in reserve for later this spring. So if the U.S. doesn't act the presumptive leader would be the EU + the central banks of Germany, France and Italy, but they too have reason to keep their firepower unused until forced.
Japan has gotten to the point they could buy 100 trillion Yen worth of ETFs and at most get a "Oh look honey, Japan is buying equities again"

So the bet would be, we will hear soothing words.
But like everything concerning central banks and finance ministers nobody know.
Maybe Warren Buffet knows:

"He lied like a finance minister on the eve of a devaluation"
-Warren Buffett

From Bloomberg:
The world’s top finance ministers will lead a global teleconference on Tuesday to discuss their response to the economic threat posed by the coronavirus, according to people familiar with the matter.

The call will take place at 1 p.m. Paris time, according to the French finance minister’s agenda. The ministers will be joined by their central bank governors, the people said on condition of anonymity to discuss the plans. As host country for the G7 meeting in April this year, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will play a lead role in the call.

The meeting by representatives of the Group of Seven industrialized nations marks mounting concern that the disease is doing major damage to the global economy as it shuts factories, disrupts supply lines and curtails travel. U.S. stocks surged on the news, with the S&P 500 rising to session highs, up more than 2% on the day. Panic over the outbreak last week pushed the index more than 10% below the record it reached just two weeks ago.

France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Monday that there will be “concerted action” as ministers need to ensure that their responses are as coordinated as possible in order to be effective.
“We emphasize the need for a global whole of government response that spans public health policy, fiscal policy and monetary policy in each jurisdiction,” Krishna Guha, head of central bank strategy at Evercore ISI, said in a note. “The G7 call can help in this regard.”

The OECD said it expects the weakest global growth this year since the 2009 crisis, and that a “long lasting” epidemic would risk a worldwide recession. Factory activity in China, where the outbreak started, fell to the weakest level since at least 2004....MORE
Right now most of the major equity futures are up modestly except Japan which is showing off 90.00 on the Nikkei futs.