Ewald Nowotny. (Bloomberg)European Central Bank Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said policymakers must take deflation risks seriously and shouldn’t wait too long to react. While the euro area isn’t in a situation where price declines lead to postponed spending, “it is important that one takes deflation risks seriously and addresses them,” Nowotny, who is also governor of the Austrian central bank, said during a panel discussion late Monday in Vienna. “We shouldn’t wait too long with a rea

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams, who will vote on policy this year, said raising interest rates in June would be a close call amid “strong momentum” in the labor market and weaker wage gains. “I would expect by June that the argument pro and con for lifting off rates will be probably a close call” assuming that inflation doesn’t fall further, Williams said Monday in a telephone interview from his San Francisco office. “It’s a reasonable guess.” His remarks dovetaile

Bill Gross said he was fired from Pacific Investment Management Co., the first time he’s publicly confirmed that he was dismissed from the firm he cofounded in 1971. Gross, speaking in an interview with Bloomberg View’s Barry Ritholtz, said he offered to step down from the executive committee and compensation committee and oversee closed-end funds after differences with management over his personality and the firm’s business direction. The full interview airs on Bloomberg Radio on Jan. 17 at 10

RIYADH (AFP) ― Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro held talks in OPEC’s leading oil producer Saudi Arabia on Sunday, officials said, before he headed to Algeria for further dialogue about low world crude prices.“The visit aims to strengthen ties and friendship,” a Venezuelan official told AFP in brief remarks, adding that it was “part of the tour to OPEC members.”Maduro arrived in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Saturday from Iran, a fellow member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Count

Goldman Sachs said U.S. oil prices need to trade near $40 a barrel in the first half of this year to curb shale investments as it gave up on OPEC cutting output to balance the market. The bank cut its forecasts for global benchmark crude prices, predicting inventories will increase over the first half of this year, according to an emailed report. Excess storage and tanker capacity suggests the market can run a surplus far longer than it has in the past, said Goldman analysts including Jeffrey Cu

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) ― Cyprus’ national airline lost its operating license and stopped all flights after the European Union ruled that it had illegally received tens of millions of euros in state aid, officials said Friday.Finance Minister Harris Georgiades and Communications Minister Marios Demetriades said that an administrator will now be tasked with winding down Cyprus Airways. The country’s air transport licensing authority said it revoked the airline’s license because it could not ensure f

TEHRAN (AFP) ― Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, flanked by Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro, vowed Saturday to “neutralize” the threat posed to both countries by plummeting oil prices, in a barely veiled broadside at Saudi Arabia.OPEC members Iran and Venezuela are reeling from a slide in the cost of crude to around $50 per barrel from $100 just six months ago, a precipitous fall that is straining their budgets.Losses accelerated after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries carte

Central bank weighs bond purchases up to $591b to juice economy

The U.S. is back in the driver’s seat of the global economy after 15 years of watching China and emerging markets take the lead. The world’s biggest economy will expand by 3.2 percent or more this year, its best performance since at least 2005, as an improving job market leads to stepped-up consumer spending, according to economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Deutsche Bank AG and BNP Paribas SA. That outcome would be about what each foresees for the world economy as a whole and would be the first

LAS VEGAS (AFP) ― It has four wheels, is always connected and the driver is optional: The car of the future is starting to take shape from collaboration between automakers and their technology partners.At this week’s International CES in Las Vegas, a new breed of cars with nearly complete autonomy and elaborate gadgetry has provided a peek into transportation solutions in the coming years.One of the most ambitious of the prototypes on display comes from German auto giant Daimler, which rolled it

SINGAPORE (AFP) ― The plunge in crude prices will give a much-needed boost to Asia’s oil-guzzling economies and provides governments a “golden opportunity” to implement crucial structural reforms such as cutting expensive energy subsidies, analysts say.A slowdown in the key export markets of Europe, China and Japan, the end of U.S. stimulus measures, and an expected U.S. rate hike ― fuelling a flight of foreign cash in search of better returns ― has left some governments having to make tough dec

Plunging oil causes consumer prices to fall for first time since 2009, as ECB eyes stimulus