England's lockdown is having some impact in reducing pressure on the National Health Service, education minister Gavin Williamson said, the day after Britain recorded another record daily death toll.
By Reuters Staff
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JAKARTA, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Indonesia’s central bank kept key interest rates unchanged at a record low on Thursday, as expected, holding fire after providing a bout of monetary stimulus last year to support the coronavirus-hit economy.
Bank Indonesia (BI) left the 7-day reverse repurchase rate at 3.75%, the lowest since the central bank began using it as its benchmark in 2016. A majority of analysts in a Reuters poll had expected rates to remain steady.
BI also kept its overnight deposit facility and lending facility rates at 3.00% and 4.50%, respectively.
Last year, BI slashed interest rates five times totalling 125 basis points, pumped some $50 billion worth of liquidity into the financial system and relaxed lending rules to help Southeast Asia’s largest economy weather the COVID-19 pandemic. The central bank last cut rates in November. (Reporting by Gayatri Suroyo, Fransiska Nangoy and Tabita Diela; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa)
Euro, stocks show little reaction (Recasts, updates prices, market activity and comments)
AMSTERDAM/LONDON, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Italian and Spanish benchmark bond yields rose on Thursday to their highest since early November, a move analysts attributed largely to the European Central Bank’s saying in its policy decision that it may not use the firepower of its pandemic bond purchases in full.
At its policy meeting, the ECB kept its deposit rate unchanged at -0.5% and maintained the overall quota for bond purchases under the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) at 1.85 trillion euros, as expected.
But in its policy decision, “if favourable financing conditions can be maintained with asset purchase flows that do not exhaust the envelope over the net purchase horizon of the PEPP, the envelope need not be used in full,” the ECB said.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - World stock markets racked up record highs on Thursday and the dollar slipped as investors bet major stimulus from new U.S. President Joe Biden and unswerving global central bank support would cushion the coronavirus’ damage and bolster growth.
FILE PHOTO: A Wall Street sign is pictured outside the New York Stock Exchange in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., October 2, 2020. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
The euro [/FRX] edged up as the European Central Bank’s first policy meeting of the year brought no change to its supportive policies.
Asian stocks reached new highs overnight and all three major Wall Street indexes touched record peaks. MSCI’s global index of stock performance in 50 countries gained 0.2%.