All three of the major central banks met last week and confirmed that monetary policy would continue to diverge for at least another year. The clarity of the trajectory of monetary policy reduces the impact of high-frequency economic data. There are three major disruptive forces the make for a challenging investment climate just the same: the US policy mix, trade tensions, and immigration. The mix of tighter monetary policy and looser fiscal policy is associated with currency appreciation. That mix in the US in extremis. Monetary policy may be accommodative, as the Fed says, but the central bank clearly signaled its ... (full story)