Changing stance

Fed, ECB decisions leave RBI with a tricky choice

There has been a flurry of central bank action across the world in the past few days. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the US Federal Reserve went ahead with an expected policy rate hike in its Wednesday meeting. Across the Atlantic, the European Central Bank (ECB) has stated its intention to end its Quantitative Easing (QE) programme in January, while India’s central bank has announced an enhanced QE of its own from January. The Fed rate hike was the fourth in the calendar year 2018 and the ninth since December 2015. Despite the hike, the US central bank