President Barak Obama is ready to appoint Janet Yellen as the new chair of the US Federal Reserve in the New Year.
Yellen is the favourite to succeed incumbent Ben Bernanke and as his current deputy and is widely tipped to move into his seat by media, economists and politicians.
Considered as less-hawkish and more in tune with PR and the markets than Bernanke, she used her platform giving testimony to a Congress committee that she intends to keep her options open about financial easing.
Markets slumped worldwide a couple of months back when Bernanke made a throwaway remark about tapering off financial aid to the economy through quantitative easing.
Yellen told Congress that she felt inflation was under control and saw no need to up interest rates or end QE, but that the economy still needed a financial crutch to promote growth.
Her comments were just what the markets wanted to hear and a sigh of relief reverberated around the financial world as a result.
Economic pulse
Meanwhile, statistics departments on both sides of the Atlantic have poured a flow of economic data during the past few days testing the pulse of economic growth.
Inflation in the US is on target at 1.2% for September and is expected to hover around the 1% mark by the Fed for some months.
In Europe, the single currency zone reported a drop to 0.7% inflation in October, triggering an interest rate cut to a record 0.25% low.
However, the European Central Bank thinks along similar lines to the Bank of England and both sit happy with a rate of 2%.
Nevertheless, although inflation is low, the Eurozone economy is stagnant and uninspiring as countries come to grips with the consequences of bail-outs and austerity budgets.
In a two-speed Europe, the money men in government still do not seem to have discovered the formula to match inflation and interest rates with growth.
No feel-good factor
Inflation in the UK floated down to 2.2% for October, with the Bank of England proclaiming the recovery has really started. Other barometers, like jobless numbers dropping to 7.6% as 48,000 unemployed found work, leaving 2.47 million between July and September on the list – the lowest for three years.
The problem for mid-term governments like the coalition in the UK is however much they talk up the economy, people just do not feel good about what seems to be a rising cost of living.
In Europe, non-eurozone inflation runs at 0.9%, a fall from 1.3% in September and a fraction of the 2.6% rate of 12 months ago.
