Coordinated easing now more likely: Morgan Stanley (by William L. Watts)
FRANKFURT (MarketWatch) -- A round of coordinated rate cuts and other measures to ease monetary policy by global central banks is growing increasingly likely with the United States and euro-zone governments unlikely to provide a fiscal response to economic weakness, economists at Morgan Stanley said in a research note issued late Wednesday. "The negative feedback loop between weak growth and soggy asset markets makes a coordinated monetary policy easing move more likely -- perhaps as early as the G7 meeting" of finance ministers and central bankers this weekend in Marseille, France, wrote economists Manoj Pradhan and Joachim Fels. "The Fed, the [European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England] could all participate in a coordinated move with a mix of rate cuts and quantitative easing," they wrote.