World stocks, dollar slide as Fed, BoJ, BoE hold rates

MANILA: US stocks opened lower Thursday as and the dollar fell after three central banks kept monetary policies unchanged and investors turned their attention to

MANILA: US stocks opened lower Thursday as and the dollar fell after three central banks kept monetary policies unchanged and investors turned their attention to next week’s “Brexit” vote on whether Britain should exit the European Union.

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The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.8%, Standard & Poor’s 500 index 0.9% and the Nasdaq a similar 0.9% in early trade. Stocks are on pace for their first six-day slide since last August, when investors worried that China’s economic growth was sputtering.

Japan’s central bank once again foiled speculation it might further ease monetary policy to help the faltering recovery. The Bank of Japan is pumping about 80 trillion yen (about $769 billion) into the economy each year with purchases of Japanese government bonds and other assets.

The US Federal Reserve had on Wednesday kept interest rates unchanged in light of an uncertain job market, offering no hints of when its next rate hike might occur. With the jobs situation and Britain’s status obscuring the outlook, the Fed said it needs a clearer economic picture before resuming rate hikes that it began in December.

The Bank of England also kept its rates on hold as well on Thursday, and said a vote to leave would likely see the pound drop sharply and hurt spending and investment. It also warned that the uncertainty could affect confidence in the global economy.

“The Bank of Japan also put themselves in the ‘wait and see’ camp and subsequently directing a wave of capital into the Japanese yen and out of Japanese equities,” ChrisWeston of IG said in a commentary. All major Asian markets declined on Thursday.