Bernanke Gets 75% Approval From Investors in Global Poll

By Rich Miller
Bloomberg
May. 10, 2012

Global investors give Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke his highest approval rating since 2009 and expect him to take further action this year to accelerate a revival in the U.S. economy and financial markets.

Bernanke, whom Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he wouldn’t reappoint for running too lax a monetary policy, receives a favorable assessment from three of four of those surveyed in the latest Bloomberg Global Poll. Respondents to the survey of investors, analysts and traders who are Bloomberg subscribers also rate U.S. financial markets highly: 46 percent say they will be among the best performers over the next year, double the percentage that select China, in second place.

“There is no other choice than the U.S.,” Kenichi Katsuhara, a poll participant and credit default swap trader with Aozora Bank Ltd. in Tokyo, says in an e-mail. “Companies in the U.S. are chugging along” while consumers could benefit from a “drop in commodity prices.”

More investors expect oil prices to fall over the next six months than to rise, 35 percent to 31 percent, the first time that’s been the case since September. Respondents also are the most bullish on the U.S. dollar since September, when they were first asked about their investment intentions regarding the greenback. Close to two in five say they are adding to their dollar positions, while only about one in 10 are reducing them.

The IntercontinentalExchange Inc.’s Dollar Index, which measures the dollar against six major currencies, rose for an eighth day yesterday, its longest such streak since September, 2008. Oil prices fell in New York for a sixth day, the longest stretch of declines in almost two years.

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