The Traderszone Network

The euro held firm in early Monday trade after the ECB’s stress tests found smaller capital shortfalls among European banks than expected.

Investors were spared immediate pain on Sunday after the European Central Bank’s landmark banking health check did not force massive capital hikes amongst the euro zone’s top lenders. The ECB said on Sunday the region’s 130 most important lenders were just 25 billion euros ($31.69 billion dollar) short of capital at the end of last year, based on an assessment of how accurately they had valued their assets and whether they could withstand another three years of crisis.

Federal Reserve will call time this week on its program of government bond purchases, which at one point was pumping $85 billion a month into financial markets and the economy. James Bullard, who heads the St. Louis Fed, has suggested that sticking with bond purchases for a few more months would give policymakers time to assess a deteriorating inflation outlook. “We remain optimistic that the recent upshift from 2 percent to 3 percent growth will be sustained,” economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a note.

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America’s net contribution to the growth of the world economy in the first eight months of this year amounted to $480.8 billion.

Learn how to get out of debt. It may not be easy, but it’s definitely doable.

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Submitted by The Dissident Dad via Mike Krieger’s Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

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Brazil’s Rousseff narrowly won re-election on Sunday after convincing voters of her party’s strong record of reducing poverty.