This was going to be the year when the other big central banks joined the Fed in "normalizing" interest rates and reversing the past decade's QE experiment. Instead, the other central banks blinked and went back to aggressive ease, and the Fed is following them. This is a very big deal.
Let's consider some before-and-after stories:
In September 2018, the European Central Bank began tightening:
European Central Bank to take next step in tapering stimulus
((AP)) - The European Central Bank is expected to ratchet back its stimulus efforts again on Thursday as it