A peg in a poke

摘要

The year is only a few weeks old but already there has been turmoil in the foreign-exchange markets. On January 28th Singapore eased monetary policy, allowing its currency to fall to its lowest level against the dollar since 2010. The Swiss have abandoned their policy of capping the franc against the euro and the European Central Bank (ecb) has unveiled a big programme of quantitative easing (QE), sending the euro to an 11-year low against the dollar (see chart). Meanwhile, a rate cut from the Bank of Canada has pushed the loonie down to around 80 American cents, from 94 cents a year ago.