Macro Briefing: 17 April 2024

* Fed Chair Powell says there’s been a ‘lack of further progress’ on inflation
* US expected to grow at double the rate of G7 peers in 2024, predicts IMF
* Free-market policies are fading around the world, and that worries economists
* US industrial output increased for second month in March
* US housing starts in March fall to slowest pace in seven months:

US 10-year Treasury yield rises to highest level since Nov. 6 after Fed Chairman Powell says inflation progress has stalled and so the outlook for rate cuts has faded. “Given the strength of the labor market and progress on inflation so far, it’s appropriate to allow restrictive policy further time to work and let the data and the evolving outlook guide us,” he told an audience at a conference on Tuesday, Apr. 16.