Word: benchmark
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Despite interest-rate cuts last week in the U.S., Europe and Asia, businesses throughout the world are finding it nearly impossible to borrow and money-market rates remain abnormally high. In Hong Kong, for example, the one-month interbank offered rate, the benchmark for short-term bank lending, rose to 5% last week even as the city cut its policy rate from 3.5% to 2.5%. Banks remain leery of lending in the face of further financial-industry failures...
...cure the constipated credit markets that are stalling the global economy. Under normal circumstances, interest-rate cuts by central banks would promote interbank lending. But Wednesday's coordinated rate cuts in the U.S., Europe and Asia have failed to restore lenders' confidence. The London Interbank Offered Rate, the benchmark for short-term interbank lending rates, actually rose to 4.75% Thursday, its highest level of the year. In Hong Kong, interbank lending rates have doubled in the past month. Banks remain gun-shy about resuming lending, in part because they remain unclear about the scope and details of a proposed...
While Gressly agreed that the current situation in Sudan is unstable—noting the probable delays in the upcoming January 2009 elections—he said the 2011 referendum is a necessary benchmark that cannot be delayed...
...Market-watchers credited the relative market calm to Wednesday's coordinated rate cuts by the U.S. Federal Reserve and five European central banks. China, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan also reduced benchmark lending rates. Ting Lu, an economist with Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong, called local market reaction to the cuts "generally positive, but cautious...
...Japan, which is believed to already be in a recession, did not reduce its benchmark rate because it already stands at just .5%. But the Japanese government announced that $20 billion would be injected into the country's financial system to help free up frozen credit markets...