US equity markets continue to slide. NAB’s Rodrigo wonders whether it is uncertainty over the Fed’s ability to stimulate the economy. Jerome Powell has a chance to do a sell-job when he faces two days of grilling by the US Senate and Congress this week.

Markets chose to take a negative view on the extended period of near zero interest rates signalled by the Fed, says NAB’s Gavin Friend. It’s a reminder that it’s the virus that determines the extent of the recovery, everywhere.

Even now, central banks cling to the idea of NAIRU – a point at which unemployment gets so low inflation kicks off. But, with the US fed now expecting interest rates to remain close to zero for three years at least, Phil Dobbie asks Prof Steve Keen whether they have they abandoned the idea of NAIRU?

The Fed is going nowhere till 2023, “and arguably much longer than that” says NAB’s Rodrigo Catril. So what are the implications of three years of near zero interest rates?

Positive numbers from China helped boost markets but NAB’s Gavin Friend says we should still expect dovish forecasts from the FOMC tomorrow morning.

Yet more vaccine hopes, more TikTok jiggery pokery, more Brexit uncertainty and possibly more easing from the RBA. Rodrigo Catril talks us through it all on today’s Morning Call podcast.