China’s central bank was given more independence to conduct monetary policies in late 2003. It had been operating under Order No. 46 of the President of the People’s Republic of China issued in March 1995, which led the 3rd Session of the Eighth National People’s Congress (China’s de facto legislature) to create and adopt the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the People’s Bank of China. This was amended in...
Read More »Meanwhile, Over In Asia
While Western markets breathed a sigh of relief that US GDP didn’t confirm the global slowdown, not yet, what was taking place over in Asia went in the other direction. There has been a sense, a wish perhaps, that if the global economy truly did hit a rough spot it would be limited to just the last three months of 2018. Hopefully Mario Draghi is on to something. Therefore, Q4 US GDP wasn’t as bad as feared, cushioning...
Read More »MSCI erhöht Chinas Gewicht markant
Bild: Unsplash MSCI wird die Gewichtung der chinesischen A-Aktien in seinen wichtigsten Benchmark-Indizes vervierfachen. Für Greg Kuhnert und Wenchang Ma von Investec ist dies ein Meilenstein. Nick Yeo von Aberdeen Standard Investments sieht auf lange Frist positive Effekte – speziell bei Konsumgütern. Die Gewichtung chinesischer A-Aktien in den MSCI-Indizes werden im Laufe von 2019 in drei...
Read More »FinTech-Welle rollt weiter
Bild: Unsplash Die Hochschule Luzern hat zum vierten Mal eine Bestandsaufnahme des Schweizer FinTech-Marktes vorgenommen. Gemäss der Studie ist der schweizerische FinTech-Sektor erneut stark gewachsen und gewinnt weiter an Bedeutung. Auch dieses Jahr bestätigt sich laut der "IFZ FinTech-Studie 2019" der Hochschule Luzern, dass der FinTech-Sektor in der Schweiz gute Rahmenbedingungen geniesst. Im...
Read More »The Fate of Real Estate
For years, realtors have been waiting for more housing inventory. It had become an article of faith, what was restraining a full-blown recovery was the lack of units available. The level of resales like construction was up, but still way, way less than it was now fourteen years past the prior peak despite sufficient population growth to have absorbed the previous bubble’s overbuilding. All the way back in March 2017,...
Read More »Sinking Shippers Signal Global Goods Troubles
It infects every boardroom across the world. Big business requires decent forecasting, yet time and again it seems they are deprived of what they desperately need. Instead, even after this last decade, the world’s largest companies continue to be surprised by weakness that is far more prevalent than strength. It has been the one constant. Central bankers declare their policies successful, ignoring mountains of...
Read More »Something Different About This One
In Japan, they call it “powerful monetary easing.” In practice, it is anything but. QQE with all its added letters is so authoritative that it is knocked sideways by the smallest of economic and financial breezes. If it truly worked the way it was supposed to, the Bank of Japan or any central bank would only need it for the shortest of timeframes. That would be powerful stuff. Instead, in June last year the narrative...
Read More »Credit Exhaustion Is Global
Europe is awash in credit exhaustion, and so is China. The signs are everywhere: credit exhaustion is global, and that means the global growth story is over: revenues and profits are all sliding as lending dries up and defaults pile up. What is credit exhaustion? Qualified buyers don’t want to borrow more, leaving only the unqualified or speculators seeking to save a marginal bet gone bad with one more loan (which will...
Read More »China’s Big Money Gamble
While oil prices rebounded in January 2019 around the world, outside of crude commodities continued to struggle. According to the World Bank’s Pink Sheet, base metal prices fell another 1.8% on average from December. On an annual basis, these commodities as a group are about 16% below where they were in January 2018. The last time they had fallen by that much it was May 2016. World Bank Pink Sheet Commodity Indices...
Read More »FX Weekly Preview: Drivers, While Marking Time
The main issues for investors have not changed. There are three dominant ones: Trade, growth, and Brexit. Unfortunately, there won’t be any closure in the week ahead, and that may make short-term participants reluctant to turn more aggressive. United States The US reported exceptionally poor December retail sales and January industrial output figures. Growth forecasts were adjusted. The St. Louis Fed’s GDP Now tracker,...
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