Tag Archives: $CNY

Top Chinese leadership is taking further shape. With Xi Jinping’s continuing consolidation of power going on right this minute, most of the changes aren’t really changes, at least not internally. To the West, and to the mainstream, what the Chinese are doing seems odd, if not more than a little off. Unlike in the West, however, there is determined purpose that is in many ways right out in the open. Many here had been...

The Chinese government reported estimates for Industrial Production, Retail Sales, and Fixed Asset Investment (FAI) for both January and February 2018. The National Bureau of Statistics prepares and calculates China’s major economic statistics in this manner at the beginning of each year due to the difficulties created by calendar effects (New Year Golden Week). Despite this attempt to offset them, there remains...

China’s General Administration of Customs reported that Chinese exports to all other countries were in February 2018 an incredible 44.5% more than they were in February 2017. Such a massive growth rate coming now has served to intensify the economic boom narrative. A strengthening U.S. recovery is helping underpin China’s outlook as Asia’s biggest economy seeks to cut excess capacity and transition to reliance on...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.21% to 1.1688 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, March 07(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates In response to the resignation of one of the few “globalist” advisers in the US Administration, the resignation Cohn has sent ripples through the capital markets. Stocks have been marked down across the world. The prospects of a trade war...

The conventional interpretation of “reflation” in the second half of 2016 was that it was simply the opening act, the first step in the long-awaiting global recovery. That is what reflation technically means as distinct from recovery; something falls off, and to get back on track first there has to be acceleration to make up that lost difference. There was, to me anyway, a lot of Japan in it, even still if “globally...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.11% to 1.1505 CHF. EUR/CHf and USD/CHF, February 12(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The most important development today has been the stability in the equity markets after last week’s meltdown. The recovery from new lows in the US before the weekend set the tone for today’s moves. Tokyo markets were on holiday, and the...

Too much of a good thing is bad. That, in a nutshell, is an important insight that Hyman Minsky offered about the financial sector, but has broader application. The low volatility that has been a characteristic of the capital markets for the past few years spurred financial innovation to profit from it. A broad range of financial instruments constructed to profit from continued low volatility, such as exchange-traded...

In February 2013, the Chinese Golden Week fell late in the calendar. The year before, 2012, New Year was January 23rd, meaning that the entire Spring festival holiday was taken with the month of January. The following year, China’s New Year was placed on February 10, with the Golden Week taking up the entire middle month of February. For economic statistics, that meant extreme difficulty translating year-over-year...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.38% to 1.1502 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, February 09(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The 100-point slide in the S&P 500 and the 1000-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrials yesterday spurred more bloodletting in Asia. The 1.8% drop in the MSCI Asia Pacific Index (for a 6.7% loss for the week) may conceal the magnitude...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.43% to 1.152 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, February 08(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The swings in the equity markets are subsiding, bond yields are firm and the US dollar is extending its recovery. Although US equities closed lower, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index snapped a four-day drop by posting a 0.25% gain. However, the...