Market Watch (March 1)
“Market participants came into 2024 looking for six or more quarter percentage point interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, but now see only three. They should further revise that all the way down to zero,” based on a note, released Friday, from Torsten Slok, Apollo Global Management’s chief economist.
Tags: 2024, Apollo Global Management, Economist, Fed, Interest rate cuts, Market, Note, Participants, Quarter percentage point, Six, Slok, Three, Zero
Professional Pensions (April 19)
“The response by pension schemes and other investors to the invasion was immediate and, in the days following Russia’s attack, a number of pension schemes announced they would reduce or sell all their holdings as soon as possible.” Exposure to Russia varied by scheme, but was low overall, at around “0.1% for many schemes, holdings that many managers have written down to zero.” All in all, the “market reaction to the crisis was surprisingly muted,” with fairly stable funding levels throughout the crisis.
Tags: Attack, Crisis, Exposure, Funding, Holdings, Immediate, Invasion, Investors, Market, Muted, Pension schemes, Reaction, Reduce, Russia, Sell, Stable, Zero
Financial Times (February 17)
“For a generation of Japanese entering the workforce this year, their entire lives have been spent with three things stuck at zero: inflation, interest rates and the chances of the shunto ‘spring offensive’ of wage demands being anything other than a crushing disappointment.” It remains unclear if 2022 will be the year something changes. “Real wages have risen just 0.39 per cent since 2000 and South Korea now outstrips Japan in average pay.”
Tags: Average pay, Inflation, Interest rates, Japan, Shunto, South Korea, Wage demands, Workforce, Zero
Investment & Pensions Europe (October Issue)
“Interest rates in Japan have hovered around zero for about two decades. Since 2016, they have been negative.” Elsewhere, “the daunting prospects” of this phenomenon are only “starting to enter the collective consciousness of investors.” Other countries are now “watching as benchmark yields breach the zero level and stay there.” They may have much to learn from Japanese investors who “have lived through–and continue to manage investments–in this low rate environment.”
Tags: Benchmark yields, Consciousness, Daunting, Interest rates, Investors, Japan, Negative, Zero
The Guardian (October 17)
“If Brazil’s recent decline could be plotted in the falling popularity of its presidents, Michel Temer represents the bottom of the curve.” Overall, his popularity now sits at 3%, but “among under 24-year-olds, Temer’s approval hit zero.” Brazil’s president “has been charged with corruption, racketeering and obstruction of justice.” He may conceivably “escape impeachment, but the ongoing political crisis undermines democracy and opens the door to authoritarian hardliners.”
Tags: Approval, Brazil, Corruption, Crisis, Democracy, Impeachment, Obstruction of justice, Popularity, Racketeering, Temer, Zero
New York Times (March 9)
“Ebola demonstrated that oceans are no longer an obstacle to a raging virus. As this outbreak winds down, all involved must ensure that the next germ never gets as far as this one did and that, once zero is reached, Ebola stays at zero.”
