The Guardian (May 10)
“Tensions between Shanghai residents and China’s Covid enforcers are on the rise again, amid a new push to end infections outside quarantine zones to meet President Xi Jinping’s demand for achieving “dynamic zero-Covid.” To express their displeasure with what are increasingly being viewed as violations of human rights and the rule of law, residents are sharing incriminating videos on social media. “Censors have been taking down many of these videos, but determined residents have continued to post them.”
Tags: China, Covid, Displeasure, Enforcers, Human rights, Infections, Quarantine, Residents, Rule of law, Shanghai, Social media, Tensions, Videos, Violations, Xi
Investment Week (May 9)
“BP’s latest plan to buy back $2.5bn of stock this quarter has pushed forecasts for FTSE 100 firm buybacks to be on track for a record high in 2022. FTSE 100 firms are now planning £37bn of share buybacks this year, compared to the prior record of £34.9bn in 2018.”
CNN (May 9)
“After 14 straight months of year-over-year home price growth reaching into the double digits, we’re finally starting to see the early signs of a cooling housing market.” This doesn’t portend an imminent crash. “In fact, prices may not even fall. Rather, this will be a much-needed rebalancing from the unhealthy market conditions we see today.”
Tags: Cooling, Crash, Double digits, Early signs, Homes, Housing market, Price growth, Rebalancing, Unhealthy
Financial Times (May 9)
To increase market access and streamline operations, “many of the world’s largest financial exchanges are transforming the way they run global capital markets” by adopting cloud computing technologies. CME Group “will move its IT infrastructure and markets to the cloud” through a partnership with Google while “Nasdaq and Amazon Web Services announced a similar collaboration” to transfer Nasdaq’s “North America-based markets to a cloud computing environment.” As the transition progresses, AI and quantum computing look poised to play more integral roles.
Tags: AI, AWS, Capital markets, Cloud computing, CME Group, Collaboration, Financial exchanges, Global, Google, IT infrastructure, Market access, Markets, Nasdaq, Operations, Streamline, Transforming
Washington Post (May 8)
“Why are Americans so gloomy about the economy? Jobs are plentiful and unemployment is back at pre-pandemic lows, yet sentiment is in the dumps.” Inflation is “the obvious answer,” but “a deeper force” better explains “why Americans are so upset: scarcity.” Inventories of homes and cars are at record lows while stockouts at supermarkets are double or triple standard levels. “There is good economic news, but until Americans can easily get ahold of what they want, too many will still feel like they’re not able to get ahead.”
Tags: Cars, Economy, Gloomy, Homes, Inflation, Inventories, Jobs, Obvious, Plentiful, Pre-pandemic, Scarcity, Sentiment, Stockouts, U.S., Unemployment
Reuters (May 6)
As criticism mounts, both domestically and overseas, the Chinese Communist Party has come out forcefully to “fight any comment or action that distorted, doubted or repudiated its COVID policy.” It stresses that “relaxing COVID controls… would lead to large-scale infections.” The People’s Daily newspaper even used an editorial to dispute “accusations China’s COVID policy was disrupting global economy and trade.”
Tags: Accusations, CCP, Controls, COVID policy, Criticism, Disrupting, Distorted, Economy, Fight, Global, Infections, People's Daily, Repudiated, Trade
Financial Times (May 6)
“The yen may very well experience further depreciation pressure over the coming weeks… we are in a complex and volatile period for global markets.” Beyond that, however, “there are a number of paths to recovery for the yen…. Investors can anticipate a rebound in the yen over time and should consider owning this haven asset as a hedge against global recession and other tail risks.”
Tags: Anticipate, Asset, Complex, Depreciation, Global markets, Haven, Hedge, Investors, Pressure, Rebound, Recession, Recovery, Volatile, Yen
Wall Street Journal (May 5)
“With China now an economic and military powerhouse, Taiwan’s lack of preparedness is increasingly dangerous. Taiwan’s economy is two-thirds larger than Israel’s, but Taiwan spends almost two-thirds less as a percentage of gross domestic product on defense.” Especially in light of Ukraine’s invasion, this has to change and just an extra percent of military spending could prove decisive. “Through the force-multiplying miracle of modern weapons, we can help make Taiwan a porcupine and deter aggression that could have profoundly negative consequences for Taiwan, China and the world.”
Tags: Aggression, China, Dangerous, Economic, GDP, Invasion, Israel, Military spending, Porcupine, Powerhouse, Preparedness, Taiwan, Ukraine, Weapons
Bloomberg (May 5)
“The collective sigh of relief in markets after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell pushed back against super-sized hike speculation may be short lived.” The strategists “who fear inflation” suspect this is a “false dawn.”
Tags: Collective, Fed, Hike, Inflation, Markets, Powell, Relief, Short lived, Speculation, Strategists, Suspect
The Diplomat (May 2)
“Two and half years on and Japan remains an outlier among industrialized G-7 nations, which have re-opened for tourists and eliminated quarantines.” The border restrictions “prevent Japan from benefiting from the weak yen,” which would “encourage inbound tourism and play a considerable role stabilizing the currency and creating jobs.” Nevertheless, “public opinion and the pernicious idea that COVID-19 is brought in by foreigners” seem to be driving debate, with international tourism “unlikely to be given the green light until the second half of the year following the result of the upper house election.”
Tags: Border restrictions, COVID-19, Currency, Election, Foreigners, G-7, Inbound tourism, Industrialized, Japan, Jobs, Outlier, Public opinion, Quarantines, Re-opened, Stabilizing, Tourists, Upper house, Weak yen
