Bloomberg (January 21)
“In a week marked by fresh recession angst from Wall Street to Davos, JPMorgan Chase & Co. finds the odds of an economic downturn priced into financial markets have actually fallen sharply from their 2022 highs.” In October, “a contraction was effectively seen as a done deal across markets.” Now, “according to the firm’s trading model, seven of nine asset classes from high-grade bonds to European stocks now show less than a 50% chance of a recession. That’s a big reversal.”
Tags: Angst, Asset classes, Bonds, Contraction, Davos, Economic downturn, Financial markets, JPMorgan Chase, Recession, Stocks, Trading model, Wall Street
Financial Times (January 21)
“In a country where companies have resisted raising pay and the workforce has refrained from aggressive salary demands for most of the past three decades, Fast Retailing’s move is a watershed for the government and the Bank of Japan’s battle to lift the economy out of deflation.” Should the approach gain momentum, “the ramifications could be far-reaching,” potentially leading to “a virtuous cycle of rising wages, consumption and prices” that “would allow Japan to finally move away from the negative interest rates and ultra-loose monetary policies.”
Tags: BOJ, Consumption, Deflation, Demands, Economy, Fast Retailing, Interest rates, Japan, Prices, Raising pay, Rising wages, Salary, Ultra-loose, Virtuous cycle, Watershed, Workforce
Reuters (January 20)
“The end of a long battle to wring some value from Toshiba is finally within reach.” Foreign investors and private equity are unlikely to be encouraged. The process “typifies the tortuous journey required of pushy shareholders to get Japanese executives to allocate capital more shrewdly.”
Tags: Allocate, Battle, Capital, Encouraged, Executives, Foreign investors, Japan, Private equity, Pushy, Shareholders, Tortuous, Toshiba, Value
Washington Post (January 19)
“The nation is in the midst of one of the biggest workforce shifts in generations.” Many prefer working at home or at least “want a ‘hybrid’ situation of working two or three days remotely. Cities must adapt to this new reality or risk a downward spiral of falling commercial property values, lower taxes on those buildings and ghost downtowns that could lead to increased crime and homelessness.”
Tags: Adapt, Buildings, Cities, Commercial property values, Crime, Downward spiral, Home, Homelessness, Hybrid, Lower taxes, Reality, Remotely, Risk, Shifts, Workforce
South China Morning Post (January 17)
“China’s population has declined for the first time in six decades, with the national birth rate for 2022 falling to a record low and the nation’s deepening demographic crisis threatening far-reaching implications for economic growth.” The nation’s “overall population plummeted by 850,000 people – to 1.4118 billion in 2022” while “the national birth rate fell to a record low of 6.77 births for every 1,000 people in 2022… marking the lowest rate since records began in 1949.”
Tags: 1949, 2022, Birth rate, China, Declined, Demographic crisis, Economic growth, Far-reaching, Implications, Population, Record low, Threatening
Bloomberg (January 17)
“Trade between the US and China is on track to break records, a signal of resilient links between the world’s top economies amid the heated national security rhetoric in Washington and fears of ‘decoupling.’” Data for the first 11 months of implies “imports and exports in 2022 will add up to an all-time high, or at least come very close, when the final report comes out Feb. 7.”
Tags: 2022, China, Decoupling, Exports, Fears, Heated, Imports, National security, Resilient, Rhetoric, Top economies, Trade, U.S.
New York Times (January 16)
“Intent on reversing America’s decline in the world’s production of cutting-edge semiconductors, the federal government has begun what is arguably the government’s largest foray into the private sector since World War II.” This “more muscular approach to industrial policy” is “pockmarked with risks. On balance, the record of government trying to improve the functioning of the private sector is poor, and particularly in complex sectors like semiconductors, the challenges are great.”
Tags: Complex, Cutting edge, Decline, Government, Industrial policy, Intent, Private-sector, Production, Reversing, Risks, Semiconductors, U.S., WWII
Wall Street Journal (January 15)
“Despite signs that inflation has started to recede, economists still expect higher interest rates to push the U.S. economy into a recession in the coming year…. On average, business and academic economists polled by the Journal put the probability of a recession in the next 12 months at 61%, little changed from 63% in October’s survey.”
Tags: Academic, Business, Economists, Economy, Inflation, Interest rates, Recede, Recession, Survey, U.S.
Investments & Pensions Europe (January Issue)
“Biodiversity is fast catching up with climate change as a priority for investors and supervisors, and developments last year have set the stage for a productive 2023…. Barely a topic of conversation in financial markets two years ago,” biodiversity now “has an investment ecosystem all of its own, which is being built on the back of a decade of lessons learnt in the climate finance space. From global agreements, supervisory interventions and standardised reporting guidelines through to data, investment products and a collaborative engagement initiative, the pieces are quickly falling into place to ensure the private sector knows what it’s meant to do to manage nature-related risks in 2023 and beyond.”
Tags: 2023, Biodiversity, Climate change, Collaborative engagement, Financial markets, Investment ecosystem, Investors, Nature-related risks, Priority, Private-sector, Reporting guidelines
Financial Times (January 14)
“Since the Bank of Japan stunned markets by widening the band of its yield curve control (YCC) policy on December 20, markets feel things are now moving tectonically for one of the developed world’s most unorthodox financial regimes.” At long last, the ‘widow-maker’ trade “is making money. On Friday and for the first time in almost a decade, yields on the benchmark 10-year JGB rose to 0.53 per cent and, critically, outside the BoJ’s target band in defiance of its ever more desperate efforts to fight the market.”
Tags: 10-year, Benchmark, BOJ, Control, Defiance, Desperate, Financial regimes, JGB, Markets, Target band, Widow-maker trade, Yield curve, Yields
