Bloomberg (August 1)
“After earnings carnage at global auto rivals,” Toyota is in the “spotlight.” From Detroit to Seoul, Toyota’s global rivals “fell short of estimates and warned of more pain from the trade war.” In contrast, “the world’s most valuable automaker will likely report modest sales and earnings growth for the most recent quarter.” But going forward the automaker still “faces a fight on every front. Potential U.S. tariffs threaten to cripple demand in its biggest market, rivals continue to pull ahead in China, and at home, the top-selling Prius is suffering a slump in popularity.”
Tags: Auto rivals, Carnage, China, Detroit, Earnings, Estimates, Growth, Prius, Sales, Seoul, Tariffs, Toyota, Trade war, U.S.
Bloomberg (July 20)
“What’s next for commodities after a recent price collapse? It looks like more bad news, if the chart watchers are right. The Bloomberg Commodity Index has tumbled about 10 percent from a high in May amid mounting concerns that a trade war could derail global growth, curbing demand for everything from aluminum to soybeans.”
Tags: Aluminum, Chart watchers, Commodities, Demand, Growth, Price collapse, Soybeans, Trade war, Tumbled
Bloomberg (July 15)
“As the world’s largest exporter, China continues to benefit from robust global demand, but the increase in tensions and trade barriers with the U.S. is weighing on the outlook…. President Xi Jinping may ultimately have to choose between softening his multi-year campaign to control debt levels, or letting growth dip below the target of 6.5 percent.”
Tags: China, Debt levels, Exporter, Global demand, Growth, Outlook, Target, Tensions, Trade barriers, U.S., Xi
New York Times (June 20)
“The United States should stop the scattershot, pointless nonsense on tariffs and go the other way, and hard: It should drop all tariffs, even if the rest of the world doesn’t follow.” Economists have long “understood that free trade is the best policy. Studies show that countries with freer trade have both higher per-capita incomes and faster rates of productivity growth. Economists have also long understood that barriers to trade, while pitched as a way to help domestic workers, always heavily penalize domestic consumers.”
Tags: Barriers, Consumers, Economists, Free trade, Growth, Nonsense, Per-capita income, Productivity, Scattershot, Tariffs, United States, Workers
CNBC (May 29)
“Political uncertainty in Italy has unhinged world markets, raising the specter of a euro crisis that could ripple across the global economy and even force the Federal Reserve to slow its rate-hiking plans.” While odds appear low that Italy will opt out of the single currency bloc, “internal chaos and a new election could make for a rocky summer for markets and even put a dent in European economic growth.”
Tags: Chaos, Currency, Economy, Election, Euro crisis, Fed, Growth, Italy, Markets, Political uncertainty, Rate hike, Unhinged
Bloomberg (April 3)
“Japan Inc. is on track to overtake China in overseas dealmaking for the first time in six years.” According to Bloomberg data, “Japanese companies have announced $26.9 billion of overseas acquisitions this year, compared with $16.5 billion by Chinese buyers.” The reversal is fueled by “a hunt for growth at Japanese firms…at a time when China’s most prolific acquirers have been hobbled by regulatory probes and new outbound investment rules.”
Tags: Acquirers, Acquisitions, China, Dealmaking, Growth, Japan Inc., Outbound investment, Overseas, Regulatory probes, Reversal
New York Times (February 6)
Investors believe “policies to stoke growth are going to work so well that they will overheat the economy, and force the Federal Reserve to try to slow things down by raising interest rates faster than expected. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. Don’t forget what set off the plunge on Friday: better-than-expected job growth numbers.”
Tags: Economy, Fed, Growth, Interest rates, Investors, Job growth, Overheat
The Economist (January 13)
“To many, India feels like the heir apparent. Its population will soon overtake its Asian rival’s. It occasionally grows at the kind of pace that propelled China to the status of economic superpower.” But there is one big snag in many marketers’ dreams: India’s middle class “scarcely exists.” Only 8 million Indian adults make $20,000 annually and “the chances of India developing a middle class to match the Middle Kingdom’s are being throttled by growing inequality.”
Tags: China, Economic superpower, Growth, India, Inequality, Middle class, Population
LA Times (January 11)
California must “break the terrifying pattern of fire and flood….Water and fire can be a lethal combination,” but there is a way forward. “Taxing ourselves to create more open space in the foothills will not stop fires from erupting or rain from falling. It will give city and county planners a powerful tool by which to restrain growth, offer burned-out homeowners a safer option than rebuilding in fire zones, and give those living downhill in the path of the slides some much-needed breathing room.”
Tags: California, Fire, Fire zones, Flood, Foothills, Growth, Lethal, Open space, Rebuilding, Taxes
Institutional Investor (September 11)
“China’s mobile economy may well power the nation’s growth for decades to come, becoming an engine that will more than make up for the slowdown of the country’s traditional growth engines, such as manufacturing and exports.” That is the main thesis of a recently published book by Winston Wenyan Ma, a managing director at China Investment Corp., the country’s sovereign wealth fund with more than $800 billion in assets.
Tags: China, China Investment Corp., Exports, Growth, Growth engines, M&A, Manufacturing, Mobile economy, Slowdown
