Reuters (November 18)
“Renowned China hawks” like Robert Lighthizer, Mike Walz and Marco Rubio “are not the names Beijing wants popping up in President-elect Donald Trump’s early cabinet appointments. Markets agree, as the yuan has fallen about 2% against the dollar since Trump’s victory at the polls.” If Trump “follows through on threats to raise American tariffs on imports from China to as much as 60%” there will be more “downward pressure.”
Tags: Appointments, Cabinet, China, Dollar, Hawks, Imports, Lighthizer, Markets, Rubio, Tariffs, Threats, Trump, Walz, Yuan
The Economist (November 6)
“The return of Trumponomics excites markets but frightens the world. It may bring stronger growth, higher inflation and a global trade war.”
Tags: Excites, Frightens, Global trade war, Growth, Inflation, Markets, Return, Trumponomics, World
FX Empire (October 26)
The IMF’s latest forecast counteracted any hope attached to China’s stimulus policy. “Markets reacted positively” when the People’s Bank of China “cut 1-year and 5-year loan prime rates (LPR) by 25 basis points” since “lower borrowing costs could drive credit demand and consumption.” In contrast, “the IMF’s latest growth projections… called for caution,” with 2024 growth forecast for China lowered from 5.0% to 4.8%.” Moreover, the IMF pointed out that “Beijing’s maneuvers may not be enough to support an economic recovery.”
Tags: 25 bp, Borrowing costs, Caution, China, Consumption, Credit demand, Economic recovery, Forecast, Growth projections, IMF, Markets, PBOC, Rates, Reacted, Stimulus
New York Times (October 3)
“Markets are on edge about the risk of another oil shock. The price of crude has been relatively stable over the past year, apart from brief spikes.” Now, however, concern is focused on the potential “economic cost of a new war in the Middle East.” Estimates of the potential cost are wide-ranging and speculative, but “an escalation of fighting between Israel and Iran could cause oil prices to spike and send a chill through the global economy.”
Tags: Chill, Crude, Economic cost, Escalation, Fighting, Iran, Israel, Markets, Middle East, Oil prices, Oil shock, Risk, Speculative, Spikes, Stable, War
Fortune (September 30)
Hedge fund veteran Mark Spitznagel “previously said markets would rally as the Fed eases in a Goldilocks phase, but has also warned a recession is coming and that rate cuts are also the opening signal for big reversals down the line. In the current environment, that means in the biggest market bubble in history will soon pop, eventually prompting the Fed to ‘do something heroic’ but doom the economy to stagflation.”
Tags: Bubble, Doom, Economy, Fed, Goldilocks phase, Hedge-fund, Markets, Rally, Rate cuts, Recession, Reversals, Spitznagel, Veteran
Financial Times (September 27)
China’s biggest stimulus package since the pandemic has “supercharged markets, putting Chinese stocks on track for their best week since 2008.” The massive package boasts “billions of dollars from the central bank to support the stock market, policy rate cuts, measures to boost bank liquidity and efforts to stabilise China’s prolonged property crisis, including a 50-basis point interest rate cut for mortgage holders.” Nevertheless, it may not be enough “to reignite consumer confidence in the world’s second-largest economy.”
Tags: 2008, Central bank, China, Markets, Mortgage, Pandemic, Property crisis, Rate cuts, Stimulus, Stock market, Stocks, Supercharged
Washington Post (September 19)
Europe faces many challenges, but the largest is structural. “The E.U. is still not really one big thing, but a collection of smaller ones. This makes it difficult for companies to scale” or for the EU to pursue a coherent strategy. “Mr. Draghi’s report has many good ideas — to unify budgets, markets and strategies; to streamline rules to encourage innovation. At its core, the message is one that Europeans have heard before: For Europe to thrive, it must act as Europe.”
Tags: Budgets, Challenges, Companies, Draghi, E.U., Europe, Markets, Rules, Scale, Strategies, Strategy, Streamline, Structural, Unify
New York Times (September 8)
“Even by August’s typically volatile standards, markets have been especially choppy this month, with some of the biggest intraday stock swings of the year occurring over the past week.” Earlier in the year, corporate profits allayed investor fears, helping to “drive an impressive rally in the S&P 500. But this quarter has been more mixed, as multiple companies warned of declining consumer demand.” We may be approaching “the end of ‘fun-flation.’”
Tags: Allayed, August, Choppy, Consumer demand, Corporate profits, Intraday, Investor fears, Markets, Mixed, Rally, S&P 500, Stock swings, Volatile
Wall Street Journal (April 22)
Giant investment companies like Blackstone, Franklin Templeton, BlackRock and KKR “are taking over the financial system.” They now “control sums rivaling the economies of many large countries. They are pushing into new businesses, blurring the lines that define who does what on Wall Street and nudging once-dominant banks toward the sidelines.” Their outsize roles are, according to investors, creating “risks markets have never encountered before.”
Tags: Banks, BlackRock. KKR, Blackstone, Blurring lines, Countries, Financial system, Franklin Templeton, Investment, Investors, Markets, Risks, Sidelines, Wall Street
Financial Times (March 17)
“A strange thing happened this week: calm.” U.S. data revealed higher than expected price inflation. “This time around, however, government bonds wobbled only slightly and both US and global stocks held it together around record highs.” The absence of drama indicates “interest rates are shedding their suffocating dominance over global markets, and that stocks are climbing not because they are huffing the speculative fumes of imminent and aggressive potential rate cuts but because they’re worth it.”
Tags: Calm, Dominance, Global, Government bonds, Inflation, Interest rates, Markets, Rate cuts, Record highs, Speculative, Stocks, Suffocating, U.S.
