Institutional Investor (April 1)
“In March, the Bank of Japan made the seismic decision to raise interest rates for the first time in 17 years. The long-awaited shift to positive rates has excited some of the country’s leading chief executives.”
Tags: 17 years, BOJ, Chief executives, Decision, Excited, Interest rates, Japan, Leading, Long-awaited, March, Positive rates, Raise, Seismic, Shift
Business Insider (March 31)
Japan’s “stock market is ripping; the Nikkei recently exceeded the all-time highs it set 34 years ago. Analysts at Goldman Sachs are telling clients there’s still more upside to be had as corporate-governance reforms and a new era of sustainable inflation take hold. The Bank of Japan this month hiked interest rates above zero for the first time since 2007, a sign of confidence in the country’s recovery.”
Tags: Analysts, BOJ, Clients, Confidence, Corporate governance, Goldman Sachs, Highs, Inflation, Interest rates, Japan, Nikkei, Reforms, Ripping, Stock market, Upside
Bloomberg (March 28)
“The risks are piling up for Japan’s currency, stocks and bonds as the nation’s fiscal year draws to an end right when many global markets close for Easter — and less than two weeks after the central bank hiked interest rates.”
Tags: Bonds, Central bank, Currency, Easter, Fiscal year, Global markets, Interest rates, Japan, Piling up, Risks, Stocks
Professional Pensions (March 27)
“Market turmoil, inflation shocks, high interest rates, and rolling geopolitical crises spurred many investors to stay on the sidelines last year” across all asset classes. “Yet investor appetite remains strong,” especially for real assets. “Globally, nearly two-thirds of investors expect to increase their allocation to real assets over the next two years, with investors in Asia most likely to add to their portfolios.”
Tags: Allocation, Appetite, Asia, Geopolitical crises, Inflation, Interest rates, Investors, Market turmoil, Real assets, Sidelines
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.
Reuters (February 5)
“Prolonged factory deflation is threatening the survival of smaller Chinese exporters who are locked in relentless price wars for shrinking business as higher interest rates abroad and rising trade protectionism squeeze demand.” Fifteen months of falling producer prices have crushed “profit margins to the point where industrial output and jobs are now at risk,” further “compounding China’s economic woes, which include a property crisis and debt crunch.”
Tags: China, Demand, Economic woes, Exporters, Factory deflation, Interest rates, Jobs, Output, Price wars, Producer prices, Profit margins, Prolonged, Property crisis, Relentless, Risk, Survival, Threatening, Trade protectionism
Financial Times (February 1)
“Mounting losses from banks in the US, Asia and Europe have rekindled concerns about weakness in the US commercial property market, a sector that has been under pressure from lower occupancy levels and higher interest rates.” This week New York Community Bancorp, Aozora Bank and Deutsche Bank each warned of related risks or recognized losses, which “mark the latest fallout from the… dual problems of fewer people working in offices since the pandemic and more expensive borrowing costs.”
Tags: Aozora Bank, Asia, Banks, Commercial property, Concerns, Deutsche Bank, Europe, Fallout, Interest rates, Losses, Occupancy, Offices, Pandemic, Pressure, Risks, U.S., Weakness
Washington Post (January 25)
“The nation’s economy was supposed to have sunk into recession by now, dragged down by the highest interest rates in two decades and a resulting slump in borrowing and spending. Instead, the U.S. economy has kept chugging along. Even more encouraging, inflation, which touched a four-decade high in 2022, has edged steadily lower without the painful layoffs that most economists had thought would be necessary to slow the acceleration of prices.”
Tags: Acceleration, Borrowing, Economists, Economy, Encouraging, Inflation, Interest rates, Layoffs, Painful, Recession, Slump, Spending, U.S.
Financial Times (January 9)
“Unemployment in the eurozone fell back to a record low of 6.4 per cent in November, defying recent economic gloom after the number of jobless people fell almost 100,000 from a month earlier.” With the job market “proving more resilient than expected,” the ECB may worry more “about the timing of a potential cut in interest rates” as “rapid wage growth could keep price pressures elevated.”
Tags: 4%, Cut, ECB, Economic gloom, eurozone, Interest rates, Jobless, Market, November, Record, Resilient, Timing, Unemployment, Wage growth
Wall Street Journal (December 28)
“The failure to anticipate how quickly the Fed would raise interest rates has upended banks big and small this year. Three bigger ones collapsed this spring, but it is community banks… that have been in a full-blown crisis. The losses on long-term bonds have unnerved depositors, investors and regulators who have questioned how bankers failed to properly protect themselves from interest-rate risks.”
Tags: Anticipate, Banks, Bonds, Collapsed, Community banks, Crisis, Depositors, Failure, Fed, Interest rates, Investors, Protect, Regulators, Risks, Unnerved, Upended
