Institutional Investor (August 2)
“Asset owners, like endowments and pension funds, are gearing up to publish their annual returns for the fiscal year.” Though CIOs insist “that 10- and 20-year returns matter more… than one-year numbers, the annual horse race has begun.” These comparisons appear inevitable, but industry experts call them “flawed” because they overlook “clear differences in performance reporting standards” and “also fail to consider each institution’s particular tolerance for risk, goals, and individual needs.”
Tags: 20-year returns, Annual returns, Asset owners, CIOs, Endowments, Experts, Fiscal year, Flawed, Goals, Individual needs, One-year, Pension funds, Performance, Reporting standards, Risk
MarketWatch (July 6)
“The bond market has enjoyed relatively limited volatility in the first half of 2024, but that calm could be disrupted by growing worry about the U.S. fiscal outlook ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election. Of all the wild cards in the months ahead for the $27 trillion Treasury market… a rising U.S. government deficit is regarded as perhaps the greatest long-term risk facing the market right now because of its potential to translate into higher volatility during the second half.”
Tags: $27 trillion, 2024, Bond market, Deficit, Fiscal outlook, Growing worry, H1, H2, Market, Presidential election, Risk, Treasury market, U.S., Volatility
Market Watch (May 25)
“On May 28, a new rule will go into effect that will affect almost every stock, bond, and ETF trade in U.S. markets,” requiring settlement within one day. Reducing failure to deliver (FTD) “risk is one of the reasons that industry players have been pushing to get to a T+1 settlement cycle since the 1990s, when the settlement cycle was still at T+5. Over the years, the U.S. has moved to a T+3 settlement cycle, then T+2 and now finally T+1.”
Tags: 1990s, Bond, Effect, ETF, Failure to deliver, May 28, Risk, Rule, Settlement cycle, Stock, T+1, T+2, T+3, T+5, Trade, U.S. markets
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
CNN (January 15)
“Germany’s economy shrank last year for the first time since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic… increasing the risk of an economic contraction in the wider euro area.” GDP dropped 0.3%, both during 2023 overall and during Q4. “The data bodes ill for the entire area that uses the euro because Germany is the largest of its 20 economies.”
Bloomberg (January 11)
“Years of harrowing losses have left Chinese stocks with a diminished standing in global portfolios.” The trend is “likely to accelerate as some of the world’s biggest funds distance themselves from the risk-ridden market.” Furthermore, what began “as a performance-driven exodus now risks becoming a structural shift due to a toxic combination of doubts over Beijing’s long-term economic agenda, a prolonged property crisis and strategic competition with the US.”
Tags: Beijing, China, Competition, Diminished, Funds, Global portfolios, Harrowing, Losses, Property crisis, Risk, Stocks, Structural, Toxic
Reuters (January 8)
“The world is full of danger. The planet starts 2024 with war in Gaza and Ukraine, superpower rivalry, climate change and slow growth. The possible return of Donald Trump as U.S. president is another risk…. It’s easy to see how the world’s multiple overlapping crises – what some observers have labelled the ‘polycrisis’—could feed on one another, creating a doom loop.” But none of this is inevitable. “There are more optimistic scenarios, and some silver linings in the pessimistic ones.”
Tags: 2024, Climate change, Danger, Doom loop, Gaza, Growth, Optimistic scenarios, Polycrisis, Risk, Rivalry, Superpower, Trump, U.S., Ukraine, War, World
Financial Times (December 23)
“The UK economy shrank slightly in the third quarter.” Revised figures “highlight the country’s struggle to shake off its low-growth performance and raise the risk of a technical recession…. The UK economy is stuck in a lacklustre state as it struggles with high borrowing costs and the legacy of the worst inflationary upsurge for a generation.”
Tags: Borrowing costs, Economy, Growth, Lacklustre, Q3, Revised, Risk, Struggle, Technical recession, UK
Reuters (December 23)
In 2024, “the global trade war will shift from fossil fuels to metals and raw materials. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine highlighted the risk of relying on autocratic states for energy. Even if Europe’s gas crisis eases, Western manufacturers’ focus will switch to reducing China’s dominance in materials key to a cleaner economy.”
Tags: 2024, Autocratic, China, Cleaner, Dominance, Energy, Europe, Fossil fuels, Gas crisis, Global, Invasion, Materials, Metals, Raw materials, Relying, Risk, Russia, Shift, Trade war, Ukraine
Guardian (September 21)
“Europe’s apparent rightwards drift is not a fait accompli. But there is a risk that, as mainstream parties accommodate more and more of the radical right’s agenda, it becomes one. Years of austerity, followed by the pandemic and the Ukraine-related cost of living crisis, have led to chronic economic insecurity for less well-off Europeans. That has created an opening for ugly political movements and populist leaders to exploit.”
Tags: Austerity, Cost of living, Crisis, Economic insecurity, Europe, Exploit, Mainstream, Pandemic, Populist, Radical right, Rightwards, Risk, Ugly, Ukraine
