Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Trend of the Week Watch the Yuan
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-thirtieth YouTube video: Trend of the Week Watch the Yuan This week’s Trend of the Week: Watch the Yuan. China controls one of the two largest treasury portfolios in the world, and the strength of the yuan affects treasuries...
China’s economy in worse shape than we thought
China’s factory output and consumer spending both slowed in July, new numbers released today by the National Bureau of Statistics showed. Industrial production rose 3.8% from a year ago. That’s lower than June’s 3.9% year-over-year rate and below...
Beijing steps in and China stocks soar
Yesterday, March 15, I was thinking that I wished I didn’t own any China stocks at all. Today, March 16, I wished I owned more. Lot’s more. First, China’s top financial policy group vowed to ensure stability in capital markets, support overseas stock...Other signs of global economic stress keep coming in
The U.S.-China trade war continues to erode business confidence in Germany. Business confidence in the country, home to Europe’s largest economy, fell to its weakest level in almost seven years as a deepening manufacturing slump put the German economy on the...
People’s Bank signals that yuan devaluation will be orderly
U.S. stocks rallied strongly today, Thursday, August 8, after the People’s Bank of China set its daily reference rate for its currency at 7.0039 to the dollar. That was stronger than the 7.0156 yuan to the dollar overnight estimate of 21 analysts and trader...
No let up in President Trump’s pressure on the Fed to cut interest rates faster
More tweets today from President Donald Trump in his campaign to pressure the Federal Reserve into more aggressive cuts to interest rates. “Incompetence is a terrible thing to watch, especially when things could be taken care of sooo easily. We will WIN anyway,” the...
People’s Bank signals its goal of an orderly retreat in China’s yuan, and markets recover–somewhat
Stocks rallied today on signs that the People’s Bank intends to deliver an orderly drop in China’s currency. This morning the yuan traded slightly above the critical 7 yuan to the dollar currency band. And the bank said it will sell $4.2 billion in yuan...
Portfolio strategies for a changing market: What went up today when everything went down
For the last few weeks I’ve been working to shift gears in my online portfolios in anticipation of a tougher market after the Federal Reserve meeting (and a likely additional interest rate cut) on September 18. I’ve added Treasury ETFs–the Vanguard...
Financial markets fear what comes next in U.S.-China trade war
It would be unwise to assume that today’s retaliation by China is the last tit for tat in the U.S.-China war. What “reasonable” fears are making rounds today? That the Chinese decision to let the yuan break the 7-yuan-to-the-dollar barrier...
China strikes back
We suspend our usual programming to cover the developing financial market and likely economic reaction to China’s decision to let the yuan tumble in retaliation to President Donald Trump’s decision last week to place a 10% tariff on an additional $300...
China trade talks resume–with a notable lack of momentum
The latest round of U.S.-China trade talks resumed today in Washington. The Trump administration’s March 1 deadline continues to walk nearer–although everyone on Wall Street expects that President Trump will decide good progress has been made and will...
Markets decide they have nothing to fear except Treasury auctions, Italian budget, and U.S.-China trade war
Actually, considering the list of fears today, it’s kind of remarkable that the U.S. stock market hasn’t fallen farther. (The U.S. bond market is closed for the Columbus Day holiday.) In the EuroZone the confrontation between the Italian government and the...
China says it won’t intentionally devalue yuan in response to U.S. tariffs
Just hours after the Trump administration announced 10% tariffs on an additional $200 billion in Chinese exports, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said the nation wouldn’t devalue its currency in order to make its exports more competitive. Which, of course, doesn’t...
China stocks bounce big, but there’s reason to think the recovery won’t stick
Stocks in Hong Kong and Shanghai rallied strongly today, Tuesday August 7, after The China Daily, citing an unidentified official at the National Development and Reform Commission, reported that the government would roll out more policies to improve investor appetite...
China’s growth target: More of the same but a little less
China’s government has announced its new economic growth target for 2017. At “around” 6.5% it’s just a bit lower than the 2016 target of 6.5% to 7%. China’s GDP grew by 6.7% in 2016. The slight decline in the headline growth target is...So which is it? Is China a currency manipulator or not? Trump administration can’t make up its mind
On Thursday, February 23, President Donald Trump told Reuters that China is guilty of manipulating its currency to lower the price of the yuan in order to make its exports cheaper.“I think they’re grand champions at manipulation of currency. So I haven’t held back....
China’s foreign exchange reserves fall below $3 trillion
It’s mostly symbolic, but in financial markets symbols count. In January China’s foreign exchange reserves dropped below the $3 trillion mark for the first time in almost six years, the People’s Bank of China announced today, February 7. The drop, the...
China’s export engine falters again
Calculated in yuan, China’s exports rose a tepid year-over-year 0.6% in December. Unfortunately, China’s export companies don’t pay for raw materials such as oil and copper or for subassemblies from Malaysia or Indonesia in yuan but in most cases in...
China faces an increasingly frenzied, increasingly dangerous game of financial Whac-A-Mole
Where to begin? China faces a depreciating currency, a bond market that has switched from rally to sell off, huge outflows of cash, and what looks like a resurgence of inflation. Fixing one of these problems alone would be a huge challenge to the People’s Bank....China hadn't raised its benchmark interest rates since 2007–Why today?
China caught global financial markets flatfooted today, October 19, by raising its benchmark interest rates for the first time since 2007. The People’s Bank of China raised its one-year lending rate to 5.56% from 5.31% and its deposit rate by 0.25 percentage points to...China and the U.S. are increasingly at odds on currencies and the global economy as the stage shifts from the IMF to the G20
The annual meeting of the IMF (International Monetary Fund) ended with the U.S. accusing China of keeping the yuan artificially low and with China accusing the U.S. of flood merging markets with hot money by keeping its interest rates near 0%. I think Brazil got it...Yes, it's a currency war, and No, no one is doing anything about it
Do you think he reads this site? “We’re in the midst of an international currency war,” warned Brazil’s finance minister Guido Mantega on September 27. Governments around the world are competing to drive down their currencies to boost their exports. How dangerous...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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