August, 2019

• 20 August

  100-year bonds are a dangerous temptation

  Two 100-year bonds for countries that start with the letter A. Other than that, there’s pretty much zilch in common between the century maturity debt issued by Austria and Argentina, as we’ve seen over the past few weeks. Nothing illustrates the desperate hunt for yield among high-quality global issues better than Austria’s 100-year bond. The debt was issued at just ...

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• 20 August

  No, China isn’t easing. It just has a new benchmark

  As the financial world’s movers and shakers hunker down at Jackson Hole this weekend, one pressing question will be who’s next to cut interest rates. The People’s Bank of China has already decided: It isn’t joining the global race to the bottom. Over the weekend, the PBOC took a long-awaited step in interest-rate reform, which aims to give markets more ...

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• 20 August

  Jokowi’s Indonesia budget sets a fiscal model for Asia

  

  Don’t you wish you had a dollar for every beleaguered official who cried “fiscal policy must do more”? Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo actually seems to mean it. Fresh from re-election, Jokowi, as he’s known, is aiming to cushion Southeast Asia’s largest economy from a slowdown and make much-needed investments in infrastructure like roads, ports and airports, and even a new ...

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• 20 August

  Masayoshi Son’s visionary sequel has a desperate look

  

  It looks like SoftBank Group Corp.’s Masayoshi Son may be struggling to start his next epic journey. A month after announcing an eclectic mix of investors for its Vision Fund 2, SoftBank is leaning on its own employees for cash, planning to lend them as much as much as $20 billion to buy stakes in the venture-capital vehicle, the Wall ...

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• 20 August

  A burning question for coal’s brightest star

  

  If India is such a bright hope for global coal demand, why can’t investors see it? The country will experience the largest increase in coal burning through 2023, according to the International Energy Agency, with a 3.9 percent annual pace of growth that should be enough to offset falling consumption in developed countries. BloombergNEF, whose forecasts tend to be less ...

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• 20 August

  US stocks drift as economic momentum, trade mulled

  

  Bloomberg US index futures drifted with stocks in Europe as investors digested developments in trade talks and comments from a Federal Reserve official about the strength of the biggest economy. Treasuries climbed and a gauge of the dollar held close to the year’s high. Contracts on three main American equity indexes all struggled for traction after the underlying benchmarks rose, ...

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• 20 August

  Yields rush to rescue of Nigerian stocks markets

  

  Bloomberg Nigerian stocks may be among this year’s worst performers, but that’s at least boosting the appeal of their yields. The benchmark index in Africa’s biggest oil producer has fallen 14 percent this year, making it the fourth-worst among 94 major bourses tracked by Bloomberg. The slump underscores foreign investors’ frustration over a lack of policy progress since President Muhammadu ...

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• 20 August

  Next European bank hack is just a matter of time: ECB

  

  Bloomberg A senior official at the European Central Bank (ECB) warned that banks embracing external data storage and other digital technology need to face an uncomfortable truth: there’s a good chance they’ll get hacked. “There will be accidents, especially in the cloud,” Korbinian Ibel, a director general at the ECB’s supervisory arm, said in an interview. “It’s not that clouds ...

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• 20 August

  Indian rupee has lost its trade war winning edge

  

  Bloomberg The Indian rupee’s outperformance against more export-dependent currencies such as the Korean won has likely come to an end, with JPMorgan Chase & Co. seeing risks shifting to the downside. While JPMorgan had favoured the rupee since the US-China trade war took a turn for the worse in May, it now expects the currency to show higher beta to ...

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• 20 August

  Germany may head to recession: Central bank

  

  Bloomberg Germany’s central bank warned that Europe’s largest economy could be about to tip into recession, adding to the pressure on policy makers to ramp up support. The Bundesbank said in its monthly report that German output will remain “lackluster” in the third quarter and “could continue to fall slightly”. That would be a second straight quarter of contraction — ...

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