November, 2018

• 27 November

  Asia’s liquidity squeeze is the worst

  

  Liquidity is getting tight in Asia. Leave aside Japan, where the printing presses are still pumping out yen. In rest of the region, central banks’ supply of currency plus bank reserves has shrunk 7 percent in real terms since the dollar began surging in April. This is the steepest contraction in base money since the 11 percent fall between January ...

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• 27 November

  When going gets tough, traders blame everything

  Last week showed you all you need to know about how traders and investors instinctively react when markets get choppy. They’re dazed, confused and quick to cast blame. Consider when the S&P 500 Index capped a two-day decline of 3.5 percent to close near the lowest level since May. “The stock market has a debt problem,” a Bloomberg News article ...

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• 27 November

  Italy’s populists aren’t the only ones to blame

  The fight between Italy and Brussels over Rome’s budget is blamed widely on Italy’s populist leaders, Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio. The two deputy prime ministers have insisted that Rome should run much higher budget deficits over the next three years, in a bid to fulfill their electoral pledges and kick-start growth. A different government would almost certainly have ...

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• 27 November

  Emmanuel Macron’s star has fallen down to Earth

  

  The French presidential cycle goes something like this: euphoria, then disappointment — and then disillusionment, as the pace of reform slows down and popular unrest builds up. The violent clashes at this weekend’s protests show just how accelerated the decline can be once opposition takes root. Emmanuel Macron was supposed to be different. He came to power in 2017 through ...

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• 27 November

  Thomas Cook still has hope after its travel fail

  

  Two years ago, Thomas Cook Group Plc was Santa Claus, rewarding shareholders with the first dividend in five years. Now it has turned into the Grinch, with an ugly profit warning on Tuesday, and a decision to ditch the payout. The shares fell as much as 33 percent. It’s clearly a very difficult time as the company struggles to cope ...

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• 27 November

  Corbyn is now enemy number one for business

  

  Who says there is no consensus on Brexit? Maybe not in Westminster, where the UK’s fractious parliament sits; but get a group of business leaders in a room, and suddenly everything looks much clearer: Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal to quit the European Union is workable, but a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn would, however, be a whole other category ...

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• 27 November

  Stocks fall as trade talk weighs; Treasuries drop

  

  Bloomberg US stock futures fell as trade tensions with China flared and investors assessed comments from a Federal Reserve official. Treasuries declined. S&P 500 futures dropped after President Donald Trump threatened China with more tariffs days before a sit-down with his counterpart Xi Jinping. Apple looked set to fall deeper into a bear market as Trump suggested levies on mobile ...

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• 27 November

  Nasdaq pursues Bitcoin futures despite its plunge

  

  Bloomberg Nasdaq Inc. is moving ahead with a plan to list Bitcoin futures, according to two people familiar with the matter, betting on sustained interest despite the cryptocurrency’s dramatic plunge over the past year. Nasdaq has been working to satisfy the concerns of the US’s main swaps regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, before launching the contracts, the people said. ...

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• 27 November

  India set to push RBI to ease lending curb on weak banks

  

  Bloomberg The Indian government will push its central bank to ease lending restrictions for some weak banks and review rules governing its functioning at a board meeting next month, people with knowledge of the matter said. The members, including government nominees, will press for some of the weak banks to be removed from the so-called prompt corrective action list, particularly ...

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• 27 November

  JPMorgan Asset Management expects a rough year ahead

  

  Bloomberg JPMorgan Asset Management is preparing for a rough year ahead in financial markets, and is taking to the higher-quality ground of short-dated Treasuries. Escalating trade tensions will likely be “the single most important issue moving global markets” in 2019, as they were in 2018, analysts wrote in a report on the outlook for the coming year. A deeper trade ...

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