October, 2018

• 14 October

  The stock rout, and a warning from IPOs

  

  The market for initial public offerings (IPO) had been giving off warning signals long before this week’s rout in global stocks. The two are connected — and the human investors had a lead over the robot traders. London saw two big IPO disappointments which happened to be divisive stocks with strong bear cases. Online lender Funding Circle Holdings Plc, down ...

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• 14 October

  Fund carnage shows peril of ignoring liquidity

  

  Indian retail investors won’t easily forgive their fund managers, nor will they quickly forget this wealth destruction. Out of 416 open-ended, onshore equity funds, 401 have lost money this year. Tech funds, the only ones to have performed decently, have been helped by Asia’s worst-performing currency of 2018. And that’s only because Indian software exporters earn revenues in a strong ...

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• 14 October

  Market meltdowns happen with an alarming frequency

  

  Bloomberg You could write it off as a fluke in February. When it happened again in March, people got concerned. Now stocks are tumbling a third time in 2018, and investors are starting to sense something has changed. A smattering of 3 percent plunges may not make a bear market, but it sure is a break from the past, which ...

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• 14 October

  European short sellers miss out on stock market carnage

  

  Bloomberg Short sellers who have been avoiding Europe have missed out on profiting from the slide in equity markets that has left investors around the world jittery. The benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 Index has fell 3.6 percent in the two trading sessions, dropping to levels last seen in late 2016. At the same time, the overall level of bearish bets ...

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• 14 October

  Morgan Stanley sees stock rally before ’19

  Bloomberg The winter holidays might not be so miserable after all for stock investors. So say Morgan Stanley strategists, whose warning about a “rolling bear market” seemed to pay off this week after growth stocks led a slide in equities. While underperformance in growth shares will likely persist, stocks may rally before year-end amid cheaper valuations, a supportive earnings season ...

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• 14 October

  China preparing for all risks in currency policy, says PBOC’s Yi

  

  Bloomberg China’s central bank is considering a range of risks in its currency policy, including a worst-case scenario, Governor Yi Gang said. As the yuan inches closer to the psychologically important level of 7 per dollar amid rising trade tensions with the US, the People’s Bank of China governor told Bloomberg in an exclusive interview that the Chinese currency is ...

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• 14 October

  Kazakhstan looks to stave off rate hike with other ‘maneuvers’

  

  Bloomberg Kazakhstan’s central bank has a range of options besides changing its key interest rate as it looks to fine-tune monetary policy after markets stabilized and inflation came in below expectations, according to Governor Daniyar Akishev. With the benchmark held twice at 9 percent after four cuts and anticipation building that a hike is on the way, Akishev said “the ...

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• 14 October

  Sudden jump in rates a global risk: Draghi

  

  Bloomberg European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the key threat facing the global economy is a jump in interest rates sparked by financial instability, inflation surprises or geopolitics. “It’s quite clear that the main risk we should focus on here is a sharp repricing in assets, or a sharp increase, a sharp and sudden increase, in interest rates,” he ...

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• 14 October

  BoE chief warns against weaponisation of assets

  Bloomberg Bank of England Governor Mark Carney warned against the “weaponisation” assets in the global financial system as central bank chiefs fretted about the impact of a trade war. Speaking at the Group of 30 conference in Bali, Indonesia on Sunday, Carney stressed the need for investment flows to remain open, alluding to previous warnings that US protectionism affects the ...

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• 14 October

  Banks see consumer loans defying gravity as interest rates climb

  

  Bloomberg When interest rates tick higher, consumers carrying too much debt start to default. It’s the natural assumption, but Americans keep meeting their obligations. Three of the largest US banks — JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. — announced that their costs for bad loans are falling. The same strong economy pushing the Federal Reserve ...

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