July, 2018

• 8 July

  Cyclicals’ drop isn’t hard fall for economy

  

  Investors appear to be losing faith in an economy that does not yet appear to be losing steam. For the first time since late 2015, cyclical stocks are all of a sudden the market’s biggest losers. The Vanda Cyclicals-Defensives US in-dex, which as the name suggests measures the relative performance of cyclical stocks against defensive ones, is down 7 percent ...

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• 8 July

  Singapore property market curbs are a tap, not a blow

  A sledgehammer to swat a fly. That’s how OCBC Investment Research is describing the unexpected curbs on Singapore’s property market announced. While the imposition of additional buyers’ stamp duties and tighter loan-to-value norms on home lending so early in the cycle does indeed smack of overkill (especially after a less than 10 percent recovery in residential prices following a long ...

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• 8 July

  Bond traders are jittery, but Fed shows no fear

  If bond traders still questioned whether Jerome Powell’s Federal Reserve would truly stay the course, no matter how choppy the waters, minutes of the central bank’s June meeting should erase all doubt. Fed officials said they realised the Treasury yield curve was rapidly heading toward inversion, according to the Federal Open Market Committee minutes. Many saw downside risks from emerging ...

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• 8 July

  Samsung gritting its teeth spells pain for South Korea

  

  Samsung Group is showing how corporate governance reform in South Korea — despite what had seemed some initial momentum — will be like pulling teeth. Samsung Life Insurance Co is under pressure to sell its stake in Samsung Electronics Co, a holding that’s key to the Lee family’s control of the smartphone and semiconductor giant, Bloomberg News had reported. The ...

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• 8 July

  Unicorns are China’s innovative cavalry in Trump’s trade war

  

  A trade war can be fought on many fronts. As China breeds unicorns, they are being asked to stay at home rather than gallop overseas to enrich US investors. The US pipeline of Chinese IPOs has been light since President Donald Trump started making noises about tariffs in early March. The only billion-dollar offering is the pending sale by e-commerce ...

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• 8 July

  From gene-editing cures to bioweapon nightmare

  

  The latest biotech investment craze runs on excitement over Crispr, a technique for making gene editing easier and more precise, which biologists have already used to remove disease-causing genes from human embryos and slow the growth of cancer cells. Although a study published last month raised the possibility that the technology might also cause cancer in human cells, experts think ...

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• 8 July

  Thai minister says no need for central bank to hike rate

  

  Bloomberg Thailand’s finance minister said the nation can refrain from raising its policy interest rate as the currency has weakened at a slower pace than peers and capital outflows are unlikely to pose a major risk. The baht’s recent drop will help boost incomes for the 30 million Thais in the farm sector, Apisak Tantivorawong said in an interview. The ...

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• 8 July

  VBS paid 5 million rand to officials for quick funding

  

  Bloomberg South African lender VBS Mutual Bank, which collapsed in March, paid senior officials at the Public Investment Corp. (PIC) to fast-track funding for the lender, the Johannesburg-based Sunday Times said, citing an affidavit by the bank’s former head of treasury Phophi Mukhodobwane. The bank’s former treasurer was instructed to deliver a suitcase filled with 5 million rand to a ...

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• 8 July

  Goldman taps former Harvard prez as third woman for board

  Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. tapped former Harvard University president Drew Faust as a director, making her the third woman on an expanded 12-member board. Faust, 70, starts as an independent director this month after an 11-year tenure at Harvard, the New York-based bank said in a statement. She will be a part of the governance, public responsibilities and risk ...

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• 8 July

  Australia’s RBA seeks more resilience in electronic retail payment systems

  

  Bloomberg The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is among financial regulators globally seeking to ensure payment systems that handle retail transactions are more resilient and secure as fewer people carry cash, Assistant Governor Michele Bullock says. “The resilience of the electronic retail payment systems is becoming quite critical to the smooth functioning of economies,” Bullock, who overseas the financial system ...

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