June, 2018

• 3 June

  Whispering the D-word in Asia’s junk market

  

  Country Garden Holdings Co. has a message for Asian debt junkies — the party’s over. China’s largest real estate developer may need to return to the dollar bond market after suspending a planned 20 billion yuan ($3.1 billion) sale on May 29. The firm, no stranger to the offshore world, already squeezed in $850 million of issuance in January, just ...

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• 3 June

  US slow lane’s OK for Japan’s automakers

  As US President Donald Trump lobs tariff threats at China, Mexico and Canada, one of the world’s biggest economies has been largely absent from his rhetoric. And yet, Japan stands to bear the brunt of many of them. Unlike its neighbor South Korea, which was exempted, Japan has been struck with levies on steel and aluminum by a Trump executive ...

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• 3 June

  Italy’s president Mattarella just undermined the euro

  

  Italian President Sergio Mattarella might think he has taken a principled stand in vetoing euroskeptic Paolo Savona as finance minister, effectively disallowing a government led by the Five Star Movement and the League. But in rejecting the choice of a popularly elected coalition, he may well have set in motion a financial crisis from which it will be hard to ...

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• 3 June

  Food companies cash includes artificial fillers

  

  Beware food companies relying on their bookkeeping rather than their cooking to keep investors satisfied. A number of food companies have recently been selling their IOUs to deal with the fact that their customers, namely giant retailers like Walmart Inc., are taking longer to pay. The sales bolster cash flows, but critics contend they can make the giant food companies’ ...

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• 3 June

  Actually, Mexico knows how to fight a trade war

  

  Trump has turned on longtime allies, labeling them a national security threat in order to levy 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent on aluminum. For neighbouring Mexico, this will affect some $3 billion in exports. While not insignificant, it is just a speck of the $300 billion-plus the nation sends north each year (for Canada, steel and aluminum ...

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• 3 June

  It didn’t feel like it, but May was a win for US equity bulls

  

  Bloomberg Beset with political drama in Italy, trade angst in China, a surging dollar, a plummeting Treasury yield and weakening economic data in Europe, equity investors in the US still managed to muddle through. In fact, as far as Mays go, this was a good one, the best for the S&P 500 Index since the bull market began. The benchmark ...

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• 3 June

  Digital token sales topped 2017’s record pace

  

  Bloomberg So much for the backlash against initial coin offerings. Sales of digital tokens by technology companies this year have already surpassed the record amount raised in all of 2017 even as government officials from China to the US clamp down on offerings and incidents of fraud continue. Block.one, a Cayman Islands-based startup that’s behind the EOS token, is on ...

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• 3 June

  BOJ cuts bond purchases in test of yen speculators

  

  Bloomberg The Bank of Japan cut purchases of bonds for the first time since February, taking advantage of a global slide in yields brought on by political risks in Europe and trade tensions. The BOJ trimmed buying of debt maturing in the five-to-10 year zone by 20 billion yen ($183 million) to 430 billion yen at the regular operation. While ...

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• 3 June

  Wells Fargo’s fake account holders to get ‘imperfect’ closure

  

  Bloomberg Wells Fargo & Co. customers who didn’t consent to having 3.5 million accounts created by bankers trying to hit sales quotas are finally getting what a judge called “rough justice.” US District Judge Vince Chhabria agreed to issue final approval for a $142 million class-action accord that will pay an average of $35 for account holders at the center ...

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• 3 June

  More policy tightening could be in store for Indonesia to buoy rupiah

  

  Bloomberg Indonesia’s second interest-rate increase in two weeks may be followed by more policy tightening to stem a slide in the rupiah amid an ongoing rout in emerging markets. While the rupiah strengthened for a fifth day, the central bank isn’t in the clear yet. Much will depend on geopolitical events — from snap elections in Italy to ongoing trade ...

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