Emerging-market crisis may be brewing in Asia

Pakistan is flirting with a textbook emerging-market crisis. An unsustainable investment boom has ended. The central bank has raised interest rates to squeeze a current account gap. Growth has collapsed to a nine-year low; youth unemployment is in double digits; and inflation is getting there. Government revenues are stalling. Getting Islamabad out of its jam is once again the job ...

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The three most famous words in central banking

Haruhiko Kuroda won’t have it. The widespread notion that the Bank of Japan (BOJ) is out of ammunition is nonsense, according to its governor, who says he still has the capacity to do grand things. Just look at his counterpart at the European Central Bank (ECB). “Like Mario Draghi, I think we can do these things if necessary,” Kuroda said ...

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Your iPhone is already made in America, not China

It wouldn’t take much for Apple Inc. to have US-sold iPhones made outside China. Foxconn Technology Group, the primary assembler of the devices, said that it has enough capacity to make all iPhones bound for the US outside of China if necessary. Apple hasn’t given the Taiwanese company such instructions, a senior executive of Foxconn’s listed flagship Hon Hai Precision ...

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Foreigners bolster Saudi stocks as tension in region mounts

Bloomberg Rising tensions in the Gulf region aren’t stopping foreign investors from supporting Saudi Arabian stocks, just four years after funds from abroad were first allowed to trade directly in Riyadh. International funds helped contain losses in the final trading session last week, when Gulf stocks were sold off amid escalating tensions in the region. Qualified foreign funds have been ...

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Hong Kong liquidity tightens as markets fall

Bloomberg Hong Kong’s short-term borrowing costs haven’t been this high for a decade, and the impact is starting to show on the city’s financial markets. The tightness has weighed on demand for stocks at a time when street clashes have undercut sentiment towards the city’s assets. A gauge of Hong Kong property companies tumbled the most in five months as ...

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Equity bulls retain footing in tumultuous week

Bloomberg When it’s all done, when the bulls have been broken, historians will look back and have something definitive to say about this rally’s causes and consequences. Until then, we must settle for theories. In a baffling week, oil tankers were attacked in the Gulf, America blamed Iran, and US stocks rose. President Donald Trump threatened to slap sanctions on ...

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PBOC’s ‘tremendous room’ to act in focus as economy slows

Bloomberg The boast by People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gang this month that he has “tremendous room” to adjust policy could soon be tested as the economy slows, throwing attention on the impact on the nation’s fragile currency and financial markets. Compared to European and Japanese peers, China does have more obvious policy space. Its benchmark one-year lending rate ...

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BOK policy maker sees trade woe if Trump re-elected

Bloomberg Trade-reliant Thailand better get used to worrying about the export outlook if President Donald Trump wins a second term, according to an official who helps to decide the country’s policy interest rate. “The US-China trade war has haunted us,” Somchai Jitsuchon, a member of the Bank of Thailand’s (BOK) monetary policy committee, said in an interview. “And that may ...

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JGB bulls look to Kuroda to keep rally going as Japan inflation wanes

Bloomberg Japanese inflation data looks set to push bond yields even lower and increase scrutiny of central bank Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, who says he can deliver more big monetary stimulus if necessary. Yields on Japanese government bonds have fallen since mid-April, with returns on 10-year debt touching a near three-year low of minus 0.135 percent on June 7. While these ...

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Swiss govt opposes new SNB investment curbs

Bloomberg Switzerland’s government opposes a measure that would forbid the central bank, pension funds and foundations from investing in munitions-makers, saying it wouldn’t be effective. The pending popular initiative would make it impossible for the Swiss National Bank from investing in a market-neutral way and would also create a precedent for other restrictions the government said in a statement. The ...

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