The focus of most investors is the rate decision by the Federal Reserve tomorrow. Since the central bank completed its asset purchase program at the end of last year, a rate hike has been understood as a matter of time.
The euro made marginal news highs near $1.1060 while sterling and the yen have been confined to yesterday’s ranges. European equities are bouncing off ten-week lows. The dollar-bloc is firm; the upbeat RBA meetings provided only a short-lived fillip higher. Oil prices are steady to firmer after yesterday’s recovery.
The World Trade Organization contains 162 member states and has existed for 20 years. While it is certainly not the oldest trade organization in existence, many have begun to question its viability in the modern age.
The most recent doubts come in the wake of a number of unpopular decisions that appear as anachronisms to some analysts. One example lies in the recent decision against the United States’ practice of allowing companies selling canned tuna to identify, voluntarily, if they used dolphin-safe fishing practices.
The US dollar is firmer against the euro, sterling and yen, but within the ranges seen before the weekend. The greenback is softer against the dollar-bloc currencies after early gains were unwound.
After much hemming and hawing since mid-year, the Federal Reserve is finally poised to raise rates for the first time in nearly a decade. Indeed, given the speeches by the leadership and the economic data, especially the labor market readings, the failure to raise rates would likely be more destabilizing at this juncture than lifting them.
While the brutal expansion of the Islamic State of Levant (ISIL) has triggered great fears in popular imagination, Dr. Steinbock says that the ISIL’s — and its potential successors’ — claim to a territorial caliphate is likely to pose enduring economic, political and strategic challenges to the international community.
Investors, fellow central bankers, and the media continue to try to make sense of last week’s ECB surprise. We had argued that given the market positioning, especially the dramatic accumulation of speculative short euro positions since the middle of October that the market was prone to a correction.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) flexed its considerable economic muscle this week to force a resolution in ongoing disputes between the Ukraine and Russia simply by changing its lending policies. Per the IMF, Ukraine will have to negotiate in “good faith” with Russia to resolve a dispute over a $3 billion bond due this month. Otherwise, the IMF will not allow a loan from the International Monetary Fund to the Ukraine.
In 2015, China outbid Japan for the first high-speed rail project in Indonesia, reflecting Beijing’s eagerness to realise its 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiative. So what does this signify for the Asia Pacific region?
Indonesia made a big and highly significant decision to award China rather than Japan the Jakarta–Bandung high-speed rail project, expected to start construction in early 2016. Jakarta had a dilemma: should it choose between a trusted old friend (Japan) or a new emerging power (China)?
