Markets

As we come to the end of another financial year-end reporting season and await the deluge of impenetrable financial reports, we can only lament that another year has passed and an important reporting mechanism widely used in many international exchanges,...

The change to foreign ownership of Australian companies and critical infrastructure continues with the takeover offer for rail and ports operator Asciano from Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, a Bermuda-based company listed on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges. The offer,...

China’s economic engagement in Africa tends to elicit controversy. Many Chinese deals are accompanied by Western headlines such as “China in Africa: Investment or Exploitation?” or “Clinton warns against ‘new colonialism’ in Africa.” Yet in recent African public opinion polls,...

The US dollar and equity futures responded favorably to the stronger than expected durable goods orders.  The sizable upward revision in the June shipments (from 0.3% to 0.9%) underscores expectations of an upward revision to Q2 GDP when reported tomorrow. ...

South Korea’s economic growth has slowed significantly since the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The five-year average GDP growth rate was 7.9 percent during 1991–95, but dropped substantially to 4.5 percent for 2001–05 and then 3.8 percent in 2006–10. This slowdown...

China appears to be flailing.  Its stock market stabilization efforts have failed miserably.  It looks as if it has botched another attempt to let market forces have greater sway over the yuan's exchange rate yet.  China appears to be flailing. ...

In the last decade, China’s serious gender imbalance has made headlines: millions of Chinese men are doomed to bachelorhood due to a shortage of women, with awful social consequences. The conventional wisdom is that this skewing — a sex ratio...

When the global financial crisis swept across the world in 2008, it was widely hoped that the external demand shock would affect India as badly as China.  After all, exports of goods and services accounted for about 40 percent of...

It is a bitter start of the week for EM. It is hard to imagine either stabilization or meaningful differentiation in EM until asset prices in major markets find a bottom. In addition, the second leg down in commodity prices...

Reading the latest Chinese growth projections to 2050 brings to mind Karl Marx’s aphorism that history repeats itself first as tragedy, second as farce. One of the co-authors, a Yale economics professor, told the Financial Times the ‘main point of...

It was a difficult week for the dollar, stocks and commodities, to say the least.  The Chinese yuan, which had been a catalyst for some recent volatility, stabilized, and actually finished the week slightly firmer.  A dovish read of the...

1) The PBOC signalled more stability in the yuan, and that is what we have, 2) The official survey by the Brazilian central bank is now showing an average forecast for 2016 GDP in negative territory for the first time,...

India’s Pakistan dilemma continues, as Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif warned that they reserve the option of using nuclear weapons. The statement was made a week before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in July...

The US dollar is little changed against most of the major and emerging market currencies as North American traders return to their posts to close out the difficult week.  The US dollar is little changed against most of the major...

The massive explosion that tore through the port of Tianjin on August 12 has had a profound effect on the city. As well as the terrible loss of life and the unknown environmental effects to come, its economic impact on...