In a very bad bit of news for the US, the Los Angeles Times (hat tip Lune) reports that the Chinese policy of letting the yuan appreciate has not succeeded in reducing the country’s massive increases in foreign reserves. In fact, the situation is getting worse rather than better. Normally, when a country’s currency appreciates, […]
Read more...I am late to this story, which ran Thursday in the Financial Times, but is sufficiently important as to merit comment (and my quick search of the usual suspect blogs showed it went unreported there too). The Chinese temporarily suspended tax collection on mutual funds to bolster share prices. China’s stock market, which has been […]
Read more...David Roche, who heads Independent Strategy, a London-based investment consultancy, argues today in the Financial Times tha the bull run in commodities is soon to come to an end. A big factor in the outlook for commodities is whether you believe our credit crisis will lead to inflation or deflation. Bernanke’s aggressive rate cuts and […]
Read more...Asian markets opened lower, then took a nosedive after the release of a report that troubled mortgage bond hedge fund to Carlyle Capital failed to reach a standstill with creditors (hat tip reader cb). The Nikkei fell 3.5% to 12,400. The dollar dropped to 100 to the yen. I bought yen at around 111 in […]
Read more...Today we offer two contrasting takes on the commodities market, although they are also looking at very different issues. The post immediately prior to this one, on Martin Wolf’s worries about the impact of commodities price rises, contrasts with Ambrose Evans-Pritchard’s view that in many commodities markets, the recent price spikes are driven more by […]
Read more...Fresh water is increasingly scarce, particularly in China. The average annual supply, per capita, is 348 cubic meters. The UN defines anything below 1000 as a water shortage. Beijing residents have only 250 cubic meters. Plans to divert water from the northeast provinces to Beijing and some hydropower projects will have dire consequences for millions […]
Read more...The repeated rounds of Fed rate cuts have led the dollar to fall against most currencies save those maintaining currency pegs. While the yuan has appreciated somewhat, it hasn’t been sufficient to have much impact on Chinese trade surplus with the US (2007 was a record year). And because China and its peers are having […]
Read more...Today’s Telegraph has a good piece, “Japan is the next sub-prime flashpoint,” by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. And before I get to the piece, I want to say a few things about the author. A number of readers detest Evans-Pritchard, and I am at a loss to understand why. He wears his biggest fault on his sleeve, […]
Read more...A comment by Kenneth Rogoff in the Financial Times argues that rapidly growing emerging markets exhibit periods of crisis, and China has a long list of possible causes. Yet policymakers, focused on slowing US growth and financial institution stress in the US and Europe, have overlooked the problem that a sudden slowdown in China could […]
Read more...Brad Setser has been concerned of late about the implications of China’s (and other central banks) exchange losses on their large and ever-growing holdings of US Treasuries which they buy to fund our current account deficit. Setser, a keen watcher of official data, has also noted that private foreign demand for US securities has virtually […]
Read more...I am having a Dean Baker moment, although I suspect Baker will have even more fun with the front page New York Times article bearing the headline above. This is how the story starts: China’s latest export is inflation. After falling for years, prices of Chinese goods sold in the United States have risen for […]
Read more...Brad Setser has an excellent post, “The PBoC’s dilemmas,” which he later admits is really China’s dilemmas. He focuses on two issues. First is that due to the loosening of the yuan peg against the dollar, the central bank is losing $4 billion a month, mainly on its Treasury holdings (note this is due to […]
Read more...I must confess to a prejudice. Ever since China became more open to commerce with the rest of the world, I have not understood the enthusiasm for investing in China, that is, the foreign direct investing, assets-on-the-ground type. Having worked with the Japanese, and knowing how hostile they are to any meaningful foreign role in […]
Read more...Forgive us, we are going to be a bit terse tonight. Turns out we got a wee case of food poisoning (likely culprit: shellfish). On the mend, but also behind schedule on various fronts. Bloomberg reports that China’s trade deficit has hit an all time high of $262.7 billion. So much for the idea that […]
Read more...There are three good and overlapping state of global finance pieces tonight; they all have worthy ideas and I’ll integrate them as best I can. The first is a post by Thomas Palley, “The Subprime – Trade Deficit Connection,” which is a companion piece to th Financial Times article by Stephen Roach yesterday. Roach depicted […]
Read more...