"The IMF also expects the Venezuelan economy to contract 15% this year, leading to a cumulative GDP decline since 2013 of 50%. Venezuela's collapse, while contained, is so profound it is now holding back the rebound of the entire region: while Latin America is expected to grow 1.9% this year, the number would be 2.5% without Venezuela according to Bloomberg."
"Over time, attaining financial wealth became an absolute prerequisite for wielding geopolitical power and influence. The old military variety appears almost feeble standing next to the contemporary Financial Arms Race."
"The currency war has arrived. So say some of the best and brightest in the $5.1 trillion-per-day foreign-exchange market."
"Global foreign direct investment flows were down 18% in 2017 from the previous year and nearly 24% from its post-recession high in 2015, which the OECD attributed to a surge in financial and corporate restructuring."
"The collapse of the peso comes despite an endless series of measures to halt it."
"While Turkish President Erdogan was busy talking up his currency and begging his people not to sell Lira for dollars, his air force was once again running interference with Greece."
"The biggest importer of Iranian oil is China. There are also efforts being made by China, the world’s second largest economy, to trade oil in yuan."
"While the bonds yield minus 3.1 percent, it’s a small price to pay in a country where capital controls have caused multiple black-market exchange rates to proliferate and rampant inflation has eroded the value of peso deposits. Foreign companies, prevented from repatriating dividends because of the controls, are also buying the securities as a hedge against a potential devaluation, which has become more likely as trading partners from Brazil to China weaken their own currencies, said Eduardo Levy-Yeyati, director of economic consultant Elypsis. The government sold the equivalent of $1.1 billion of dollar-linked bonds due in 2017 on Tuesday, the first such sale in nine months." Continue reading →
"Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Friday he had no plan to expand monetary stimulus now, blaming sharp declines in oil costs for keeping consumer inflation distant from the bank's ambitious 2 percent target. While he maintained his optimistic view of the economy, Kuroda stressed his resolve to ease monetary policy further if risks threaten achievement of the BOJ's price target. The remarks, made in response to a question by an opposition lawmaker, pushed down Japanese stocks on disappointment that no immediate monetary stimulus was forthcoming." Continue reading →
"That question -- unanswered since the 1970s, under an unusual blackout by the U.S. Treasury Department -- has come to the fore as Saudi Arabia is pressured by plunging oil prices and costly wars in the Middle East. As a matter of policy, the Treasury has never disclosed the holdings of Saudi Arabia, long a key ally in the volatile Middle East, and instead groups it with 14 other mostly OPEC nations including Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Nigeria. Apart from the kingdom itself, only a handful of Treasury officials, and those at the Federal Reserve who compile the data on their behalf, have a clear picture of Saudi Arabia’s U.S. debt holdings and whether they’re rising or falling." Continue reading →