ASIA: Chinese regulators are reportedly pressing Jack Ma’s fintech Ant Group to share consumer data with Beijing, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Ma, founder of Alibaba and its affiliate Ant Group, hasn’t been seen in public in two months. On Monday, CNBC anchor David Faber reported that he was laying low, rather than missing. […]

ASIA: China’s economic growth could reach as high as 9 percent next year, and its rapid rebound from the coronavirus pandemic may help the economy overtake the US to become the world’s largest later this decade, analysts said. Nomura and China International Capital Corporation put China’s gross domestic product growth for 2021 at 9 percent. […]

ASIA: The UK-based Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said China’s “skillful” management of Covid-19 would boost its relative growth compared to the US and Europe in coming years, and China will overtake the US to become the world’s largest economy by 2028, five years earlier than previously forecast. Meanwhile, India is tipped to […]

Many people are praying that Vice President Mike Pence will reject the count from the disputed states for it is his plenary duty to accept or reject those votes. The 1800 and 1824 elections were contingent elections in Congress after no candidate won a majority of electoral college votes, and a special 15-person commission decided the […]

QUESTION: Hey Martin – I love the insights you have and Socrates seems to be spot on about most things. It’s just hard to read your blog posts. It seems like we all will have no choice but to submit to Communism 3.0. How do we fight this? You say they will lose in the […]

by Charles Bragg (1931-2017)  The markets have been dominated by the elections and COVID. The future is clearly being dictated by what is taking place politically on a global scale. When we look around the world we clearly see that even the German share market is positioning itself as an alternative to bonds. The commodities […]

NOTE: We wish our readers a happy and healthy holiday season. Due to decreased market activity, and some well deserved time off, we will suspend Market Talk until January 4, 2021. Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to providing you with Market Talk blog postings again in the new year! ASIA: China […]

ASIA: Following a US announcement of new visa restrictions on Chinese officials, China hit back with reciprocal actions Tuesday against unnamed American officials in the latest back-and-forth. The Foreign Ministry also called on President Donald Trump not to sign into law legislation approved by Congress on Tibet. The visa action came in response to a […]

ASIA: Chinese leaders who attended the Central Economic Work Conference from Dec. 16 to 18 were buoyant about China’s relative successes, while remaining cautious on major changes to stimulus policies, CNBC reported according to state media. The annual gathering sets development priorities for the upcoming year. Analysts who followed the meeting said it provided little […]

The Supreme Court has come out and made a statement denying that Chief Justice Roberts screamed in a room because they met by phone. This shows that they have been monitoring the comments since they denied the Texas lawsuit when there was no justification for “discretion” to deny taking the case. This is like asking […]