ASIA:   CRISIL expects India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth to touch 6% in fiscal 2024, compared with 7% estimated by the National Statistics Office (NSO) for fiscal 2023. Consumer inflation is expected to moderate to 5.0% on average in fiscal 2024 from 6.8% in fiscal 2023, owing to high-base effect and some softening of crude and commodity […]

ASIA:   Asia was an outlier for Zara owner Inditex last year, the only region where profits fell as China faced COVID-19 lockdowns, while profit ballooned in the Americas, the fashion retailer’s annual report showed on Thursday. Inditex, the world’s biggest fashion retailer, reported record annual sales on Wednesday. It has been expanding in the […]

In an interview on May 11, 2014, I explained on USAWatchdog that confidence always outweighs reality. “It’s basically what you believe. There have been all sorts of studies on fundamentals that say if interest rates go up, stocks go down.  It is simply not true.  The stock market has never peaked with interest rates twice […]

  ASIA: China’s embattled property sector made new progress in its climb out of a months-long slump as official data for January-February on Wednesday showed much narrower declines in home sales, developer investment and construction starts. Home sales by floor area in the first two months of 2023 fell 3.6% from a year earlier, according […]

ASIA: The major Asian stock markets had a negative day today: NIKKEI 225 decreased 610.92 points or -2.19% to 27,222.04 Shanghai decreased 23.38 points or -0.72% to 3,245.31 Hang Seng decreased 448.01 points or -2.27% to 19,247.96 ASX 200 decreased 99.90 points or -1.41% to 7,008.90 Kospi decreased 61.63 points or -2.56% to 2,348.97 SENSEX […]

ASIA: China’s efforts to ramp up lithium extraction could see it accounting for nearly a third of the world’s supply by the middle of the decade, according to UBS AG. The bank expects Chinese-controlled mines, including projects in Africa, to raise output to 705,000 tons by 2025 from 194,000 tons in 2022. That would lift […]

  The Biden Administration is responding to the panic phone calls that their Marxist philosophy will bring down the entire financial system. My ear is red as can be. I have had enough of the phone calls today to last the balance of the month. Trying just to do the right thing! Three banks have […]

ASIA:   Xi Jinping secured a precedent-breaking third term as president of China on Friday during a parliamentary session in which he tightened his control of the world’s second-largest economy as it emerges from a COVID slump and diplomatic challenges mount. Nearly 3,000 members of China’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), voted unanimously […]

ASIA:   The major Asian stock markets had a mixed day today: NIKKEI 225 increased 178.96 points or 0.63% to 28,623.15 Shanghai decreased 7.15 points or -0.22% to 3,276.09 Hang Seng decreased 125.51 points or -0.63% to 19,925.74 ASX 200 increased 3.30 points or 0.05% to 7,311.10 Kospi decreased 12.82 points or -0.53% to 2,419.09 […]

QUESTION: The sales pitch seems to be that there is this $2 quadrillion in global debt that overhangs everything. Paper assets, therefore, will all implode!  They seem to be saying that everything has risen due to this debt bubble and it was all created with Zero interest rates. Now that they are going up, the debt […]