ASIA:   India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, seeking to arrest the rupee’s slide, is asking local banks to not build additional positions in the non-deliverable forward market, a move that could lead to offshore volatility spilling into local markets, bankers and traders said. The build-up of positions in this segment of the […]

ASIA: Japan’s inflation-adjusted gross domestic product shrank 0.3% in August from July as exports to China and Europe fell, as local demand remains sluggish, the Japan Center for Economic Research said in a report released on Tuesday. It is the first month-on-month contraction since May for the world’s third-largest economy, owing largely to external factors, […]

ASIA:   China’s central bank extended its bilateral currency swaps with European Central Bank, worth 350 billion yuan or 45 billion euros, according to a statement published on the Chinese central bank’s website on Monday. The swaps extension will help deepen bilateral cooperation and safeguard financial market stabilization, the Chinese central bank said. The International […]

In 2020, Pierre Poilievre, chief Conservative spokesman on finance issues, said Canada’s central bank “should not be an ATM for Trudeau’s insatiable spending appetites.” Conservatives cooperated with the Liberals when it came to COVID-19 emergency spending. Everyone was in on that power grab. Now the nation is in worse shape, further in debt, and inflation […]

ASIA:   Holiday spending during China’s Golden Week fell to a seven-year low as broad Covid restrictions discouraged people from traveling or spending, while a darker economic outlook continued to dent consumer confidence. Spending by tourists for the week-long holiday that began Oct. 1 fell 26% year-on-year to 287.2 billion yuan ($40.4 billion), according to […]

ASIA:   China’s GDP forecast is to be anywhere between 2.2 percent and 4.1 percent based on a survey conducted by Nikkei last month. Economists and other observers, globally, have also revised the GDP outlook for 2022 to 3.2 percent against Beijing’s official target of 5.5 percent. Compared to the second quarter when the economy […]

ASIA: Growth in India’s services industry eased to a six-month low in September, led by a cooling in demand amid high inflation, a private survey showed. The S&P Global India services Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 54.3 in September from August’s 57.2, lower than the Reuters poll expectation of 57.0. However, the September reading stayed […]

ASIA:   Business sentiment among Japanese manufacturers worsened for a third straight quarter from July to September, according to a survey by the central bank, as the world’s third-largest economy struggled with rising costs, a slumping yen and pandemic restrictions. The business outlook for major manufacturers fell to plus-8 in September from plus-9 in June, […]

ASIA:   The Agricultural Bank of China will provide more than 300 billion yuan ($43.3 billion) in loans to support the country’s autumn harvest and planting, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Monday. According to a CCTV report, the loan will focus on areas including grain production, storage of agricultural products, cold chain logistics and […]

  QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; Nobody knows history better than you. Will QE continue if we end up in war? It seems there would be no choice. Thank you for your very enlightening blog. PG ANSWER: Yes. The Fed was “directed” by the White House to carry out QE during World War II. They were to […]