ASIA: Some Bank of Japan board members were concerned that excessive currency volatility could disrupt corporate business plans, minutes of the bank’s April meeting showed, highlighting the challenge for policymakers from the yen’s sharp declines. At the April 27-28 meeting, the BOJ strengthened its commitment to keep interest rates ultra-low by vowing to buy unlimited […]

ASIA: Australia’s top central banker on Tuesday flagged a lot more policy tightening ahead as rates were still “very low” and it was important that higher inflation did not feed into public expectations and wage claims. Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Governor Philip Lowe warned price pressures continued to build both globally and domestically and […]

Today marks the first official observance of Juneteenth. The holiday was declared in 2021, but this is the first year that US stock and bond markets will cease trading. The new national holiday is intended to celebrate the Union Army General Gordon Granger’s proclamation on June 19, 1865, ending slavery in Texas. Even after President […]

ASIA: The UAE has placed a ban on the export and re-export of all varieties of wheat from India for four months. The resolution applies to all varieties of wheat and wheat flour, which were imported into the country before 13, May 2022, the ministry of economy said in a statement issued on Wednesday. The […]

The European Central Bank has announced that it plans to create a new tool to tackle the risk of eurozone fragmentation, which is the new term for divergence among member states. They are adopting this tactic out of fears of a new European debt crisis that is inevitable. From the very beginning when the EU […]

ASIA: India has witnessed the sharpest rise among the Asian economies, with a six-position jump from 43rd to 37th rank on the annual World Competitiveness Index compiled by the Institute for Management Development, largely due to gains in economic performance. Japan’s Nikkei index fell for a third day on Tuesday amid risks to growth from […]

ASIA: The Japanese economy contracted in the first quarter, but at a slower pace than earlier estimated, the government data released  last Wednesday showed. The world’s third-largest economy contracted at an annual rate of 0.5 per cent, according to Cabinet Office data. That was smaller than the 1.0 per cent contraction in the preliminary estimate for […]

ASIA: Five global banks signed up as cornerstone members of the Alliance for Green Commercial Banks, a global green banking initiative established by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC). The five cornerstone banks are Bank of China (Hong Kong), Citigroup, Crédit Agricole CIB, HSBC, and Standard Chartered. […]

Inflation in the euro area reached a record high of 8.1% in May across the 19-member states. It is no longer possible for the European Central Bank (ECB) to release optimistic or neutral forecasts. The ECB now expects inflation to hover near 6.8% in 2022 before declining to 3.5% in 2023 and finally landing near […]

Governments are pulling off a major profound theft. They have been violating international law robbing individual Russians with no connection to Ukraine on the pretense that this will somehow put pressure on Putin to leave Ukraine. But the US has been funding the civil war against Russian-Ukrainians in the Donbas. Western Ukrainians simply hate Russians […]