“A team led by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s top economic aide and tasked with maintaining financial stability amid an escalating trade war with the United States and a weakening economy met for the 10th time in two months on Saturday… ““The anxiety among the top leadership is 100 per cent,” Xu Jianwei, senior China economist at French bank Natixis, said.
““One of Beijing’s top priorities for this year was deleveraging, but that policy has shifted gradually because there are more serious problems,” he said.
““If deleveraging continues, many Chinese companies may die in the process. But if deleveraging slows down, the financial risks will continue to pile up. So regulators are for sure very worried, and I don’t think they have found a particularly good way out of it.””
“China’s tax cuts next year could exceed the equivalent of 1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), a central bank adviser said in remarks published on Monday, in a sign policymakers might be considering another round of tax reductions.”
“It’s an oddity of Japan’s corporate bond market: many debt sales that bankers said were successful actually weren’t. The secret may be getting harder to keep. Underwriters failed to fully sell at least 29 percent of company note offerings in September, twice the average over the past six months, according to information compiled by Bloomberg…”
“Sydney’s housing market is facing the toughest conditions since the global financial crisis after auction rates slumped again at the weekend, with analysts predicting that the slowdown could get much worse in the months ahead. Australia’s biggest city saw only 44% of 567 listed properties sold at the weekend, according to Domain, the lowest preliminary clearance rate for a decade.”
“Argentina’s inflation is running at an annualised 40.5%, helped along by a depreciating peso and higher consumer utility bills due to reductions in government subsidies to power providers. The country is in recession, its government bonds are being shunned, and its currency slammed. The peso has almost halved in value since the start of the year.”
“Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has accepted the resignation of the embattled ministers of industry and roads, a statement on the presidential website said on Saturday. The president thanked industry minister Mohammad Shariatmadari and roads minister Abbas Akhoundi’s for their “selfless service” and “sincere efforts” during their tenures.”
“The IL&FS board, chaired by Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd’s managing director, Uday Kotak, is likely to pitch the centre for a government bailout. While the final contours of the programme are still being prepared, the people cited above said it could be a variant of the US government’s rescue act under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act following the 2008 financial crisis.”
“Wall Street is preparing for the next global recession. Reliable Saudi oil supplies are threatened, China’s domestic economy is ripe for a reckoning and American tariff wars are cranking up. The last thing the global economic system needs right now is a petulant, provocative, debt-ridden and budget-busting Italy. The world has just gotten the last thing it needs.”
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/10/21/how-italy-is-threatening-the-world-economy/
“Fears that Italy’s banks face a black hole in their finances are expected to grow this week following a debt downgrade that could send the value of bank reserves plummeting. Despite efforts to shore up Italian banks’ reserves, a downgrade by the ratings agency Moody’s on Friday following a row between Rome and Brussels over the government’s budget could send them into freefall again.”
“Work will be moved out of the UK and jobs will be lost, unless the government finalises a Brexit withdrawal agreement by December, the director general of the CBI has warned. Carolyn Fairbairn said business reality would soon start to outpace Brexit negotiations, and decisions will have to be taken to counteract uncertainty.”
“FTSE companies that have issued a profit warning in the third quarter of 2018 have suffered an average 21 per cent fall in the value of their shares, marking the sharpest drop in nearly 10 years… A flurry of embattled retailers have sounded the alarm bell in recent months, with high street giants such as Debenhams spooking many City investors in the wake of warnings issued since the start of 2018.”
http://www.cityam.com/266327/profit-warnings-trigger-sharpest-drop-share-prices-since
“The good times are back on Wall Street. Last year, the average Wall Street salary rose 13% to its highest level since 2008, just before the financial crisis shattered the financial world. According to a report from New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, annual pay excluding bonuses hit $422,500 on average last year.”
https://www.valuewalk.com/2018/10/wall-street-salary-hit-highest-level-since-2008/
“If it wasn’t before, it is definitely a slump now. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said today that the sales of existing homes across the US in September 2018 fell more than 3% seasonally-adjusted from August. At just 5.15 million (SAAR), that’s the lowest volume in almost three years.”
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4212919-slump-now
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