“Other than the record bull market in stocks, it is hard to name one good thing on the global economic front. Trade and investment are declining, as are economic growth rates and business confidence…
“…But stock markets in the US and elsewhere have marched on regardless, buoyed by continuing monetary easing…
“This financial house of cards must surely collapse and it looks like this will happen sooner rather than later.
“If stock markets do enter a correction, that could create a perfect storm. So much hangs upon the wealth effect and inflated asset values created by the equity bull market…
“The sun goes down and the sun comes up but the coming eclipse could be scary indeed.”
“This isn’t just affecting Alberta alone, across the country 38,400 full-time jobs and 32,800 part-time jobs were lost in November. Canada’s overall unemployment rate went up 0.4 percent since October being the biggest one-month hike since 2009…
“Jim Sparrow, a long-time realtor in Calgary told the CBC that “the resale prices have been falling for almost five years since the price of oil fell.”
https://www.thepostmillennial.com/alberta-and-b-c-suffer-massive-job-losses/
“The Calgary Herald estimates that Alberta is home to 93,000 inactive and orphaned oil and gas wells.
“While many of those wells are owned by financially viable companies, an increasing number are not. This represents a “looming financial and environmental crisis” reminiscent of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis…”
“South Africa’s state power utility Eskom is one of the biggest challenges facing the country. Mess up Eskom, and you mess up the country. And it looks as though key players are doing just that…
“What we see in Chile, where public anger has spilled out onto the streets, is what can be expected to emerge as ordinary South Africans experience the true implications of this failure to decisively resolve the crisis. are responsible for triggering a crisis that will be resolved on the streets.”
“Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri wrote to the leaders of Germany, Britain and Spain on Saturday to request help in securing credit for imports, his office said.
“Lebanon is suffering an economic and financial crisis that has led to hard currency shortages, impeding imports.”
“As a consequence of the year-long slowdown in sales of automobiles across the country, the total turnover of the automotive component manufacturing industry declined by 10% year-on-year to ₹1.79 lakh crore in the first half of the fiscal ending March 2020…”
“China’s economy is slowing and that could bring more bad news for India already hit by six-year low GDP growth in the last quarter.
“The ‘dragon nation’ is expected to try and dump products not only in India’s traditional markets abroad, posing a challenge to its faltering exports, but also in the Indian marketplace, making life more difficult for domestic manufacturers, already buffeted by a demand crunch.”
“China’s car sales continued their decline in November, extending a historic slump and all but ensuring a second straight annual drop for the world’s biggest market.
“Sales of sedans, sport utility vehicles, minivans and multipurpose vehicles fell 4.2% from a year earlier to 1.97 million units…”
“China’s exports in November fell 1.1 per cent from a year earlier, marking a fourth successive monthly decline as the pain of the trade war with the United States continues to hit the world’s second-largest economy.
“The dip was below the expectations of a group of analysts polled by Bloomberg…”
“China’s coal imports plunged 19% in November from the previous month as tighter import rules at ports curbed shipments towards the year’s end…
“Customs officials at several ports in Guangdong, Jiangsu and Shandong province in eastern China have halted clearance for vessels carrying coal since late October…”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-china-economy-trade-coal/chinas-november-coal-imports-slump-19-month-on-month-on-port-curbs-idUKKBN1YC03Q
“A state-owned enterprise (SOE) in China’s northern province of Inner Mongolia defaulted on part of a 1 billion yuan ($142.1 million) privately-issued bond over the weekend, the latest in a string of corporate delinquencies that has raised concerns about contagion risk as the economy slows.”
“The South Korean economy continues to be mired in an economic slump for the ninth month in a row without clear signs of recovery in exports and investment, state think tank said on Sunday…
“The state-run think tank noted that industrial production in the manufacturing sector has slowed down amid a significant fall in exports due to sluggish demand at home and abroad.”
https://pulsenews.co.kr/view.php?year=2019&no=1026602
“First it was Japan. Then Europe. Now investors are scanning the world for the next outbreak of stagnant inflation and tumbling yields.
““Central banks have no choice but to be supportive of risk assets and asset prices until such time as fiscal expansion is possible,” said Nomura Asset Management’s Richard Hodges.”
“European [bank] bosses have been left with little option but to slash tens of thousands more jobs to try to address their chronically poor profitability.
“Hemmed in by the European Central Bank’s long-term extension of negative rates, slowing economic growth, Brexit and burgeoning regulatory requirements, lenders across Germany, UK, France, Spain and Switzerland have collectively announced more than 60,000 jobs cuts this year.”
“The great global deregulation has begun.
“The signs are subtle so far, but last week threw up four pieces of evidence that the US and Europe are poised to compete to ease bank regulation — in turn threatening the co-ordinated global approach that has helped make the international banking system safer in the decade since the financial crisis.”
https://www.ft.com/content/fc15abec-182e-11ea-8d73-6303645ac406
“When one of the more arcane bits of the global financial system’s plumbing seized up in September the authorities were quick to dismiss it as a one-off event. It’s now clear the meltdown in the US “repo” market was due to circumstances that were more complex and disturbing than the initial diagnosis suggested.
“Significantly, the malfunctioning of the US repo market showed the policies of central banks and prudential regulators have changed the roles and diminished the capacity of banks to respond to stresses in key parts of the financial system.”
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