Steve Keller via Atlantic Sentinel | What is the essence of Donald Trump? Is he an aspiring strongman? Or is he just a plain old bumbler? These two schools of thought have been in competition ever since we started to take Trump seriously. The answer: He’s both. After the firing of FBI director James Comey on Tuesday evening, this has been made astoundingly clear.
The commodity complex continues to soften with oil prices sliding below USD 50 per barrel and Chinese heavy industry commodities rushing lower. The resource reflation tide recedes with benchmark indices such as the Bloomberg Commodity Index trending towards last year’s levels. Commodity prices revert towards fundamentally reasonable levels on supply rather than demand trends.
After two days in Washington DC meeting with politicians and policymakers, BoAML analysts conclude that energy “is a policy cornerstone, together with tax reform, in this Administration”
Despite quantitative easing and 3 years of more synchronised developed economy growth, it is not clear that inflation has really got any traction. Technology, globalisation, unemployment and changes in working practices have all contributed to the lack of inflationary pressures and still do.
Spain views this massive trade initiative to link the Far East with the West- known as New Silk Road- with some degree of scepticism. Other European countries have also underestimated it, but what is certain is that their companies are signing contracts.
The improving macroeconomic backdrop and continued rise of the middle class as well as high private health spending, make Brazil a potentially “attractive” investment destination. However, AXA IM analyst Manolis Davradakis point that “the emerging market’s poor ranking in terms of ease of doing business and international competitiveness, plenty of risks remain.
Stephen Chan | Bernard Henri Levy, the French intellectual and provocateur, recently said that, in the wake of the US withdrawal into itself, the world stage would feature five empires. These would be Russia, Iran, Turkey, Islamic extremism and the commercial might of China.
There are still divergences between the monetary policies of the Fed and the ECB. But if Draghi meets expectations for progressive withdrawal of the stimuli from September and rate hikes in the first few months of 2018, a new “currencies war” is not on the cards in the near future.
Despite the chaos of the Trump administration, prices have reached the Fed’s target. The announced “tapering” is complicated because if the central bank is not careful rates could shoot up more than necessary.