The minutes of the FOMC’s policy meeting July 26-27 showed voting members were split over whether to raise US rates soon. The majority of the committee believe more macro data is needed before hiking rates, but some expect a move will be needed sooner rather than later.
Coco Feng via Caixin | Growth in China’s fixed-asset investment from January to July slipped to 8.1 percent, the lowest year-to-date rate in over 16 years, as private companies tightened their purse strings, data from the National Statistics Bureau (NBS) released on August 12 showed.
Ceng Ying via Caixin | Chinese athlete Deng Wei clinched a gold medal in the Olympic women’s weight-lifting competition on August 11, winning fame and, likely, some financial security. But the price paid by this 23-year old from an impoverished village in western part of Fujian province was a steep one, as it is with many athletes.
Julius Baer Research| As speculation swirls ahead of next month’s informal oil producer meeting, it feels like ground hog day in the oil market. With prices diving into the lower 40s per barrel, talks about supply cuts from oil cartel’s members, OPEC, have resurfaced. We see the chances of any action as exceptionally slim.
Mark McFarland (UBP) | Brexit has had a cathartic effect which is likely to continue for a long time. Although Asia as a whole does not have very close links to the UK, the Asian markets are very sensitive to global growth, investment flows and interest rates in US dollars. What happens next in Europe will be crucial for Asia in the next few months.
There are a lot of indicators which basically show that the US economy is strong, but it’s a “weak” strength, since it has been unable to maintain average growth of 2%. A weakness I see in the US economy is investment: in the second quarter it declined, which is not a sign of strength.
J. L. Martínez Campuzano (Spanish Banking Association) | The BoJ has begun a period of reflection to try to answer the question of why expansionary monetary measures are not being reflected in higher inflation. I honestly believe that this is a reflection which other central banks should undertake. But, in the end, the easiest thing will always be to continue with more measures without a clear strategy of what their final objectives are.
Why are interest rates so low? We have explained that the reason is the weak credit situation for financing investment.