WASHINGTON | By Pablo Pardo | Freight trains and flipped houses are not ‘cool’ indicators. But they tell much more about the US than the unemployment rate or the GDP figures. The last figures show how the U.S. keeps on gaining strength.
BEIJING | By W. Jiapeng, H. Haoyi, Z.Shiyun and G. McCubbing via Caixin | The second time around to China has offered much more promise than the first some two years ago, Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla Motors Inc, said in an interview with Caixin. In three or four years, Musk plans to have cars produced in China, which will mean setting up a joint venture with a local partner, influencing the car industry to move faster in the direction of electric cars.
LONDON | By Aroop Chatterjee at Barclays | Implied volatilities in a number of asset markets have been recently trading close to their lowest levels since 2007. This has happened despite prevailing uncertainties about the durability of US economic growth or the path of Fed policy.
LONDON | By Tal Shapsa at Barclays | Our export performance analysis points to a positive outlook for the fragile five of the emerging countries. A simple model we developed – which attempts to gauge future changes in the current accounts based on the export performance indices – suggests that the recent improvement will likely be sustained, providing additional tailwind for EM trades and carry in particular.
SAO PAULO | By Marcus Nunes | According to San Francisco Fed president John Williams (and he´s far from being a lone voice) it seems “financial stability” is right up there together with inflation and unemployment.
BEIJING | By Andy Xie via Caixin | What’s important in today’s financial world is perception, not substance. If you check out what important financial figures have proposed in the past, they have been good for forming bubbles, not for growing the real economy.People around the world will only begin to question their economic policymakers when they realize living standards are slowly worsening.
WASHINGTON | By Pablo Pardo | America is losing one of its culture icons. Born in the 50s to provide customers with both entertainment and a purchasing experience, shopping malls are no longer attractive nor exclusive. As the middle class -which used to be the malls’ main target- is leaving the suburbs due to gentrification, its members prefer to run their errands online or downtown.
MADRID | By Álex García.
BEIJING | By Caixin | A breakthrough can only happen when central SOEs inChina – not just their subsidiaries – welcome private investment.
WASHINGTON | By Pablo Pardo | It is twice easier getting a minimum wage job with no benefits at Wal-Mart than being admitted as an undergrad to Harvard. The comparison shows how extreme is the labor market in the US for non-educated workers, and also that, in today’s world, getting a first-class education can be easier than a third-class job.