Several major European car manufacturers have scheduled days with zero production, on the expectation that the market will shrink again in 2012, “a further indication that the debt crisis is beginning to hit the real economy.” And in this article the head of one of the US’s biggest manufacturers warns that the US and …
Continue reading “European recession “likely” or “already here””
Cost of capital brings competitive advantage. And cost of capital is related to trust, or risk. India has a current account deficit — it is importing more than it exports — so it needs to borrow money to fund the imports.
GAP has announced that it will close 21% of its 889 US stores over the next two years, and triple its number of outlets in China by the end of 2012.
Even China’s strong internal growth can only partially compensate for the negative impact of the West’s economic and debt crises. In the 12 months to September, exports grew by ‘only’ 17% (down from 25% in the year to August). In the same period, imports grew by ‘just’ 21% (compared with 30% in the year to …
Globalisation of the world’s money markets has taken a big step forward as stock exchanges in Brazil, Hong Kong, Russia, India, South Africa announced they will cross-list each others’ stock index futures and contracts for index options.
Quantitative Easing was intended to kick-start the economy by tackling the credit crunch, making new credit available in the US and Europe. What actually happened was that the financial institutions preferred to place the money where they could get a bigger return — emerging markets — with the result that not only did the intended …
But the change is coming slowly. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3aa54f1a-f3fe-11e0-b221-00144feab49a.html
For the record, the renminbi rose 0.6 percent against the dollar today, the largest rise since 2005. Chinese authorities are believed to have engineered the rise in response to growing criticism from the US, where critics believe it is undervalued by as much as 40%.
Large institutional investors believe that iron ore prices are unlikely to drop, even if the world enters a double-dip recession. The London Metals Index is down just over 20% this year, but iron ore has fallen less than one percent. In part, this is because the market in iron ore derivatives is relatively young (just over …
The volatility we have come to expect in oil showed its face again as oil closed up around 8%-10% on the week on news of a nearing deal on the Eurozone crisis. We can expect this to continue. High oil prices will dampen the economy, which drive prices down again, so will grow the economy …
Continue reading ““Oil surges on hopes of bank rescue deal””