Financial markets must start to account for the personalities of populist world leaders, according to veteran investment banker and philanthropist John Studzinski. His comments come at a time when market participants are increasingly concerned about a serious economic slowdown, with a long-running global trade war souring business and consumer sentiment.
At the midpoint of Donald Trump’s first term, historians have struggled to detect the kind of virtues that offset his predecessors’ vices: the infectious optimism of Reagan; the inspirational rhetoric of JFK; the legislative smarts of LBJ; or the governing pragmatism of Nixon. So rather than being viewed as the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Trump gets cast as a modern-day James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce or William Harrison.
The Chinese economy slowed further in the fourth quarter, matching its lowest recorded reading, last reached during the global financial crisis in 2009. The fourth quarter growth rate of 6.4 per cent, year on year, matched that of the first quarter of 2009, according to data released Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics. That was the lowest growth rate since the Chinese government began publishing quarterly growth rates at the beginning of 1992.
Read Here – South China Morning Post
Also Read: Trade war or peace, China is seeking economic stability not growth
In the film industry, the richest and most experienced studios and producers spend vast amounts of time and money on audience research, but still have no idea if their latest creations will turn out to be hits or flops. So why be surprised if the same is true of financial markets – or, for that matter, of commodity prices, policymaking, and corporate performance?
It has become a commonplace to describe the foreign policy of U.S. President Donald Trump as unpredictable. But doing so mischaracterizes the man and the policy. In fact, although Trump’s actions may often be shocking, they are rarely surprising.
As China surges forward again in Myanmar, new pressure to restart a controversial dam project could represent a watershed moment for bilateral relations. The Beijing-backed US$3.6 billion Myitsone dam project, which if built as previously designed would flood 600 square kilometers of forestland in northern Kachin state and export 90 % of the power produced to China, was suspended by Myanmar’s previous military-dominated government in September 2011.
The Pentagon has said China is using its expanding military, trading and infrastructure network to pursue global leadership in a report that warned that its global ambitions could undermine the security of the United States and its allies and threatened international economic corridors. Monday’s report assessed China’s military and non-military expansion efforts, such as the “Belt and Road Initiative” and the “Made in China 2025” industrial strategy, and their implications for America around the world.
Read Here – South China Morning Post
On September 28, 2018, tech died. That’s according to a widely circulated eulogy prepared by Vincent Deluard, a strategist at INTL FCStone, a financial services company. “If technology is everywhere, the tech sector no longer exists,” he wrote. “If the tech sector no longer exists, its premium is no longer justified.”
The likelihood of Britain leaving the European Union without a deal just got a whole lot higher—and Prime Minister Theresa May is largely to blame. On Tuesday, British lawmakers overwhelmingly voted against May’s negotiated agreement with the EU, delivering a damaging (albeit foreseeable) blow to her Brexit strategy.
Gulf states with deep pockets and big appetites are asserting themselves in the Horn of Africa as never before. The flurry of new economic and military investments is reshaping geopolitical dynamics on both sides of the Red Sea, as two formerly distinct regions are fast becoming one.
