Weekly Briefing

News Summary On Wednesday, Philip Jefferson took the oath of office as the Federal Reserve Board’s new vice chair, as policymakers gear up for an interest-rate-setting meeting next week. Jefferson, who will be the second Black person to hold the vice chair post, will continue to hold a separate term as governor, which runs through 2036. […]

News Summary   The week started with the Typhoon Haikui hiting Taiwan and China. In Taiwan, more than 7000 people were evacuated from high-risk areas, and at least 40 people were injured in the storm. Now, a brief note about the ageing government representatives in the US. The top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell, 81, has

Summary China’s State Council rolled out a trillion yuan package in economic stimulus. The latest $146 billion in assistance will target infrastructure, property, and private business. The initiatives are expected to cover a range of targets the government has identified as in need of support. Among the targets were state banks that were given an

Summary This week, the spotlight was the FED chair speech at the Jackson Hole symposium. No news…they are data dependent and we’ll have to wait. The speech was neutral, in my opinion.   In the US, new orders for manufactured durable goods plummeted by 5.2% in July 2023, the sharpest decrease since the aftermath of

Summary   China’s industrial production only grew 3.7% year-on-year compared to the expected 4.4%, while retail sales posted an even bigger miss, coming in 2% lower than forecasts at 2.5%. What’s more is that less than an hour before the release of the July data, China’s central bank cut a key interest rate by 15bps

Summary and Comment In July 2022, Ukraine and Russia made a deal that allowed the resumption of vital grain exports from Ukrainian Black Sea ports, easing a global food crisis sparked by the war. However, last month The grain deal expired (on 17 July 2023). Since then, Russia has launched a series of air attacks

Summary and Comment   The Eurozone economy grew by 0.6% year-on-year (YoY) in the second quarter of 2023, easing from a 1.1% expansion in the previous period but slightly surpassing market consensus of 0.5%, a preliminary estimate showed. It was the weakest pace of growth since the 2020-21 period. We may question this number, as

Summary and Commentary In May, treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that more mergers among midsize U.S. banks could be necessary after a series of bank failures. And she was right. This week, Banc of California and PacWest merged. Still on the banking theme… The FED, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the

Summary and Comment Consumer price inflation in the United Kingdom dropped to 7.9% in June 2023, marking the lowest level since March 2022 and slightly below the market consensus of 8.2%, mainly due to a slump in fuel prices. Additionally, the core rate, which excludes volatile items such as energy and food, eased to 6.9%

Summary and Comments This week’s highlights are on the inflation data all around the world. China’s consumer price inflation (YoY) came out flat (0%) in June 2023, missing market expectations. This was the lowest reading since a deflation in February 2021. Core consumer prices, which exclude prices of food and energy, went up 0.4% YoY,