At the risk of beating a dead horse on the topic of trade wars, the sequence of unfolding events is making me cautious near term.
Let me explain why.
First, for all those market pundits, analysts and investors who are following the twists and turns of this trade tiff using Trump’s Art of the Deal as their playbook…
I have a better read for you. Pick up a copy of Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War instead! Continue reading
One of the more troubling stories to hit the tape last week was that despite, or rather due to, roughly $100 billion in losses in the past 5 quarters, Japan’s gargantuan $1.4 trillion state pension fund, the GPIF, which has desperately been selling Japan’s best performing asset – Japanese Government Bonds – in order to buy local stocks and the Nikkei at its decade highs only to see its equity investment plunge, is now forced to buy even more stocks, i.e. double down, as part of a ridiculous rebalancing which will lead to even more losses.
Japan is not alone.
After China did everything to prop up its own stock market, including arresting hedge funders, sellers, “rumormongers”, halting short selling, eliminating futures trading, and ultimately culminating with the “Buttonwood SPV” in which the PBOC finally threw in the towel and admitted it was directly buying stocks, we now learn that Chinese pensioners are about to become unwitting stock funds. Continue reading
WASHINGTON – Confronted with a plunge in its stock markets last year, China’s central bank swiftly reached out to the U.S. Federal Reserve, asking it to share its playbook for dealing with Wall Street’s “Black Monday” crash of 1987.
The request came in a July 27 email from a People’s Bank of China official with a subject line: “Your urgent assistance is greatly appreciated!” Continue reading
Investors are pricing in a crisis.
With concerns about a hard landing in China playing the starring role in the risk-off environment that’s dominated so far in 2016, it’s no surprise that equities in the world’s second-largest economy have fared particularly poorly.
In local-currency terms, the Shanghai Composite is down almost 17 percent this year, far underperforming the MSCI World Index’s 7.5 percent retreat.
China’s benchmark stock index fell to a three-month low on concern a raft of measures to stabilize equities is failing to stop the bear-market rout as traders unwind margin bets at a record pace.
The Shanghai Composite Index slid 3.6 percent to 3,592.35 at 1:04 p.m., after plunging as much as 8.2 percent, the most since 2007. Power, health-care and consumer companies led declines, as only 46 stocks among the 1,106 that trade in Shanghai rose. PetroChina Co. and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the two biggest stocks, lost more than 2 percent.
Hong Kong’s de facto central bank bought $2.07 billion this week to stop the local currency from strengthening beyond its 31-year-old peg to the greenback.
Share listings, dividends and mergers and acquisitions are driving demand, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority said July 26. OAO MegaFon, Russia’s second-largest wireless operator, has shifted some of its cash holdings into the city’s dollar as the U.S. and Europe ratchet up sanctions, Chief Financial Officer Gevork Vermishyan said in an interview yesterday. Continue reading
Having South Korea on the list should send a dire message as to how bad of a situation the United States is in. As each day passes, we’re heading towards what looks like complete destruction of the US dollar and collapse of the economy — and at an exponential rate.
First came the shocking news from South Korea. They are planning to reduce their holdings of U.S. dollars as reserve currency in favor of the Yuan and Chinese equities. From an investment relationship, this sounds prudent but runs very contrary to the once unique relationship we held with South Korea. The fact that the government might prefer Chinese stocks to U.S dollars says a great deal. This is setting the stage for what we have described as Phase Three, a direct attack on the sovereign credit of the United States and the U.S. dollar as global reserve currency. We outlined the plans in detail in our book (www.secretweapon.org) and have covered the issue extensively in previous blog posts. We knew that Iran was turning against the dollar. But South Korea?
We should also note that we are losing favor in the Middle East as well as Asia. The Dubai Police Chief gave an important speech in which he faulted the United States for allying with the Muslim Brotherhood. In response, he used his influence to suggest that the Gulf States turn to China and even Russia. He described a chief threat to Gulf State Security as ECONOMIC in the form of unemployment. This was after he proclaimed U.S. policy the number one threat in the region. And, he shared that China’s economy was a better ally than America. Dubai has been a rock of stability in the region but now considers the United States more of a threat than an ally. He is speaking of economic terms and we are losing the economic war globally.
Full article: We Are Losing Allies in this Economic War (Global Economic Warfare)
Global Geopolitics 