Asia

Highlights The US dollar is mixed against the major and emerging market currencies.  The euro is consolidating in yesterday’s range as bonds stabilize and despite a smaller than expected German trade surplus.  Comments from EU…

Here is more of Marc Faber, this time with Stephen Roach joining from Asia. Faber starts things off by making a point I have made many times in the past, namely that the Federal Reserve’s easy money policy is asymmetric; they are quick to…

You kind of saw this coming didn’t you. Asians remember the Depression that began there a decade ago all too vividly. Many still see the West to blame because of the draconian economic policy solutions meted out by the IMF, including now-US…

The following is a re-print of the latest monthly newsletter from Niels Jensen of Absolute Return Partners, published with the express permission of the author. Visit www.arpllp.com to learn more about Absolute Return Partners.  You…

Is it just me or did Secretary Geithner just talk out of other side of his mouth? Today he wrote an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal with two Asian leaders to mark a big meeting of APEC (Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation) in Singapore.…

I tend to think so. Yesterday, Ben Bernanke made what some media outlets are calling hawkish statements.  This, combined with heavy currency intervention by Asian central banks, helped to strengthen the U.S. dollar. However one must…

Earlier today we learned that the Singapore PMI was much weaker than expected for September 2009, coming in at 50.6 versus 54.4 for August. While this demonstrates that the manufacturing sector there is still rising, it is doing so just…

The data being reported out of Asia is in marked contrast to what we are seeing in Europe and North America.  Last week, I noted that Singapore had put up big numbers.  China is also expanding robustly. Compare that with the data coming out…

Back in April, I mentioned a story about BTA, a bank in Kazakhstan that had been nationalized by the state in February.  The interesting bit about the story was that interested parties from abroad (including Morgan Stanley) had…

The Economist released its remarkably telling Big Mac Index this past weekend.  The index looks at the relative cost of Big Mac in various countries to gauge how over- or undervalued the currencies in those locales are.  Judging…