China

The conclusion of the recently released Geneva report is that debt is the Achilles heel of this cyclical recovery. The Geneva economists warn that, despite the widespread belief that a general deleveraging has occurred due to the Great…

By Michael Pettis Doug, Pancoast, an American entrepreneur living in Shanghai, asked to interview me for his blog, and I agreed to do so. I think it was meant to be a brief interview, but I began to respond on a Saturday evening, while…

I have always thought that the soft landing/hard landing debate wholly misses the point when it comes to China’s economic prospects. It confuses the kinds of market-based adjustments we are likely to see in the US or Europe with the much…

Welcome back to Credit Writedowns! Labor Day is behind us now and I intend to have a much more regular posting schedule going forward. But the lack of posts has given me some time to reflect on the global macro situation without the need…

Despite the title, this is not a mono-themed post but more of a highlight of recent news and data and their importance in interpreting the direction of the economy and potential effect on markets. I do want to concentrate on European and US…

Today is the time to update you on how my 2014 surprises are faring and why. Just to remind you, the surprise list is based on Byron Wien’s list of ten surprises which he has been conducting for the last thirty years. Surprises are events…

I am back from my summer holiday. There has been a lot of news in the time since I last posted. And the news flow is coming from a lot of different places. So, let me start up again with a post highlighting what I think are some of the key…

This week’s economic and market themes piece is going to be a little shorter than usual because I have covered a lot of the major topics earlier in the week. United States. Let’s start with the US. The jobs data today showed 208,000 jobs…

Ukraine is at risk of becoming a failed state China’s growth is due to stimulus Japan’s macro figures worsen Microsoft’s strategy is weak Facebook is overvalued

Apple’s Q3 2014 earnings report yesterday was a mixed bag in terms of actual results. But from my perspective the results show a company that continues to execute its strategy well given the onslaught from cheaper handsets using the Android…