China

One serious addendum I made to my 2011 outlook had to do with oil and commodity prices. While I am cautiously optimistic, there are a number of potential pitfalls to a rosy scenario. Here's what I said about oil and commodities:…

Highlights The US dollar is trading on a softer footing versus the majors and most EMs, consolidating some of yesterday’s gains, with the New Zealand dollar and the euro leading the move higher. The euro is enjoying early strength,…

By Michael Pettis On Friday the US Treasury released its presumably semi-annual (it was due last October) report to Congress on currency issues, and in it refrained from calling any of the countries under review “currency…

“If spending an amount equal to half of the world’s second largest GDP to buy up foreign currencies is not currency manipulation, then what is?” -Martin Wolf, Financial Times The perils of Chicago Many moons ago, long before I…

Andy Lees of UBS's London-based Equity Derivatives group had an interesting post this morning on the push in China to maintain sufficient energy resources in order to maintain economic growth. He writes: Yesterday China gave the…

By Marc Chandler One of the fundamental characteristics of the global financial architecture is that the world’s second largest economy maintains a rigidly controlled currency.   The concept of currency wars, as initially…

By Michael Pettis Most of this week’s newsletter was about the release last week of China’s fourth quarter GDP growth numbers by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). You can find the full NBS report on their website, but here is the…

by Michael Pettis Once again I am starting to hear investors tell me that they have been advised by bank analysts not to worry too much about the impact of a banking crisis in China.  According to this argument, China has developed a…

On the back of 10+% growth in 2010, it is now apparent that China has a burgeoning inflation problem. A whole confluence of factors may come into play here. A labour shortage in China, food price inflation, and out of control money supply…

by Edward Harrison I was watching the Obama – Hu Press conference this afternoon and it was a veritable lovefest considering the acrimonious backdrop from 2010. You lot were thinking it was going to be like this Obama-Hu press conference…