Major News impacting Markets
Monday, 20 April, 2020
------
-Major News impacting Markets
-Key International Events/Results
-Key Domestic Events/Results Major News impacting Market
• Oil Tanks, Dampens Risk Appetites after Back-to-Back Weekly Equity Gains • Spanish economy could shrink up to 12.4% in 2020: Bank of Spain • Thai business council calls for government support to ease virus impact • Hong Kong's January-March unemployment rises to 4.2%, highest in more than nine years • Big funds demand UK Plc coronavirus cash calls recognize retail • Japan Boosts Extra Budget to 25.7 Trillion Yen to Fund Handouts • A $1.2 Trillion Fund Says Skip Earnings Season, Buy U.S. Stocks • China says India's new FDI rules violate WTO principles, hopes for revision • Buy Stocks at Crisis ‘Epicenter’ as Lows Are In, Top Bull Says • Demand For Oil Has Plummeted, But Industry Keeps Building New Infrastructure Anyway • Uranium Surges 31% Amid Shutdowns to Become Year’s Top Commodity • OPEC’s No.3 Scrambles For Lifeline As Oil Income Tanks • Italy Calls for Joint Bonds in Preview of EU Summit Clash • Coronavirus takes toll on global M&A as $1 billion deals disappear • Alibaba to Invest $28 Billion Over Three Years in Cloud Services • Citi Sees India’s Budget Gap Widening the Most in Three Decades • Mnuchin, Democrats Close on Virus Aid Deal Nearing $500 Billion • Piers Morgan says his friend President Trump is 'failing the American people' • Debt Relief for Poor Nations Not an Easy Sell to Bondholders • Bondholders Pan Argentina Restructuring Offer, Gird for Battle • Why Deflation Is Poison for Virus-Plagued Economies • Market Movers Blog: Government launches Future Fund to bolster UK start-ups • Australia Shouldn’t Worry About Huge Government Debt, RBA’s Lowe Says • China Pledges More Stimulus as Banks Cut Lending Rates • Donald Trump’s latest attack on China over coronavirus ‘highlights challenge in repairing relations’ • Beijing foreign affairs office in Hong Kong hits back at governments for criticising arrests of pro-democracy figures • Rupiah Gyrations to Keep Foreign Bond Bulls at Bay • Argentina’s Economy Minister Backs Wealth Tax, Rejects Austerity • Germany signals more help for struggling businesses, workers • Hong Kong reports zero new coronavirus cases for 1st time since early March • Brazil set to start QE cautiously but may need to bring out 'bazooka' • Japan to boost stimulus to $1.1 trillion as virus threatens deeper recession • Kuwait, UAE continue repatriation of nationals stranded overseas amid coronavirus pandemic https://pace360.in/1 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
• Market Devouring Record Gulf Bonds Won’t Touch Oman, Bahrain • Ireland's debt to GDP ratio falls below 60 pct for first time in decade • Japan's exports drop to 3.5 year low in March as overseas demand hit by virus • US oil prices crash to their lowest level in over 21 years as storage runs out • US markets haven’t priced in a ‘significant second wave’ of coronavirus, says Citi Private Bank • The National Debt And Gold • Russia to raise as much debt for budget as possible but not at every price: finance ministry • The Stock Market Is Certainly Not Too Big For The Fed To Handle • As Africa Groans Under Debt, It Casts Wary Eye at China • Earnings are set for their biggest dive since late 2009 — and it gets worse from here • Sebi may scan Cayman, Singapore investment hubs for Chinese links • DPIIT, Finance Ministry locked horns before tweak in FDI guidelines • RBI moratorium: 10% provisioning may shave Rs 35,000 cr off bank profits • Only half of India’s household consumption will come through post covid • RBI’s moves may not snap banks’ wariness to lend • PE investment in real estate falls 89% to $222 million in January-March: Report • RBI's measures may not get desired results; pain unlikely to go away for NBFCs • Another Recession Gauge Signals Longest U.S. Expansion Has Ended • Hasenstab’s Global Bond Fund Posts a $4.3 Billion Drop in Assets • At mercy of banks, India's cash-tight shadow lenders face new turmoil • India's new FDI rules may open new flashpoint with China • Qatar And Russia Fight For LNG Supremacy As Prices Fall To Historic Lows • South Africa economy to shrink 4.9% in 2020, SARB to cut rates in May: Reuters poll • Brazil growth, inflation, rates outlook sink to new lows: central bank survey • Fitch Downgrades Hong Kong as Pandemic Poses Economic Shock • Cash Flow Is King • Oil: Winter Is Coming In The Shale Patch • QE Infinity: The Fed And Treasury Race To $2 Trillion • How The S&P 500 Became So Overrated • Bottom-Calling Bets on $4.3 Billion ETF Go Bad Amid Oil Plunge
Oil Tanks, Dampens Risk Oil prices have collapsed to start the new week. The May contract, which Appetites after Back-to-Back expires now, is off over 20% to a little more than $14 and the June contact is Weekly Equity Gains off nearly 7% near $23.30. Falling demand and limited storage space continue to overwhelm output cuts from OPEC+ that are to start next month. Equities are struggling to extend the first back-to-back weekly gain in two months. The
Nikkei fell by over 1%, and Australia's benchmark was off early 2.5% (liquified natural gas is priced off oil). Europe's bourses are mixed, leaving the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 treading water, while the US shares are clearly lower, and the S&P 500 is off almost 1%. Core bond yields are a little softer, but what stands out is the jump in peripheral yields, led by a 10 bp jump in Italy. Spain and Portuguese yields are 3-4 bp higher. The US benchmark is sporting a softer yield near 62 bp. The US dollar is mixed. The oil sensitive currencies, like the Norwegian krone and Canadian dollar, are the weakest of the majors (~- 0.40%), while among emerging markets, the Mexican peso (~-1.5%) and
Russian rouble (~-0.80%) are bearing the brunt. Gold is extending last week's decline below $1700 and found a bid near $1672. Read More … Go to top
https://pace360.in/2 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
Spanish economy could shrink up Spain's economy should shrink between 6.8% and 12.4% this year depending to 12.4% in 2020: Bank of Spain on whether its lockdown over the coronavirus, first imposed in mid-March, lasts eight or 12 weeks, the Bank of Spain said on Monday as it charted various economic scenarios. The Spanish central bank said the disruption suffered by the Spanish economy was, as in the case of other countries, of "considerable severity", although there was still great uncertainty. In any case, an upturn is expected to begin in the second half of the year, leading to a "remarkable recovery" in 2021, with a projected growth of between 5.5% and 8.5%, it said. Read More … Go to top
Thai business council calls for Thailand's business advisory council will urge the government on Monday to government support to ease virus deploy support measures for farmers and small- and medium-sized businesses impact as the coronavirus pandemic drives Southeast Asia's second-largest economy toward a recession. The central bank has forecast the economy to shrink 5.3% this year for its the
weakest performance since the 1998 Asian financial crisis, as the pandemic could bring losses of more than $40 billion and up to 10 million jobs.. Key steps include cash handouts of 15,000 baht ($461.82) for each farm household, a one-year moratorium on debt, and a fund of 50 billion baht to boost farm output, the panel of government and business agencies said in a statement. It will also push for lower social security contributions by smaller firms, three- time tax deductions on spending, and financial support for lay-offs, among other measures, it added. The measures are to be presented to the prime minister later on Monday, council chairman Thosaporn Sirisumphand, who also heads the state planning agency, told reporters. Read More … Go to top
Hong Kong's January-March Hong Kong's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 4.2% in the unemployment rises to 4.2%, January to March period, the highest in more than nine years, as the highest in more than nine years coronavirus restricted activity in an economy already in recession, the government said on Monday. The jobless rate rose from 3.7% in the December-February period, government
data showed. Read More … Go to top
Big funds demand UK Plc Some of the top UK fund managers are demanding that companies respect the coronavirus cash calls recognize rights of retail investors after Britain's financial regulator relaxed the rules to retail speed up corporate fund raising in order to weather the coronavirus crisis. With Britain in lockdown, companies no longer need to approach all existing investors with their plans, to allow them first right of refusal on buying new
shares or on seeing their existing stake diluted, so-called pre-emption rights. This leaves retail investors at a disadvantage, say signatories to a letter including Fidelity International Chief Executive Anne Richards, Schroders (LON:SDR) fund manager Andy Brough and AJ Bell founder Andy Bell. "While we recognize the need for businesses to raise equity capital in an expedited fashion, we are concerned that no protections are being afforded to retail investors," they wrote. Since the start of March, 2.7 billion pounds has been raised by companies on deeply discounted terms, with retail investors blocked from taking part, said the coordinator of the letter, PrimaryBid, a technology firm that works with the London Stock Exchange to help retail investors access equity placings.
https://pace360.in/3 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
Read More … Go to top
Japan Boosts Extra Budget to 25.7 Japan’s government bolstered its extra budget by 8.9 trillion yen ($82.6 billion) Trillion Yen to Fund Handouts to cover the additional costs of expanded cash handouts during the coronavirus crisis. The extra budget will now total 25.7 trillion yen, according to documents released by the Ministry of Finance Monday. The government will issue an extra 5.8 trillion yen in bonds this calendar year to fund the budget increase, the ministry said. The additional spending increases the total value of Japan’s coronavirus response measures including loan programs and tax-payment postponements to 117 trillion yen, from 108 trillion yen. The revisions are a rare example of major changes to an extra budget plan that had already been approved, underscoring concern about the effect the pandemic will have on residents. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had a sudden about-face over the country’s planned cash handouts last week, electing to give every resident 100,000 yen. Previously, only those on low income whose earnings had been cut by the virus were set to receive 300,000 yen per household. The switch to a more expensive handout program will boost the country’s mountain of public debt, and some analysts expect the economy to shrink by more than 20% this quarter. Coronavirus cases in Japan surged past 10,000, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg News. While the fall in exports from the world’s third-largest economy steepened sharply last month, economists are bracing for worse numbers to keep hitting. Following the state of emergency declaration this month, domestic demand is expected to have taken an unprecedented hit. Read More … Go to top A $1.2 Trillion Fund Says Skip Jim McDonald is using all of his four decades of experience in financial markets Earnings Season, Buy U.S. Stocks to navigate the global pandemic’s impact for wealthy and institutional customers at Northern Trust Corp. His main message: be bullish on U.S. stocks. The huge policy response from American authorities and prospects for even more fiscal measures have left McDonald favoring the U.S. over others. For the chief investment strategist at Northern Trust, which manages about $1.2 trillion, this earnings season won’t offer much to investors. What’s more important is understanding how the economy will get back on its feet as restrictions ease, he says. And for that, clues can be found as lockdowns in Europe end. “This earnings season is not going to get us there,” he said in a phone interview. “There will not be enough information to have confidence in what the 2021 earnings number should be.” However, “the U.S. has had the most cohesive, immediate and sizable policy response, and that is what has underpinned our favoring of U.S. equities,” McDonald said. The S&P 500 is up 28% since the March low and the rally in technology giants has ensured the Nasdaq 100 is no longer down for 2020. Still, many companies will take the high degree of uncertainty as a chance to say that they aren’t able to give guidance, said McDonald. He’s betting the fiscal boost will be large enough to offset the demand destruction from the virus. “We think there will be sufficient willingness to spend, but if we get a negative surprise -- if the coronavirus reaccelerates globally significantly -- that would be a problem,” he cautioned. Read More … Go to top
https://pace360.in/4 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
China says India's new FDI rules India's new rules for foreign investment violate WTO principles of non- violate WTO principles, hopes for discrimination and are against free and fair trade, a Chinese embassy revision spokesperson in New Delhi said on Monday. On Saturday, India stepped up scrutiny of investments from companies based in neighboring countries, in what is widely seen as a move to stave off
takeovers by Chinese firms during the coronavirus outbreak. "The impact of the policy on Chinese investors is clear," spokesperson of the Chinese embassy Ji Rong said in a statement. India's trade ministry said in a notification dated April 17 the changes to federal rules on investment were meant to curb "opportunistic takeovers/acquisitions". It did not mention China. Read More … Go to top
Buy Stocks at Crisis ‘Epicenter’ as The recent rally in U.S. stocks makes it unlikely they will retest the mid-March Lows Are In, Top Bull Says lows, according to Fundstrat Global Advisors LLC, which recommends investors buy consumer-discretionary shares. The S&P 500 clawing back half of its losses from the mid-February record has strong historical precedent to indicate the bottom is in, Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee wrote in a note Friday. Of the 10 declines of 30% or greater since 1929, only four retested the “final low,” he said -- and a 50% retracement of the gauge “largely eliminates” such risk. The gauge closed Friday at 2,875, up 28% from its recent low on March 23. Lee, whose 3,450 is the most bullish S&P 500 year-end forecast among strategists tracked by Bloomberg, recommends buying “the epicenter of the crisis.” That’s shares related to the consumer, as he sees confidence measures “imploding” to levels as low as those from around the Global Financial Crisis or even 1979. “When consumer sentiment is bad, this historically is the best time to overweight consumer discretionary,” he wrote.
https://pace360.in/5 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
Lee also sees U.S. technology, health-care and financial companies benefiting from supply chains moving back to America from China, which he expects will be a trend in the aftermath of the coronavirus crisis. He expects housing, home-furnishing and financial companies to get a boost from a migration to working from home. Read More … Go to top Demand For Oil Has Plummeted, In February, CNBC anchor Jim Cramer took aim at the heart of the debate over But Industry Keeps Building New fossil fuels with a bold declaration on his investment advice show: “I’m done Infrastructure Anyway with fossil fuels. They’re done. ... We are in the death knell phase.” That was before the coronavirus pandemic and a price war sent oil prices into a tailspin.
By March, analysts were predicting a “financial bloodbath” for the oil industry. By early April, usually sober economists at commodities trading firms were describing demand for oil like this to The Wall Street Journal: “Since humans started using oil, we have never seen anything like this. There is no guide we are following. This is uncharted.” You’d be forgiven for wondering, then, whether the oil industry exists in a different reality. Instead of retreating, the American oil and gas sector has plowed ahead at full speed during one of the worst pandemics in a century, even as demand for its product tanked because of the COVID-19 economic downturn. The industry’s efforts continued in no small part because federal and state regulators deemed fossil fuel work “essential” during the pandemic. In Texas, oil companies won permits to expand drilling, with 1,175 new wells in March alone, pushing the tally for the first three months of this year 30% higher than for the same period in 2019. In Massachusetts, crews went to work building a controversial new facility to send fracked natural gas to Canada. In Montana and West Virginia, the resumption of stalled pipeline projects has stirred up old fights with environmentalist foes. Read More … Go to top Uranium Surges 31% Amid While most commodities are getting hammered by the coronavirus crisis, Shutdowns to Become Year’s Top uranium prices are skyrocketing. Commodity The radioactive metal used in nuclear fuel has climbed 31% this year, making it the world’s best-performing major commodity. The gains have been spurred by mine shutdowns that have wiped out more than a third of annual global
output at a time when demand from power plants has remained relatively stable. “This is a bit of a one-two punch in uranium’s favor,” said Nick Piquard, a portfolio manager at Horizons ETFs. “Not only has Covid-19 likely not impacted nuclear power demand very much, but it is certainly impacting supply.” While demand for energy, including nuclear, is taking a hit due to the pandemic, many atomic power plants are expected to keep open. That’s partly because coal- and gas-powered plants are easier to turn on and off than nuclear facilities, so it’s worth keeping them running even if electricity demand declines somewhat, Piquard said. The uranium industry has been in the doldrums since the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan, which led to the shuttering of most of that country’s nuclear reactors as well as a rethink of nuclear power worldwide. The shift led to a glut of the metal piling up in warehouses, sending prices down by as much as 75% from the highs in 2011. In response to low prices, two industry giants, Kazatomprom and Cameco Corp., have been curtailing uranium production in the past three years to reduce the global glut. The Covid-19 crisis has accelerated that process with a jolt. Kazatomprom, the largest uranium producer, announced earlier in April it was reducing operational activities at its uranium mines in Kazakhstan for about three
https://pace360.in/6 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
months. Meanwhile, Cameco further decreased its own output last month by halting production at Cigar Lake in Canada, the world’s largest producing mine -- then extended the suspension for an “indeterminate” period on April 13. The company also shut some operations at its Port Hope fuel-service facility for four weeks. All told, the shutdowns wiped out about 46 million pounds, or about 35%, of annual global uranium output, over three weeks, according to Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Mike Kozak. As in other countries, U.S. reactors are considered essential infrastructure, and utilities are implementing resilience plans to ensure they remain in operation to keep the power flowing. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued guidance in March for utilities to request longer shifts for workers if needed, and is also letting companies defer some inspections. Read More … Go to top OPEC’s No.3 Scrambles For Even before the current spate of Saudi-led lunacy in the shape of the oil price Lifeline As Oil Income Tanks war with the two biggest oil producers in the world loomed into view, Kuwait’s 2020/21 budget projected a KWD 9.2 billion (US$30 billion) deficit. This will be the sixth year of enormous deficits for the country due to initially production curbs due to the OPEC+ deals and then to plummeting oil prices thanks to the Saudis. Kuwait’s Finance Minister, Mariam al-Aqeel, underlined at that point that the budget breakeven price was US$81 per barrel of Brent, but now of course it is much higher, in keeping with all other OPEC members that followed Saudi Arabia into the ranks of the intellectually bereft. Al-Aqeel added that the government was likely to try to fill the gap from the state reserve fund to finance the deficit because the National Assembly has so far refused to approve a public debt law that would raise the ceiling on maximum public debt to KWD25 billion dinars. In short, Kuwait, like all of Saudi Arabia’s followers, is in deep trouble and needs every source of revenue it can get, beginning with new oil exports from the Partitioned Neutral Zone (PNZ) that it shares with Saudi. In this context, Kuwait’s Oil Ministry announced last week that the first shipment of Al Khafji crude oil from joint operations in the PNZ has been exported, and a tanker carrying two million barrels of crude oil is headed to Asia. This shipment comes some five years after the Saudis closed the joint operations in the PNZ for the official reason that the site was not compliant with new environmental air emission standards issued by Saudi Arabia’s Presidency of Meteorology and Environment Authority. According to this ‘august’ agency, a gas leak had sprung in one of its 15 platforms (in addition to producing around 280,000-300,000 barrels per day [bpd] of crude just before its closure the site also produced around 125 million standard cubic feet per day of associated gases). The real reason was that Saudi wanted to show its neighbour who was boss as Kuwait had been increasing its competition to Saudi Arabia in the key Asian export markets at that point to the degree that it was selling oil to buyers in Asia at the widest discount to the comparable Saudi grade for 10 years. Read More … Go to top Italy Calls for Joint Bonds in Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte joined a chorus of Southern European Preview of EU Summit Clash nations calling for the issuance of as much as 1.5 trillion euros ($1.6 trillion) of joint bonds to aid economies crippled by the coronavirus, setting the stage for a clash at a European Union summit this week. Conte evoked the risk of market contagion if European leaders fail to act on pressure from Italy and Spain, according to a Sunday interview with Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung. His words echo a warning from French President Emmanuel Macron last week that it’s necessary for the EU to “issue common debt with a common guarantee,” and that failure to rise to the occasion would lead to the bloc’s collapse.
https://pace360.in/7 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
As EU leaders prepare for the virtual summit on Thursday, Conte is under pressure to obtain relief for an economy stricken by a nationwide lockdown, while countering pressure from populists in and outside his government who are lambasting the EU’s response. His approach is sure to be contentious as countries including the Netherlands and Germany categorically oppose any mutualization of debt. “Our economic systems are connected with each other and interlinked,” Conte said. “When one country has problems, it triggers a domino effect and that’s something we should absolutely avoid. What’s needed here is the European Union’s full firepower -- namely through the joint issuance of bonds.” Spanish Proposal Spain proposed creating a European fund of as much as 1.5 trillion euros to tackle the recovery effort, according to a copy of the paper obtained by Bloomberg. The fund would be financed through perpetual EU bonds to keep national public debt levels in check. Grants would then be made to member states through the EU budget. Spain’s economy could contract this year by more than 12% in a worst-case- scenario forecast by the country’s central bank. The economic shock could push the unemployment rate to as high as 21.7% this year, undoing gains achieved in the aftermath of the 2008 global recession. At nearly 14%, Spain’s unemployment rate is already one of the highest in the developed world. Read More … Go to top Coronavirus takes toll on global For the first time since September 2004, no merger and acquisition deal worth M&A as $1 billion deals disappear more than $1 billion was announced worldwide last week, according to data provider Refinitiv, as the new coronavirus stifles global M&A. The dearth of mega deals comes as countries across the world have shut down large swathes of their economies as they battle the COVID-19 pandemic that has infected over 2.33 million people and claimed 165,000 lives. Worldwide merger activity so far this year is down 33% from a year ago and at $762.6 billion is the lowest year-to-date amount for dealmaking since 2013, the data showed. The number of deals also fell 20% year-on-year. "We anticipate that there may be fewer signed deals announced this quarter as parties take longer to work through the impact of the COVID-19 situation," said Robert Wright of law firm Baker McKenzie's Asia-Pacific M&A group. "However, where parties have completed underlying due diligence processes and where there remain strong fundamentals, we do expect to see a number of these deals to come back online." Companies have been walking away from announced transactions amid changed deal conditions and high levels of uncertainty. Canada's Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc (TO:ATDb) on Monday said it would shelve its $5.6 billion buyout of petrol station operator Caltex Australia Ltd (AX:CTX), as fuel demand plunges and as companies look inward to get through the crisis. Regulators worldwide have also toughened rules for foreign investments to protect national assets. India last week ruled that investments by an entity from a country that shares a land border with it will require government approval in a move to curb "opportunistic takeovers/acquisitions". Australia and Germany have also stepped up scrutiny over overseas investors. Read More … Go to top Alibaba to Invest $28 Billion Over Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) Group Holding Ltd. will invest 200 billion yuan ($28 Three Years in Cloud Services billion) on cloud infrastructure such as datacenters over the next three years, a major effort to extend one of its fastest-growing business segments to more countries. The Chinese e-commerce giant plans to build more datacenters to complement an existing network covering 21 regions around the world, the company said in a statement. It will continue to develop its own technologies in areas such as AI-inference chips to support that expansion in cloud services, it added. Read More …
https://pace360.in/8 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
Go to top Citi Sees India’s Budget Gap India’s budget deficit is seen widening the most in more than three decades as Widening the Most in Three weaker economic growth and stimulus to combat the impact of the Decades coronavirus weighs on the government’s finances, Citigroup said in a report. The federal government’s budget gap will be about 8% of gross domestic product in the year to March 2021, according to Citi. That’s the widest since
1987, when the shortfall was 8.4%. “Downgrade by at least one of the rating agencies and change in outlook are now material risks for India to consider,” analysts led by Citi’s Chief India Economist Samiran Chakraborty wrote. Moody’s Investors Service last year cut India’s credit rating outlook to negative, citing a litany of problems including a prolonged slowdown in the economy and rising public debt. With the pandemic adding to the problem, Citi as well as homegrown financial Services firm Motilal Oswal see the nation’s combined fiscal gap, including that of states, widening to 12% -- more than double the government’s estimate of 5.9% -- as tax collections falter and states’ pitch in with relief packages for the poor. Both estimates are based on the assumption that more stimulus measures will be rolled out. Before the virus spread to India, the federal government pegged fiscal deficit at 3.5% for the current financial year, while the central bank estimated states’ budget gap at 2.4%. Read More … Go to top
Mnuchin, Democrats Close on Democrats and the Trump administration are near an agreement for Congress Virus Aid Deal Nearing $500 to act this week on a deal as large as $500 billion putting more funding into a Billion tapped-out small business aid program and providing money for coronavirus testing and overwhelmed hospitals. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said
Sunday the two sides were close on a deal, though various details remained to be worked out and the entire package still has to be translated into text for legislation. President Donald Trump was cautiously optimistic about breaking the deadlock in place all of last week as the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses ran through its entire $349 billion in funding. “We have a good chance of getting a deal,” Trump said at a briefing on Sunday. “A lot of good work has been going on. We could have an answer tomorrow.” Mnuchin said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he’s hopeful the deal can be passed in the Senate on Monday and the House on Tuesday. That timetable appeared to be unrealistic. While the Senate has a pro forma session scheduled for Monday, leaders of both parties first would have to ensure no senator would object to the agreement in order to pass it by unanimous consent. That typically would require circulating legislative text. The Senate’s next scheduled session is currently set for Thursday. Senate Republicans are still reviewing the deal. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer sent a notice to lawmakers Sunday that the chamber could meet as soon as Wednesday to consider the legislation. Because an objection to unanimous consent is likely, Hoyer said the House would probably have to convene for a recorded vote. House Republicans were told during a conference call Sunday to expect to vote on the package Wednesday in Washington, and that the Senate likely would act before that. Mnuchin briefed House Republicans on the outlines of the deal on the call. Discussions are focused on adding an additional $310 billion to the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, designed to help small businesses keep workers on their payrolls as much of the country remains under stay-at-home orders, according to two people familiar with the matter.
https://pace360.in/9 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
A separate Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, or EIDL, that provides financing and advances as grants of as much as $10,000 for businesses, would get $50 billion to $60 billion more, the people said. Both those measure have wide bipartisan support. The deal will include $75 billion of the $100 billion Democrats have demanded for hospitals, with a significant portion aimed at rural hospitals, as well as $25 billion for virus testing. ‘ Read More … Go to top Piers Morgan says his friend The coronavirus pandemic is "the biggest news story that any of us have every President Trump is 'failing the dealt with," Piers Morgan says, and it requires "a different approach from the American people' traditional news anchor approach." "Viewers want to see passion, they want to see anger, they want to see focus," Morgan said.
That's what the former CNN host has been bringing to his interviews on "Good Morning Britain" on the ITV network. Morgan, who has courted controversy his entire career, has earned applause for challenging British lawmakers and health officials about shortcomings when it comes to handling the coronavirus crisis. Morgan applied the same "feet to the fire" approach while talking about his longtime friend President Trump on Sunday. He returned to CNN for an interview on "Reliable Sources" and said that Trump "is failing the American people" on almost every level. Morgan was particularly critical of the president's performance at near-daily White House briefings, which he said he has watched "with mounting horror." ‘ Read More … Go to top Debt Relief for Poor Nations Not A pause in debt payments for the world’s poorest countries to help them an Easy Sell to Bondholders battle the coronavirus will be a hard sell for private creditors. The Group of 20 leading economies last week heeded calls from African finance ministers to grant a debt waiver of about $20 billion until the end of the year, and asked private creditors to step up. Groups representing commercial creditors, who snapped up bonds from low- income countries in recent years amid record-low yields in developed markets, said they would be willing to participate. But a deferral of sovereign bond payments will be far from easy. Debtor countries would have to convince a majority of investors, from hedge and pension funds to sovereign wealth funds, to use collective-action clauses to change the date of payments on each bond series. The Institute of International Finance estimates that the world’s poorest nations - most of whom are in Africa - have some $140 billion in general government debt-service obligations due through the end of the year, including $10 billion in foreign currency. That calculation includes all kinds of debt: to private and public creditors, domestic and foreign, short term and long term. Even before the pandemic halved public revenues and forced governments to close borders in Africa, many countries on the continent were already struggling with high debt levels after issuing close to $60 billion in Eurobonds in the past two years. Some of Africa’s biggest oil producers, including Nigeria and Angola, will be hard hit by the tumbling price of crude. Even if Brent steadies at $30 a barrel, that’s about 46% below the level the countries used to model their budgets, according to the World Bank. ‘ Read More … Go to top
https://pace360.in/10 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
Bondholders Pan Argentina Argentina’s proposal for more than $40 billion in debt relief got an early Restructuring Offer, Gird for thumbs-down from investors, who said the terms were too easy for the serial Battle defaulter. The Argentina Creditor Committee “cannot support” the nation’s restructuring proposal and the government’s actions have “fallen well short of bondholders’
expectations,” the group said in a statement from its lawyers, who include Washington-based sovereign-debt specialist Thomas Laryea. “Good-faith negotiations depend on the timely exchange of substantiated forward-looking economic and financial information and must be anchored in concrete and feasible economic policies,” the ACC, made up of mutual funds, family offices, insurance firms and asset managers holding Argentine debt, said. “Such information and policies have not been forthcoming.” Argentina’s bonds still rose on Monday, with the price of its $4.25 billion of notes maturing in January 2028 climbing to 4 cents to 31 on the dollar as of 9:53 a.m. in London. The plan to restructure $66 billion of foreign bonds into notes with no payments until 2023 and a sharp cut in interest rates isn’t attractive enough to lure much participation, according to analysts from shops including SMBC Nikko, INTL FCStone Argentina, Portfolio Personal Inversiones and TPCG. The lack of a blueprint for boosting growth and taming the deficit undercuts confidence investors will ever be paid back, the strategists said. The early criticism -- while not surprising as bondholders position themselves for negotiations -- signals the potentially difficult road ahead as Argentina seeks a deal with creditors, some of whom loaned billions of dollars to the country just a few years ago amid a promise of rebirth in South America’s second-largest economy. Instead, the peso has lost more than half its value, inflation is running above 50% and gross domestic product is forecast to shrink for the third straight year in 2020. Read More … Go to top Why Deflation Is Poison for Virus- What could be bad about falling prices? After all, everyone wants their Plagued Economies paycheck to stretch a little further. The problems start when cheaper cars, clothes and gadgets keep getting cheaper, a damaging downward spiral known as deflation that can wreck an economy. In the economic shock triggered by
https://pace360.in/11 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
the coronavirus pandemic, the fear is that prices around the world could start falling, pushing the global economy from recession into something even harder to climb out of. 1. What’s wrong with falling prices? When prices drop across a wide range of goods and for a long time, economic activity can screech to a halt. The more buying power shoppers think they will gain by waiting for cheaper goods and services, the more they put off buying anything at all. Delayed purchases squeeze company sales and profits, prompting firms to postpone investment and hiring and to keep a lid on wages. Poorer job prospects and stagnant pay make households stingier, putting more pressure on firms to keep prices down. Companies, workers and households all end up suffering. 2. Why do economists worry about it? Deflation fueled two of the worst economic disasters in modern times -- the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the less catastrophic but more recent experience of Japan’s lost decades with almost no economic growth. While economists have come up with policy solutions that can tackle inflation, they have had little success devising effective solutions for deflation. “If inflation is the genie, then deflation is the ogre that must be fought decisively,” European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde said when she headed the International Monetary Fund. 3. What has Japan taught us about deflation? That it is extremely difficult to escape. Falling prices took hold in Japan in the 1990s when banks, wounded by a burst real estate bubble, stopped lending. Wages stagnated and consumers reined in spending. The reluctance of consumers to spend and of companies to raise prices became the new normal. The Bank of Japan calls this a deflationary mindset. After two decades of price weakness and low growth, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe placed Haruhiko Kuroda at the helm of the BOJ to try to slay deflation once and for all. But after seven years of flooding the banking sector with cash by purchasing a mountain of assets bigger than the size of the economy, inflation still remains closer to zero than its 2% target. The addition of negative interest rates and a zero-percent bond yield target have failed to show a decisive impact, highlighting the difficulty of ending deflation with monetary policy tools alone. 4. What’s fueling deflation concerns now? Even before the coronavirus, inflation was very weak among industrial countries despite years of aggressive monetary easing following the global financial crisis, raising fears of spreading “Japanification.” Plunging oil prices and tanking economic activity add to the concerns. While suspended factory production lines and shuttered shops will eventually reopen, job losses around the globe mean weakness in demand will persist. Government measures like cash handouts may not offer a quick prop for demand and prices while public health measures to contain the virus and safety concerns continue to keep people off the streets. The outlook is so uncertain that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has chosen to skip the release of economic forecasts, saying publishing them “could have been more of an obstacle to clear communication than a help.” 5. What’s the effect on bonds? In theory, deflation can make bonds more attractive for investors because a fixed stream of income is more valuable in a world of falling prices and lower interest rates. Treasuries and other high quality bonds such as AAA-rated corporate debt are often touted as deflation hedges. But things get trickier for high-yield debt, particularly if the deflationary environment increases the business risk -- and therefore credit risk -- of junk bond issuers. And while inflation can help relieve the burden of debt for companies and governments over time by reducing its real value, deflation will of course have the opposite effect. 6. Is inflation also an issue? Some think deflation concerns triggered by the pandemic are overplayed since
https://pace360.in/12 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
prices could jump as economic activity resumes and the impact of government and central bank stimulus kicks in, spurring demand. Yet, even after the pandemic is over, the scars from the shutdown -- poor jobs prospects, shattered consumer confidence and patchy recovery in global supply chains -- may prevent a quick recovery and thus keep a lid on inflation. Inflation is typically an easier challenge for central banks in major economies to cope with, because they have plenty of room to raise interest rates from current rock-bottom levels. The Reference Shelf Japanification, Secular Stagnation and Bad, Bad News: QuickTake What a Liquidity Trap Is and Why We’re Looking at One: QuickTake IMF research on the risk of deflation in the euro area and Lagarde’s speech calling deflation an “ogre.” Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s 2002 speech on deflation and his 1991 research paper on the Great Depression. Studies from a symposium on deflation hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Read More … Go to top Market Movers Blog: Chancellor Rishi Sunak has pledged £1bn to support start-up companies, Government launches Future bowing to increasing pressure from the UK's technology sector. Fund to bolster UK start-ups £250m of this will be issued via convertible loans into the government's newly- launched £500m Future Fund, which will invest in high-growth private companies in need of capital. A further £250m will be matched by private
investors. Sunak said:“This new, world-leading fund will mean they can access the capital they need at this difficult time, ensuring dynamic, fast-growing firms across all sectors will be able to continue to create new ideas and spread prosperity.” The remaining £750m will be offered as grants and loans to small and medium- sized businesses that are focused on research and development. Read More … Go to top Australia Shouldn’t Worry About Australia shouldn’t be concerned about its escalating government debt in Huge Government Debt, RBA’s response to the coronavirus crisis because of the long record of responsible Lowe Says fiscal policy, Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe said. “If ever there’s a time to borrow, now is it,” the RBA chief told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.’s Four Corners program in a report on the scramble to
combat the economic fallout from the epidemic. “We shouldn’t be worried” about the debt, it cited Lowe as saying. Australia is spiraling toward its first recession since 1991 with Treasury predicting unemployment will double to 10% as restrictions to stem the spread of the virus shut down much of the services industry. In response, the government and central bank assembled a massive fiscal-monetary injection worth 16.4% of gross domestic product to aid households and firms. “It’s the right thing to do,” Lowe said of the government’s largess. “We have the capacity to borrow, our interest rates are as low as they’ve ever been, the Australian government has a long record of responsible fiscal policy, so the budget accounts are in reasonable shape.” Read More … Go to top China Pledges More Stimulus as Chinese banks lowered borrowing costs and the government promised to sell Banks Cut Lending Rates another 1 trillion yuan ($141.3 billion) in bonds to pay for stimulus spending after the economy had its first contraction in decades due to the coronavirus outbreak. The one-year loan prime rate was set at 3.85% versus 4.05% in March, according to a statement from the People’s Bank of China Monday. That followed a series of policy-loosening steps in the past month by the central bank aimed at cushioning the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak. In a separate statement, the Ministry of Finance announced the new quota of
https://pace360.in/13 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
special local bonds and promised they would be sold by the end of May. The money raised will mainly be used to pay for infrastructure spending. China’s top leaders said last week that the nation is facing “unprecedented” economic difficulties and signaled that more stimulus was in the works. The meeting was held the same day as China announced that the economy contracted 6.8% in the first quarter and the nation’s outlook is also weak as the shutdown of other countries will likely hit demand for exports. The yuan weakened to session lows in offshore trading after the rate cut announcement, falling as much as 0.15% versus the dollar to 7.0894. Chinese stock indexes were little changed in early action while 10-year government bond futures erased slight gains to trade 0.11% lower. The 1 trillion yuan in new bonds adds to 1.29 trillion yuan of special local government bonds that have already been approved this year to finance infrastructure projects, such as roads and industrial parks. Local governments have sold almost 90% of the existing quota, a finance ministry official said Monday. China’s full-year fiscal policy has yet to be detailed, as the nation’s annual legislative meeting usually held in March, the National People’s Congress, was postponed due to the coronavirus. A new date hasn’t yet been announced. “This shows an urgency of boosting infrastructure investment in order to support growth following the decline of first-quarter GDP,” said Becky Liu, head of China macro strategy at Standard Chartered Plc., adding this means the issuance of local-government debt will hit a record high in the coming weeks. “It is the most effective, immediate and certain way to boost economic growth in the short term.” Some analysts had expected a cut of 20 basis points after the central bank trimmed several of its policy rates since the last LPR was set in March, and added liquidity to the financial system. The five-year tenor, a reference for mortgages, was cut to 4.65% on Monday versus 4.75% in March. The rate cuts come after the central bank last week lowered the cost it charges on its 1-year funding to banks to a record low. The central bank also cut the cost of short-term open market operations in late March by the most since 2015, and announced a two-phase cut to the reserve ratio requirement for smaller banks. The LPR has been considered China’s de facto benchmark funding cost since a reform last year. The rate decided by a group of 18 banks is released on or around the 20th of every month and is reported in the form of a spread over the interest rate of the central bank’s medium-term loans. The steady decline in the LPR since August last year has led to lower borrowing costs in the wider economy. The one-year rate was last reduced by 10 basis points in February, when the 5-year metric eased five basis points. “ Read More … Go to top
https://pace360.in/14 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
Donald Trump’s latest attack on Donald Trump’s latest attack on China over the Covid-19 outbreak should serve China over coronavirus ‘highlights as a reminder to Beijing of the difficult road that lies ahead if it wants to repair challenge in repairing relations’ relations, analysts have warned. In his latest barb at China, the US President said on Saturday that Beijing should face consequences if it was “knowingly responsible” for the coronavirus
pandemic. “If it was a mistake, a mistake is a mistake,” Trump said. “But if they were knowingly responsible, yeah, I mean, then sure there should be consequences,” he told reporters at a news briefing at the White House. He did not specify what actions the US might take. In recent days the two sides have scaled back their rhetoric and stopped pointing the finger at each other over the handling of the crisis. Instead, Trump has targeted a range of other targets, including the media, the Democrats, state governors and the World Health Organisation, accusing them of failing to appreciate his “incredible” performance. Read More … Go to top Beijing foreign affairs office in Beijing’s foreign affairs office in Hong Kong has hit back at governments and Hong Kong hits back at politicians who criticised the arrests of 15 pro-democracy figures for their roles governments for criticising in unlawful protests last year, saying their attempts to condone anti-China arrests of pro-democracy figures troublemakers were “completely wrong”. Issuing two strongly-worded statements over two days, the spokesperson of the Commissioner’s Office of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Hong Kong urged the governments of Britain and United States and other politicians to stop meddling in the city’s affairs, which he said were completely China’s internal matters. “It is completely wrong that the UK Foreign Office spokesperson has distorted the truth by painting unauthorised assemblies as ‘peaceful protests’, in a bid to whitewash, condone and exonerate the anti-China troublemakers in Hong Kong,” the statement on Saturday read. Read More … Go to top Rupiah Gyrations to Keep Foreign Foreign buyers are likely to steer clear of Indonesian bonds until the rupiah’s gyrations start to die down. That’s despite the value in the long end of the curve.
https://pace360.in/15 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
Bond Bulls at Bay International funds fled in the first quarter, with a record $8.7 billion in net foreign outflows, according to exchange data compiled by Bloomberg. Although Indonesian bond performance has improved, global investors still cut holdings by a net $79 million in the first 16 days of April. The withdrawals have seen a considerable steepening in the Indonesian bond curve as they tend to be more heavily concentrated in the mid-to-long tenors. Foreign participation in Indonesian government bonds has fallen to around 33%, from the 2020 high of 39% before the coronavirus pandemic, with a rush for the exits in February and March causing the spread between two-and 10- year bonds to widen to 193 basis points, the most in nine years. Local banks and investors were given a leg-up following Bank Indonesia’s decision to cut the reserve requirement ratio last Tuesday in order to free up more capital. This follows the $60 billion credit line with the Federal Reserve on April 7, which improved on dollar liquidity. But for a strong rally in Indonesian bonds to happen, foreign flows need to come on board. Read More … Go to top Argentina’s Economy Minister Argentine Economy Minister Martin Guzman has backed the idea of a wealth Backs Wealth Tax, Rejects tax on the country’s rich as the nation to fend off creditors and find money to Austerity help cope with the Covid-19 pandemic. The tax would affect 11,000 people with fortunes of at least $2 million, Guzman said, without specifying where that cut-off point might come. He
spoke in an interview with journalist Horacio Verbitsky, published on the website El Cohete a la Luna. President Alberto Fernandez, in a separate interview, spoke of the need for wealth redistribution. Argentina lacks room for austerity or cutbacks and needs to reprogram its debt with the International Monetary Fund, Guzman said, as the country enters crunch negotiations with creditors. Argentina, which is due to make about $500 million of debt payments on April 22, last week announced proposals for a deal that would see it pushing back most of its payments until the next decade. Read More … Go to top Germany signals more help for Politicians in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government on struggling businesses, workers Sunday signaled further support for struggling businesses and consumers in the coronavirus crisis, focusing on hotels, restaurants and pay for short-time workers. Dehoga, an industry association that includes a large share of often small family-owned operations, told Bild am Sonntag that some 70,000 restaurant and hotel operators, which employ 223,000 people, could face insolvency as they stood to lose up to €10 billion of sales by the end of April. Economy Minister Peter Altmaier of Merkel’s conservative party said in an interview with the same newspaper he agreed the sector needed support to get up on its feet again. “It is clear that we will need additional help to prevent a large part of these companies giving up and disappearing from the market,” he said. Altmaier said he would look into possibly lowering value added taxes for the industry, but he could also imagine concrete grants to pay for modernization and cost savings measures. New coronavirus infections and recovery numbers in Germany have been looking more manageable in recent days. But politicians and authorities agree that economic life can only restart very gradually to avoid fresh waves of rapid infections, leaving businesses starved of turnover. Read More … Go to top Hong Kong reports zero new Hong Kong recorded zero new coronavirus cases on Monday for the first time coronavirus cases for 1st time since early March, health authorities said, though they urged residents to maintain strict hygiene and social distancing practices and avoid unnecessary
https://pace360.in/16 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20 since early March travel. The Chinese-ruled city, which has avoided the exponential increases seen in other parts of the world, has confirmed 1,025 total cases and four deaths since the outbreak began in January. The previous day with no recorded cases was March 5. While schools remain closed, many people are working from home and shopping malls and restaurants are less busy, Hong Kong has stopped short of a full lockdown like those imposed in other cities such as London and New York. Almost all Hong Kongers wear masks, office buildings, commercial centers and public institutions run temperature checks, and free sanitizer dispensers are widely available. Hong Kong banned public gatherings of more than four people for 14 days from March 29 and later extended that restriction until April 23. Read More … Go to top Brazil set to start QE cautiously Brazil appears set to embark cautiously on unconventional monetary policy but may need to bring out using small interventions to tackle dysfunction in bond markets, as it does with 'bazooka' foreign exchange, but the severity of the crisis may ultimately force it to emulate the dramatic steps taken in the United States and Europe. Congress is debating a bill to grant the central bank emergency powers to carry
out "quantitative easing" or QE as part of its crisis-fighting arsenal, allowing it to buy public and private financial assets during national emergencies. With tax revenue plunging and expenditure soaring to mitigate the pandemic's economic fallout, Brazil's right-wing government expects its deficit will explode this year to 600 billion reais ($115 billion), or 8% of gross domestic product. While the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank are firing their "bazookas", asset purchase programs worth trillions of dollars and euros, sources say Brazil's QE will be much more limited in scope and targeted in nature. Central Bank Chief Roberto Campos Neto has said that his preferred version of QE would flatten the yield curve without expanding the monetary base or the bank's balance sheet, by buying long-dated bonds while selling short-dated debt - akin to the Fed's "Operation Twist" in 2011. Traders say parts of the debt market ceased to function normally during the recent bout of risk aversion. The spread between January 2021 and January 2029 rates futures widened to more than 600 basis points in March, and although it has since come back, is still significantly wider than it was in February. However, a source familiar with central bank thinking and two former central bank presidents said that the bank may opt for a cautious approach initially, intervening only to smooth out market distortions as it does in FX. The source said it is not the central bank's explicit goal to flatten the yield curve, nor its job to stop the market from pricing in fiscal risk as the deficit widens by demanding higher yields. Former central bank president Arminio Fraga said that, while foreign central banks are using QE as a massive economic stimulus to bring down long-term interest rates and boost asset prices, Brazil's approach would be more "defensive". "Here, QE would be more like FX intervention. If there is any panic in the bond market the central bank could intervene in the secondary market to relieve the pressure," Fraga told Reuters, adding that the bank's personnel are "responsible and sensible" Read More … Go to top Japan to boost stimulus to $1.1 Japan boosted its new economic stimulus package on Monday to a record $1.1 trillion as virus threatens deeper trillion to expand cash payouts to its citizens, as the fallout from the recession coronavirus pandemic threatens to push the world's third-largest economy deeper into recession.
https://pace360.in/17 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe formally decided the new stimulus less than two weeks after his cabinet approved an earlier plan to spend 108.2 trillion yen ($1 trillion), which had detailed payouts of 300,000 yen to households with sharp drops in income. Abe has caved into pressure from within his own ruling bloc to boost the help with a payment of 100,000 yen for every citizen, instead of 300,000 yen for a limited number of households, analysts say, casting doubt about his leadership amid falling support. The new amount triples the cost from what the government had originally planned to 12 trillion yen. "I understand the 100,000 yen payout scheme was decided with the aim of encouraging every citizen to help with each other to overcome this crisis as one," Finance Minister Taro Aso said. "The finance ministry will do the utmost to have this enacted quickly so that the payouts and other support will be delivered to the people as early as possible." Expansion of the scheme may support private consumption that accounts for more than half of the economy, some analysts said, though many others believe most of the payouts would end up in savings rather than spending to shore up the economy. "Recipients of the payouts include the rich and the people whose incomes are not suffering, so savings will also rise," said Ryutaro Kono, chef economist at BNP Paribas (PA:BNPP) Securities. Read More … Go to top Kuwait, UAE continue Kuwait and Jazeera Airways have announced dozens of special flights to repatriation of nationals stranded repatriate citizens who were stranded overseas when the coronavirus overseas amid coronavirus outbreak forced international borders to shut, state-run Kuwait News Agency pandemic reported. There were 27 repatriation flights operated on Sunday to cities including Riyadh, Manama, and Abu Dhabi to bring back Kuwaiti nationals. Jazeera Airways said it had allocated 14 of its airplanes to the Kuwaiti government to utilize during the pandemic, including for repatriation of overseas nationals as well as the delivery of essential medical supplies. The same has been pledged by Kuwait Airways, which will operate 40 flights over the coming days. The move comes as Kuwait launched a “grand repatriation” plan which includes coordinated efforts to facilitate the safe return of students, diplomats, and other Kuwaiti citizens.
Read More … Go to topp Market Devouring Record Gulf Oman and Bahrain are stuck on the sidelines of the international debt markets Bonds Won’t Touch Oman, after a record borrowing tally by Gulf Arab economies this month underscored Bahrain a divide between the region’s strongest and weakest sovereigns. Facing external financing needs that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates at $5.5 billion this year, Oman and Bahrain are all but shut out from bond
funding, waiting for their yields to retreat before wading into the market. Their wealthier neighbors in April raised a combined $24 billion in sales that collectively drew about $140 billion in investor demand. “Oman and Bahrain will be unlikely to issue unless markets stabilize,” said Abdul Kadir Hussain, head of fixed-income asset management at Arqaam Capital in Dubai. “High-yield pricing remains very dislocated.” Although no nation in the Gulf is immune to the historic collapse in oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic, Oman and Bahrain stand out for their precarious public finances and strained reserves. Investors who piled into the sultanate’s debt sale less than a year ago are now drawing the line at stronger borrowers better able to absorb the shock to their economies. Bond sales this month by Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia -- which have single-A or double-A ratings -- account for more than half of the amount raised
https://pace360.in/18 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
by governments across the emerging world. Bahrain and Oman are rated junk by the three major credit assessors. The International Monetary Fund predicts their budget deficits will exceed 15% of gross domestic product this year. Brent crude is trading below $30 a barrel, after losing more than half of its value this year. This month’s OPEC+ deal to slash supply has failed to lift prices because demand has plunged amid the coronavirus pandemic. Read More … Go to top
Ireland's debt to GDP ratio falls Ireland's debt to the gross domestic product (GDP) ratio at the end of last year below 60 pct for first time in fell below 60 percent for the first time in more than a decade, according to decade fresh figures released by the country's Central Statistics Office (CSO). The Irish government's gross debt stood at 204 billion euros (222 billion U.S. dollars) at the end of 2019, accounting for 58.8 percent of the country's GDP,
said the CSO. This is the first time that the country's debt to GDP ratio has dropped below the 60-percent level since the third quarter of 2009. The country's per capita debt at the end-2019 was 41,460 euros, down 5,420 euros compared with the peak level of 46,880 euros recorded at the end of 2013, showed the CSO figures. The CSO figures also indicated that in the fourth quarter of last year the Irish government made revenue of 26.7 billion euros while it spent a total of 22.9 billion euros with a fiscal surplus of 3.8 billion euros. (1 euro=1.087 U.S. dollars)
Read More … Go to top Japan's exports drop to 3.5 year Japan's exports fell to their lowest level in more than three and a half years in low in March as overseas demand March, as overseas demand was hit by the coronavirus, the government said in hit by virus a report on Monday. According to the Finance Ministry, exports in the recording period dropped 11.7 percent to 6.36 trillion yen (59.03 billion U.S. dollars), marking the biggest
fall since 2016. In the same period, the ministry said that imports retreated 5.0 percent to 6.35 trillion yen (58.94 billion U.S. dollars), owing to slumping prices for energy-
https://pace360.in/19 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
linked imports. As a result, the goods trade surplus stood at 4.9 billion yen (45.48 million U.S. dollars), the ministry's preliminary data showed. In terms of specific countries and regions, exports to the United States tumbled 16.5 percent to the lowest level since April 2011, as demand fell amid virus-linked lockdowns and shuttered businesses in the world's largest economy. Exports to China, Japan's largest trading partner, dropped 8.7 percent in the recording period, while imports from China edged down just 4.5 percent, as the world's second largest economy has resumed production operations after being hit by the virus, a harbinger of rebound in industrial production. Exports to the European Union, meanwhile, fell 11.1 percent amid severe lockdowns including those in Italy and France, the ministry said. Exports to all of Asia in the recording period decreased 9.4 percent. Read More … Go to top Crazy Cramer And Kookoo Ron Insana, whom I’ve always thought was well named due to the funny way Kudlow Hatch Coronavirus War his brain works and the way he smiles even when nothing is happening, has Bond Goose Egg just melded minds with Kudlow & Cramer to support a coronavirus war bond: My colleague, Jim Cramer, made a very interesting recommendation Monday morning, calling on the U.S. Treasury to issue a $1 trillion, 30-year “war bond”
to finance our battle against the coronavirus. He pitched the idea on CNBC to Larry Kudlow, who chairs the White House National Economic Council I think Ron even smiles in his sleep. The triumvirate of capital talent Together, these three birds of a feather make quite the triumvirate of talent because I’ve also always thought of Crazy Cramer and Krackhead Kudlow (yes, it’s well known he’s used the stuff) as the Keystone Cops of Commerce. When I used to see Larry Kudlow smoking crack on our block late at night (true story) I would say to myself, ‘I’ll bet that guy will be drunk on tv someday lying about the spread of a pandemic for the reality star who pretended to be a billionaire. @realDonaldTrump Read More … Go to top Goldman Sees Record U.S. The biggest U.S. companies will slash their cash spending this year amid the Corporate Cash Spending Cuts uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic, according to Goldman Sachs Group This Year Inc. “We forecast S&P 500 cash spending will decline by an annual record 33% during 2020 as firms prioritize liquidity in a worsening economic environment,” strategists led by David Kostin wrote in a note Friday. He continues to expect a big decline in earnings per share for the first and second quarters. He noted that “most investors are already looking ahead to 2021 EPS.” The impact of the coronavirus pandemic fueled a drop of as much as 34% on the S&P 500 from its record high Feb. 19 through March 23. But it has rallied 28% since then, as governments and central banks globally have been rolling out measures to try to keep the financial system operating and provide support to businesses and citizens. Kostin is still bullish on U.S. stocks. In a report last week he scrapped a prediction that the S&P 500 might fall further, saying the gauge had likely bottomed due to fiscal and monetary policy support. He maintains a year-end target of 3,000 on the benchmark, which closed Friday at 2,875. That doesn’t mean it’ll be all smooth sailing, though -- late last month, he estimated that dividends on the S&P 500 could fall by a quarter in 2020, and he projects buybacks will drop by half. Read More … Go to top US oil prices crash to their lowest U.S. oil prices tumbled to their lowest level in more than 21 years on Monday, level in over 21 years as storage with crude storage facilities filling rapidly as the coronavirus pandemic continues to crush demand.
https://pace360.in/20 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20 runs out The May contract of U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures fell to $12.43 a barrel on Monday, down more than 31%. That’s its lowest level since March 4, 1999. The May contract of WTI is set to expire on Tuesday, with the June contract of WTI last trading at $23.58 a barrel, almost 6% lower. Futures contracts typically converge with spot prices as they near expiry. Meanwhile, international benchmark Brent crude stood at $26.63 on Monday, around 5% lower for the session. It comes amid heightened concern that the volume of oil held in U.S. storage is rising sharply, with the coronavirus crisis compounding the problem by dramatically reducing consumption. “The current forward crude oil curves for Brent and WTI are now in very deep contango, but the contango is also very front-loaded,” Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB, told CNBC via email. A contango market implies oil traders believe crude prices will rally in the future, encouraging them to store oil now and to sell at a later date. “The curves are saying we have a big problem with the storage of oil right now,” Schieldrop said, noting the general market view seemed to be that the global economic trough and the oil demand trough would be April 2020. In the second half the year, he continued, the problem of storage capacity should “vanish rapidly” because oil demand is expected to rebound strongly, while inventories will draw down sharply. “This is why the Brent crude average oil price for 2021 is holding up so well at $40 a barrel. Read More … Go to top US markets haven’t priced in a Citi Private Bank’s Chief Investment Officer David Bailin warned that the worst ‘significant second wave’ of may not be over for stock markets in the U.S. coronavirus, says Citi Private Bank “In the event that we have a very significant second wave of disease in the United States that cause a further shutdown of the economy ... that clearly is not priced into the market,” he said.
With the pandemic potentially dragging out a lot longer, Bailin said company earnings could fall by 40% “across the board” in the second quarter. Major U.S. stock indexes may have recovered from their recent lows, but Citi Private Bank warned on Monday that the worst may not be over. “In the event that we have a very significant second wave of disease in the United States that cause a further shutdown of the economy ... that clearly is not priced into the market,” David Bailin, the bank’s chief investment officer, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.” “The other thing that may not be priced into the market is the fact that this virus may take another 18 to 24 months to really cycle through the globe, and ultimately have a vaccine,” he added. Read More … Go to top The National Debt And Gold "President Trump, in complete contradiction to candidate Trump, has praised Yellen for being a 'low-interest-rate-person.' One reason Trump may have changed his position is that, like most first-term presidents, he thinks low interest rates will help him win reelection. Trump may also realize that his welfare and warfare spending plans require an accommodative Fed to monetize the federal debt. The truth is President Trump’s embrace of status quo monetary policy could prove fatal to both his presidency and the American economy." – Ron Paul, Institute for Peace and Prosperity. Since the early 1970s, the logic for gold ownership has been inextricably bound to the cash flow problems of the federal government. As the national debt increased so did the well-documented damage associated with it – to the dollar, to financial markets and to the economy in general. Simultaneously, gold's role as an inversely correlated portfolio hedge grew over that nearly one-half century as well. As you can see from the chart above, which shows the percent change in the national debt from the previous year, those problems do not favor any
https://pace360.in/21 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
particular political party or president. In a certain sense, it has taken on a life of its own, marching to over $20 trillion without regard to party ideology. I mention that for the benefit of those who might think that somehow things might be different under a Trump administration. In fact, the greatest percentage growth in the national debt occured surprisingly during Republican administrations. "As GOP lawmakers are struggling to enact an agenda of spending and tax reform," says one journalist, "they continue to face the painful reminder that Trump has no ideological drive to tame the deficit. The President has made clear that he doesn't mind if deep tax cuts result in a ballooning of the national debt." Some quick background: * * * In 2008 when the national debt stood at $10 trillion, the federal government paid $336 billion in interest. For a measuring stick, the ten-year Treasury bill drew an average interest rate at the time of around 3.66%. * * * In 2012 when the debt crossed the $16 trillion threshold, the interest payment was almost $456 billion. The ten-year Treasury bill drew an average interest rate of 1.80%. * * * In 2016 with the national debt approaching the $20 trillion mark, the interest payment was $497 billion. The ten-year Treasury bill drew an average interest rate of 1.84%. It is difficult to overlook the fact that 2016's interest payment was an all-time record at the second lowest rate on the 46-year chart. * * * If the ten-year Treasury bill were to rise to 2.82% (the average since 2007), the implied interest payment would exceed $750 billion, 20% more than what the United States spends annually on the national defense. * * * If the average interest rate were to double from current levels (about 3.7% on the ten year Treasury bill), the United States would pay almost $1 trillion annually in interest on the national debt, or nearly one-third of 2016 tax revenues ($3.27 trillion). At that point, markets might begin to question the solvency of the U.S. federal government. The exercise above points up the limitations on the Federal Reserve with respect to raising interest rates. It is a cautionary tale told in some very big numbers that promise to become even larger. In short, the onerous public debt has hamstrung the Fed in ways that policy-makers are loathe to discuss publicly. The Federal Reserve either keeps a leash on interest rates, or it bankrupts the nation. . . . Read More … Go to top
https://pace360.in/22 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
Russia to raise as much debt for Russia plans to raise as much debt at home this year as possible to finance its budget as possible but not at budget needs amid the coronavirus crisis but not at any price, Konstantin every price: finance ministry Vyshkovsky, head of the debt department at the finance ministry, told Reuters in an interview. The finance ministry has already set aside around 2.8% of gross domestic
product - or nearly 3 trillion roubles ($40 billion) - to soften the impact of the
https://pace360.in/23 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
coronavirus pandemic, using a mixture of budget cash, tax breaks and other tools. The state's upper debt ceiling - though not the actual plan - was increased last month to 12.98 trillion roubles in OFZ bonds and $64.4 billion, or its euro equivalent, in hard-currency bonds this year. The current plan to raise 2.3 trillion roubles in OFZ bonds and up to $3 billion in Eurobonds this year so far remains unchanged, Vyshkovsky told Reuters. "If the budget needs an increase we will try to fulfil these needs as much as the market allows. But it should be driven by (market) demand," he said, adding that Russia was ready to offer a "technical premium" of around 5 basis points but not more. "If you know that a good is sold in a shop cheaper and cheaper with every week you probably won't be buying it, this is a dead-end." Vyshkovsky said the new debt ceiling provided flexibility to "react quickly" to negative factors if they arose but said there was no immediate plan to revise the actual state borrowing level this year. Foreigners' share among OFZ holders slipped to 30.9% as of April 10, down from 34.1% in early March but the central bank said last week that the exit of foreigners from the OFZ market had stopped in April. Read More … Go to top The Stock Market Is Certainly Not Here’s a blast from the past: Too Big For The Fed To Handle "The Fed could support the stock market directly by buying market averages in the futures market, thus stabilizing the market as a whole. --- The stock market is certainly not too big for the Fed to handle." - Robert Heller, former Governor of the Federal Reserve, 1989 WSJ interview. During a discussion of the October 1987’s Flash Crash; “stabilizing the market as a whole” sounded pretty good thirty-one years ago, as it does today. Considering the FOMC is now flooding the financial system with “liquidity” and how the Dow Jones in its BEV chart below has rebounded since its lows of late March, maybe Doctor Heller was on to something. But I’m still thinking dead- cat bounce; meaning after this advance is over the Dow Jones will resume its big-bear market decline. How much “liquidity” has the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee (FOMC) “injected” the financial system with? As seen in the chart below plotting the weekly changes in the Fed’s holdings of US Treasury Debt, they’ve expanded their holdings of T-debt by $1,264 billion dollars in just four weeks, or if you prefer $1.264 trillion dollars in only a month’s time. I’m at a loss for words to describe what the “policy makers” have done below – apocalyptic maybe? One thing is for sure; whatever benefits the stock market is seeing now in April 2020, won’t outweigh the inevitable consequences we will all have to bear in the years to come. To demonstrate how contrived the current dead-cat bounce is, the bottom of the BEV -37.09% decline seen above occurred on Monday March 23rd. It was exactly this week (March 23-27) when the FOMC began its historic bubble blowing operation seen below. So it’s no surprise the market has rebounded. If they continue “injecting liquidity” into the market on an industrial scale, we should expect seeing the Dow Jones at new all-time highs sometime soon. But it won’t be a resumption of the old bull market; rather the commencement of a BS Market by the members of the FOMC. Ultimately this will end badly for everyone – but when is the question. Read More … Go to top
https://pace360.in/24 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
'Worse than the war': Hunger We have never seen days this dark," says Souzan, a 50-year-old mother of two. grows in Lebanon along with Speaking by phone from her small home in Beirut's southern suburbs, nearly a anger month into the country's lockdown to stem the spread of COVID-19, Souzan summed up the dire conditions confronting her and thousands of Lebanese. "It's worse than the war," she told Al Jazeera.
The past six months have brought hardships unseen in Lebanon even during the bitter days of its 15-year civil conflict that ended in 1990. Decades of corruption and financial mismanagement by warlords-turned-politicians and a cabal of business elites combined with the war next door in Syria to plunge Lebanon's economy into its worst crisis in living memory. Already ravaged livelihoods are now buckling under the economic disruptions of the coronavirus pandemic, forcing people like Souzan - who asked her surname not be used - to seek aid for the first time in their lives. A fraction of those in need qualify for government assistance. But a promised lifeline from the state has yet to materialize for tens of thousands of people, and cries for help in the country are growing more desperate. Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned earlier this month that unless a robust aid programme is established, millions of Lebanese may go hungry. This in a country of more than six million, of which some 1.5 million are Syrian and Palestinian refugees. Read More … Go to top UN calls on global community to The United Nations made an urgent appeal to the global community for fund emergency supply lines funding to support an emergency supply system to fight the coronavirus pandemic. In a letter signed by the heads of various UN bodies on Sunday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) called on all the "donor community" to contribute towards the COVID-19 Global Humanitarian
https://pace360.in/25 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
Response Plan, which was launched by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on March 25. Read More … Go to top Israelis demonstrate against Wearing face masks, waving black flags, and keeping two metres apart, Netanyahu amid coronavirus thousands of Israelis demonstrated against Prime Minister Benjamin pandemic Netanyahu under strict coronavirus restrictions. "Let democracy win," said one placard on Sunday, while some protesters wrote "Minister of Crime" on their masks, an apparent reference to Netanyahu's upcoming trial for corruption. Netanyahu, who denies any wrongdoing, is under criminal indictment in three corruption cases. He is also negotiating a power-sharing deal with his rival Benny Gantz to form a coalition government that would end a year of political deadlock that saw three inconclusive elections. Demonstrations are allowed under Israel's coronavirus restrictions, as long as participants maintain the required distance from each other and wear face masks. Under the banner of "Save the Democracy", protesters called on Gantz's Blue and White party not to join a coalition led by a prime minister charged with corruption. Read More … Go to top Restructuring Proposal Three of the largest groups of Argentine bondholders on Monday rejected a Bondholders Reject Argentina’s proposal from the South American nation to restructure tens of billions of Debt dollars in foreign debt, raising the likelihood that the country could enter into default as early as next month. The near simultaneous from the committees presents a unified front against the current deal that investors hope will push Argentina to change its terms. An ad-hoc group comprising some of the largest money managers in the world, including BlackRock Inc., said the offer seeks “to place a disproportionate share of Argentina’s longer-term adjustment efforts on the shoulders of international bondholders.” The group controls more than one-quarter of bonds Argentina has issued since 2016 and 15% of bonds the country distributed to investors in a previous restructuring, according to an announcement. On Friday, Argentina presented a proposal to exchange some $65 billion in foreign bonds into new debt at lower interest rates and with later due dates in a bid to avoid another painful default. The offer involves more than $40 billion in debt relief, mainly through reduced interest payments. It includes a three- year moratorium on foreign-debt payments, with an average coupon of 2.33% once interest payments resume. Fund managers in the ad-hoc group who oppose the offer include AllianceBernstein Holding, Amundi Asset Management, Ashmore Investment Management, BlueBay Asset Management, Fidelity Management & Research Co., T. Rowe Price Group Inc., Western Asset Management Co. And Wellington Management Co. They represent millions of individual investors and thousands of financial advisers and are being advised by law firm White & Case LLP, according to the announcement The Argentina Creditor Committee—another group that includes mutual funds, insurance companies and asset managers—said it hasn’t received “substantiated forward-looking economic and financial information” from President Alberto Fernández’s government, nor seen feasible economic policies. Read More … Go to top As Africa Groans Under Debt, It With Africa’s most poverty-stricken economies pushing for debt relief as they Casts Wary Eye at China struggle with the fallout from the global coronavirus pandemic, a tussle is brewing between developed nations, private investors and the continent’s largest creditor: China. Wealthy countries from the U.S. to Japan—watching their own economies
https://pace360.in/26 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
lurch toward recession—are loath to forgive African debt if they think the money will indirectly support Chinese creditors, including the government, banks and contractors. At the same time, Beijing is worried about setting a precedent for widespread forgiveness. To head off a looming crisis, the Group of 20 nations, which includes China, agreed to suspend collection on government debt this year for more than 75 of the world’s poorest countries. And China’s Foreign Ministry said Monday it was willing to study the possibility of a coordinated international debt-relief program for Africa. But some African governments already bilaterally petitioning China for relief say Chinese envoys are citing provisions in loan agreements that would transfer collateral, in some cases strategic state assets, into Beijing’s hands. When Sri Lanka was unable to repay a loan for a Chinese-built port in 2018, the government granted a state-run China-based shipping group a 99-year lease on the facility. Chinese port operators last year tightened their grip over a strategic naval port in the East African nation of Djibouti, where debt to China is equal to nearly 100% of gross domestic product. Beijing appears sensitive to concerns that more governments can’t afford its loans. “China never presses countries in difficulties for debt payment,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a news conference on April 6 when asked about possible relief for African nations. “We resolve issues like this through bilateral consultation.” An estimated $143 billion of African debt to Chinese lenders has been racked up over two decades of record lending, according to Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Much of that has financed large-scale infrastructure projects from light-railway systems in Ethiopia to airports in Zambia and ports in Tanzania. Precisely how much African economies owe to China isn’t known since Beijing is secretive about the terms of its programs and publishes few details on its lending. The World Bank says it is the largest slice of a total debt load valued at $583 billion. It is a burden that has become increasingly complex in recent years as bilateral loans from Western governments have been subsumed by Chinese lending and record issuance of sovereign bonds. African governments have raised more than $55 billion on debt markets in the past two years alone, according to Reuters. China’s ballooning loans to African governments reflect how foreign policy under President Xi Jinping has featured lending around the developing world. Even before the coronavirus crisis, much of that debt looked too heavy for some of Beijing’s client governments and it appeared stung by rising global criticism of its strategies. Officials in Zambia, for example, say Beijing is demanding collateral in exchange for debt deferral or forgiveness. Two senior Zambian officials on a government panel negotiating with China said they are considering giving the Chinese copper-mining assets including the country’s third-largest mine, Mopani, owned by Glencore PLC, a London-listed mining company, in exchange for debt relief. How this plays out will be closely watched by dozens of developing countries, from Pakistan and Central Asia to Latin America and the Caribbean, that have borrowed billions from Chinese lenders to build infrastructure. The Trump administration has repeatedly warned African nations that Chinese lending could result in them losing control of strategic assets. Read More … Go to top Earnings are set for their biggest The S&P 500 index is set to suffer the worst quarter for earnings since the 2008 dive since late 2009 — and it gets financial crisis, and it’s likely to get a lot worse because the results due this worse from here week will barely show the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. About 9% of S&P 500 US:SPX companies reported earnings through Friday and after the first official week of 2020 first-quarter results earnings are on track to
https://pace360.in/27 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
decline 14.5% from a year ago, according to John Butters, senior earnings analyst at FactSet. That would be the biggest decline since the 15.7% plunge in the third quarter of 2009. Butters’s projections are based on blended estimates compiled by FactSet, which include actual results and consensus analyst estimates of companies that haven’t reported yet. The bad news is that actual results have been a lot worse than expected so far, as earnings for the 46 companies that have already reported dropped 32.7%, according to FactSet. Companies have thus far missed earnings-per-share expectations in aggregate by 7.0%, according to Credit Suisse chief U.S. equity strategist Jonathan Golub. That compares with a beat of 5.2% on average over the past three years. The worst is yet to come. The energy and consumer-discretionary sectors are expected to suffer the biggest profit declines, but only one of 27 energy companies and six of 62 consumer discretionary companies have already posted numbers. Energy earnings are projected to decline 64.2% and consumer discretionary earnings are expected to fall 34.7%. Although many were already prepared for an “ugly” quarter because of the coronavirus outbreak, Stephen Hoedt, managing director of equity and fixed income research at Key Private Bank, suggested the results won’t even show the half of it. “[B]ecause the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t taken seriously until early March, less than a third of the quarter was impacted by various lockdown orders across the globe,” Hoedt said. As an example, S&P 500 consumer discretionary component Best Buy Co. Inc. US:BBY said this week that quarter-to-date sales through March 20 were up about 4% from the year-ago period and above expectations, but sales plummeted 30% from March 21 through April 11 after stores were closed to customer traffic. For oil services company Schlumberger N.V. US:SLB, which reported an earnings decline of 16.5% Friday, customer spending and drilling activity dropped as oil prices “slipped” early in the quarter. They then started “falling abruptly” in March. Read More … Go to top To probe coronavirus origin, US The US wants to send a team of experts to China to investigate the wants to send experts inside coronavirus, President Donald Trump has said, a day after he warned Beijing of China "consequences" if it was knowingly responsible for the spread of COVID-19 which has killed more than 165,000 people globally, including over 41,000 in America.
Describing the coronavirus as a plague, Trump, during his White House news conference on Sunday, said that he is not happy with China where the pandemic emerged in December last year in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. “We spoke to them (Chinese) a long time ago about going in. We want to go in. We want to see what's going on. And we weren't exactly invited, I can tell you that," the President told reporters. “I was very happy with the (trade) deal (with China), very happy with everything and then we found out about the plague and since we found out about that I'm not happy," he said. The US has launched an investigation into whether the deadly virus "escaped" from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He has repeatedly expressed disappointment over China's handling of the coronavirus disease, alleged non-transparency and initial non-cooperation from Beijing with Washington on dealing with the crisis. “Based on an investigation, we are going to find out," Trump told reporters. A day earlier, he warned China that it should face consequences if it was "knowingly responsible" for the spread of the novel coronavirus, upping the ante on Beijing over its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
https://pace360.in/28 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
“If they (China) were knowingly responsible… then there should be consequences. You're talking about, you know, potentially lives like nobody's seen since 1917," Trump said on Saturday. The opposition Democratic Party said that Trump has falsely claimed he acted early by restricting travel from China when it was little too late and he continued to downplay the virus throughout February. The number of COVID-19 deaths in the US crossed 41,000 and the total infections were more than 764,000 so far. New York, the epicentre of the deadly COVID-19 in the US, has 2,42,000 cases and over 17,600 fatalities so far. It has registered a 50-percent decline in new cases over an eight-day period. The novel virus, which emerged in China in December last year, has killed over 160,000 and infected more than 2.3 million people worldwide. Read More … Go to top Sebi may scan Cayman, Singapore Investment hubs such as the Cayman Islands, Singapore, Ireland, and investment hubs for Chinese links Luxembourg may come under greater scrutiny of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) because a significant portion of investments coming from China and Hong Kong into India may be routed through these jurisdictions, said people in the know. The regulator last week reached out to custodians for beneficial ownership information of investors coming from China, Hong Kong, and 11 other countries. Over the years, several Chinese funds that manage $1 billion or more have set up operations in Hong Kong, which serves as a launchpad for mainland managers seeking access to overseas markets. The bulk of the investments from Hong Kong, in turn, are routed through the Cayman Islands, which have historically been an attractive jurisdiction for Asia-focused funds.Companies from the Cayman Islands have also been listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE) since the mid-1990s, according to reports. By some estimates, these companies accounted for nearly 50 per cent of all listed ones on the HKSE’s main board at the end of 2017.his is how it works. Funds set up in Hong Kong typically raise money from Hong Kong or Chinese nationals. The majority of the investments in many such funds are from Chinese investors, making them the ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs), said experts. Each of the HK funds then feeds the money into another vehicle in the Cayman Islands, and that acts as a master fund and invests in other markets. Singapore is another jurisdiction that could have strong China links, given that ethnic Chinese make up an estimated three-fourths of its citizen population. Read More … Go to top DPIIT, Finance Ministry locked The government’s move on Friday, mandating government approvals horns before tweak in FDI regarding foreign direct investments (FDIs) “to curb opportunistic takeovers guidelines /acquisitions of Indian companies”, went through the Cabinet unanimously, but only after a fair amount of backroom work. There were differences between the department for promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT), which had moved the Cabinet note, and the finance ministry. Because of the differences, senior ministers, including the ministry of external affairs, had taken part in deliberations before the Cabinet gave its approval. Since the FDI notification was meant to restrict, than expand, the ambit of foreign investment, it was initially opposed by the finance ministry. The latter argued that at a time when there has been a record withdrawal of foreign investment from the Indian capital markets, a restriction would be read otherwise.Overseas investors have pulled out more than Rs 1 trillion from the Indian markets (Rs 56,247.53 crore from equities and Rs 52,449.48 crore from the debt market) between March 2 and March 20, according to data from the depositories. It also argued that the government was trying to expand Indian presence in global market indices and that process could be hampered with
https://pace360.in/29 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
such restrictions. The apparent trigger for the action was that last week the People’s Bank of China (PBC) raised its stake in HDFC to 1.01 per cent from the 0.8 per cent it held in March. However, a finance ministry source said within the year, PBC had already raised its stake even further. As of September 2019, it held 0.97 per cent in HDFC and, hence, the move to raise it to 1.01 per cent was insignificant. But DPIIT argued it was only instituting a system where the government would be in the know of any such move, in advance. Read More … Go to top RBI moratorium: 10% The Reserve Bank of India's directive asking banks to make 10 per cent provisioning may shave Rs 35,000 provisions on all moratorium loans will shave at least Rs 35,000 crore off their cr off bank profits profitability in financial years 2019-20 and 2020-21, according to a report. On Friday, the central bank, in its second set of liquidity-enhancing measures announced Rs 1 trillion specifically targeted fund infusion to small- and mid-
sized shadow banks, home financiers and micro-lenders, which will ultimately go a long way in offering some succour to the small and medium enterprises. "While the liquidity boosters will help the small lenders, the RBI has also stipulated banks to create a 10 per cent provisioning on all loans that are overdue but not yet NPAs (non-performing assets) wherein the moratorium is on, over the March and June quarters. This will impact their profitability by Rs 35,000 crore in the March and June quarters," Brickwork Ratings said in a weekend note. The new provisioning requirement has to be made for the March and June 2020 quarters and this will impact their profitability in 2019-20 and 2020-21. Read More … Go to top Only half of India’s household The ongoing discussion on the prognosis for consumer demand is currently consumption will come through based on extrapolations from supply-side data and macro-economic variables. post covid This column aims to supplement it by providing household-level data on consumption, a “people-view" of those who cause this demand to happen. India’s household consumer demand, the jewel in its gross domestic product
(GDP) crown, is vulnerable and skittish because of dismal occupation demographics, lowly paid and uncertain livelihoods for most; and because most Indian households have very little “surplus income", money remaining after covering their routine expenditure, leave alone their non-routine requirements and emergencies. Consumer demand commentators have been generally reluctant to link the dismal occupation demographics to consumer demand, beyond monsoon-dependent agriculture and, after demonetization, small business owners and their employees. The covid-19 pandemic has forced us to acknowledge the universe of migrant—daily-wage workers—individual service providers who hunt for their daily bread, 32% of Indian households who contribute about 24% to India’s household expenditure. By contrast, the so-called middle class, which is actually India’s richest 20% of households, accounts for 36% of consumption expenditure. Read More … Go to top RBI’s moves may not snap banks’ Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das announced a series of wariness to lend measures on Friday to encourage banks to lend. This comes after non-food credit growth fell to a 26-year low in 2019-20. Will RBI’s new moves encourage banks to lend more? Mint takes a look. Non-food credit grew 6.1% in 2019-20, the lowest since 1993-94, when it was 5.7% (see Chart 1). It’s also the third-slowest growth in the last 60 years. The slowest growth was 5.4% and it took place in 1961-62. Banks lend money to the Food Corporation of India and other state procurement agencies to buy rice and wheat directly from farmers, primarily to meet the country’s food security needs. Once this lending is subtracted from the overall lending of banks, what remains is non-food credit. Non-food credit growth was collapsing
https://pace360.in/30 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
even before covid-19 struck. Since then, things could have only got worse. Read More … Go to top PE investment in real estate falls Private equity (PE) investment in Indian real estate plunged 89 per cent to USD 89% to $222 million in January- 222 million (Rs 1,640 crore) during the January-March period this year on March: Report global economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus outbreak, according to a report by Colliers International. PE inflows in real estate had stood at USD 2,023 million in the corresponding period a year ago.
The consultant projected that total PE investment in real estate could drop to USD 3.5 billion in the calendar year 2020 from USD 6.4 billion last year. Out of USD 222 million inflow in the first three months of this year, the office market attracted an investment of USD 143 million while the hospitality sector USD 79 million. During the January-March period of 2019, inflows in the office market stood at USD 1,419 million, housing USD 300 million, logistic USD 150 million, mixed- use projects USD 102 million and retail USD 52 million, the data showed. Read More … Go to top RBI's measures may not get India's financial space is experiencing acute liquidity crunch and the Reserve desired results; pain unlikely to Bank of India recently came up with a string of measures to address the go away for NBFCs problem but experts say steps are unlikely to help the banks and NBFCs. On April 17, the central bank said it would conduct targeted long term repos operations (TLTRO) 2.0 for Rs 50,000 crore, to begin with.
Aimed at easing liquidity for NBFCs, at least 50 percent of the total amount availed under TLTRO 2.0 would be going to small- and mid-sized non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and microfinance institutions (MFIs). "At least 50 percent of the amount must go to the mid and small-sized NBFCs and MFIs. Exposure in this facility will not be reckoned under the large exposure framework. TLTRO 2.0 investments may be classified as HTM (held to maturity)," RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das had said. Read More … Go to top Another Recession Gauge Signals A Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago gauge of the national economy declined in Longest U.S. Expansion Has March to a level that indicates the U.S. has slipped into a recession, led by Ended weaker production and employment indicators that highlight the severe impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The Chicago Fed’s National Activity Index fell to minus 4.19 during the month
from a downwardly revised positive 0.06 in February as all four broad categories of indicators that make up the gauge made negative contributions. The index’s three-month moving average decreased to minus 1.47 in March -- the lowest since 2009 -- from minus 0.20 in February. Following a period of economic expansion, an increasing likelihood of a recession has historically been associated with when the three-month moving average falls below minus 0.70. The report reflects data available as of April 16. At that time, 50 of the 85 indicators had been published and the rest were estimated. Sixty-five made negative contributions, 18 were positive and two neutral. Production-related indicators contributed minus 2.72 to the CFNAI, while employment data contributed minus 1.23. Read More … Go to top
https://pace360.in/31 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
Hasenstab’s Global Bond Fund The main bond fund run by Franklin Templeton’s Michael Hasenstab posted a Posts a $4.3 Billion Drop in Assets $4.3 billion decline in assets in the first three months of the year, its worst quarter since 2016. Total net assets in the Templeton Global Bond Fund slumped to $22.6 billion as of March 31, public filings show, down from $26.9 billion at the end of 2019. It was the fourth consecutive quarter of declines and takes the drop in holdings in the past year to $11 billion. Hasenstab has famously been caught on the wrong side of a huge bet against Treasuries and was forced to pare that back last year after yields plunged. Stimulus measures to fight the fallout from coronavirus have pushed yields even lower since. The filings also show that average duration in the fund -- a measure of its sensitivity to interest rates -- has turned positive for the first time in three years, climbing to 2.06 years by the end of March. It hit a record low of minus 2.82 years at the middle of last year. In a shift designed to offset loss-making positions, Hasenstab doubled exposure to the yen to more than 40% in the third quarter of last year and added long positions in the Norwegian krone and Swedish krona. The manager said then that he was holding onto his Treasury short, but turning the focus to longer maturities. The fund was betting against Treasuries by trading interest- rate swaps. Hasenstab has argued for years that markets are overvaluing longer-maturity debt given rising deficit spending and inflation pressures. The fund was also heavily invested in Argentinian local-currency bonds when the country defaulted last August. The filings also show that average duration in the fund -- a measure of its sensitivity to interest rates -- has turned positive for the first time in three years, climbing to 2.06 years by the end of March. It hit a record low of minus 2.82 years at the middle of last year. In a shift designed to offset loss-making positions, Hasenstab doubled exposure to the yen to more than 40% in the third quarter of last year and added long positions in the Norwegian krone and Swedish krona. The manager said then that he was holding onto his Treasury short, but turning the focus to longer maturities. The fund was betting against Treasuries by trading interest-
https://pace360.in/32 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
rate swaps. Read More … Go to top
At mercy of banks, India's cash- India’s banks are freezing credit lines to shadow lenders as the coronavirus tight shadow lenders face new crisis shuts down commerce in Asia’s third-largest economy, but leaving this turmoil sector in the lurch risks wider financial contagion. All major state-owned and private banks have stopped lending to non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) due to concerns about their financial health as
businesses they lend to reel from the impact of the pandemic, four industry executives, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the situation, told Reuters. This has led to a working capital squeeze for many NBFCs who account for nearly a fifth of overall lending as they struggle to meet operating costs. Their debt collections have dried up amid a 40-day nationwide lockdown to rein in the respiratory illness that has claimed over 500 lives. “For now, we’ve taken salary cuts of up to 75% across the board so that we can stretch the capital for a couple more months, but if things continue like this we are considering winding up our operations, the founder of a small NBFC that lends to small and medium enterprises said. A report by India Ratings this month said NBFCs are more exposed to bad debt as they tend to lend to riskier clients, often those likely the hardest hit by the virus lockdown. Read More … Go to top India's new FDI rules may open India’s new rules for foreign investment violate WTO principles of non- new flashpoint with China discrimination and are against free and fair trade, a Chinese embassy spokesperson said on Monday, potentially opening a new flashpoint in their uneasy tiesOn Saturday, India stepped up scrutiny of investments from companies based in neighbouring countries, in what is widely seen as a move to stave off takeovers by Chinese firms during the coronavirus outbreak. The changes to federal rules on investment were meant to curb opportunistic takeovers and acquisitions, the government said, but it did not mention China
https://pace360.in/33 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
in its new policy statement. In a global rout triggered by the fast spreading outbreak and the imposition of domestic lockdown measures, Indian stock markets have fallen 25% since Feb. 15, wiping out tens of billions of dollars of value. “The impact of the policy on Chinese investors is clear,” Ji Rong, a spokesman at the Chinese embassy in New Delhi, said in a statement. As of December 2019, China’s cumulative investment in India has exceeded $8 billion, far more than the total investments of India’s other border-sharing countries, the statement said. Read More … Go to top Qatar And Russia Fight For LNG The 2020 drastic oil price drop, induced by the ever-frightening coronavirus Supremacy As Prices Fall To and the Saudi-Russian spat, has ravaged business interests all across the world. Historic Lows US oil producers are facing a new reality – instead of a seemingly watertight growth trajectory, 2020 will most probably witness a decline in annual oil output by some 0.5mbpd, to the level of 11.76mbpd if one is to believe the last
EIA forecast. Small and medium-sized US producers are bracing for a series of bankruptcies, the ones with more robust political connections are trying to salvage a deal that would provide some hope for a quick price hike, all the while the majors are cutting CAPEX and postponing major investments. Yet it is not only oil producers who should brace for a tiny revolution – LNG exporters will be the next in line, as can be judged from the current state of things in Europe. The double whammy of oil prices plummeting and coronavirus diminishing LNG demand is still in its relative nascency in Europe. March 2020 has seen the highest-ever level of monthly LNG imports into Europe, with 10.45 million tons of LNG arriving across 170 cargoes. With prices dropping to unprecedented lows, this was very much to be expected, the warm winter of 2019/2020 notwithstanding. Then COVID-19 cut all the hype short. Chinese LNG demand is still moving back to the pre-COVID levels, India has declared a total lockdown, Japan has now declared a state of emergency until at least May 06 and South Korea already asking term LNG suppliers for delays on the back of missing demand – against such a background, the loss of the European market outlet ought to hurt. Read More … Go to top South Africa economy to shrink South Africa's economy will contract sharply this year as activity is hit by the 4.9% in 2020, SARB to cut rates in coronavirus outbreak, despite expectations the central bank will cut interest May: Reuters poll rates again in May, a Reuters poll found on Monday. The country is already in recession, with the economy expected to have contracted 1.9% last quarter and to shrink an unprecedented 23% this quarter,
the poll showed. Another rate cut from the central bank - which cut 100 basis points from borrowing costs on March 19 and then again on April 14 - is expected to help the finance ministry, which has already ramped up borrowing. Economists now expect the economy to shrink 4.9% this year before recovering with 2.0% growth next year. Last month's survey had suggested 0.3% and 1.2% expansions, respectively. The forecasts showed huge levels of uncertainty due to a country-wide lockdown. Even the most optimistic economist forecast a contraction of 1.0%, while the most pessimistic predicted a 14.6% contraction. Base effects may play a role next year, with the most optimistic economist forecasting growth of 5.1%, but some respondents said the lockdown would make it costly and difficult to bring the economy back to normality. With consumers staying home and global oil prices falling sharply, inflation forecasts were also cut. Prices are now expected to rise 3.8% this year and 4.5% in 2021, compared with 4.2% and 4.6% in a March poll. That would give the South Africa Reserve Bank room to ease policy. Nine of 15 economists polled in the past week expected interest rates to be cut
https://pace360.in/34 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
by 50 basis points to 3.75% in May, while three said the Bank would cut by 25 basis points. Two expected no move, and one pencilled in a 100 basis-point cut. "Given the scale of the SARB's forecast revisions and that of its surprise rate cut, there is little doubt now that its hawkish reservations to cut rates have been lifted," said Francesca Beausang, economist at Continuum Economics. Read More … Go to top Brazil growth, inflation, rates Expectations for Brazilian economic growth, inflation and interest rates this outlook sink to new lows: central year sank to new lows, a weekly central bank survey of economists showed on bank survey Monday, as the coronavirus cloud over Latin America's largest economy continued to darken. The economy is now expected to shrink by 3% this year, according to the
average forecast of around 100 financial institutions in the bank's 'FOCUS' survey, a full percentage point down from last week's forecast of 2% contraction. It was the tenth downward revision in a row, and is more in line with a clutch of global institutions, including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, who say 2020 will mark one of Brazil's biggest economic crashes in decades. The government and central bank are sticking to their official forecast of zero growth for now, but are widely expected to revise that lower in due course. The FOCUS survey also showed economists now expect the central bank's benchmark Selic rate will end the year at 3.00%, down from 3.25% last week. That would signify another 75 basis points of easing from its current 3.75%. End-year inflation is now projected to be 2.23%, significantly below the central bank's official goal of 4.00%. The average forecast for next year fell to 3.40%, also further below the central bank's 2021 target of 3.75%. Read More … Go to top
Fitch Downgrades Hong Kong as Fitch Ratings downgraded Hong Kong as an issuer of long-term, foreign Pandemic Poses Economic Shock currency debt saying that the city is facing a “second major shock” from the coronavirus after prolonged social unrest last year. Hong Kong’s rating was lowered to AA- from AA with a stable outlook, with real gross domestic product expected to fall by 5% this year after a 1.2% decline in 2019, Fitch said in a report Monday. “Efforts to contain the spread of the virus locally appear to be gaining traction, but risks to our forecast remain to the downside and dependent on the evolution of the pandemic globally, given Hong Kong’s status as a small, open economy,” analysts at the ratings firm wrote. Fitch downgraded Hong Kong’s rating to its lowest level since 2007, putting it below that of markets such as Macau and on par with the likes of the United Kingdom. The ratings agency also said the downgrade reflected its view that Hong Kong’s gradual integration into China’s national governance system and increased economic, financial, and socio-political links to the mainland justifies a closer alignment of their respective sovereign ratings. “These established trends are exemplified by the central authorities taking a more vocal role in Hong Kong affairs than at any time since the 1997 handover,” it said. The Hong Kong government said it was “disappointed” with Fitch’s assessment. “The view that Hong Kong’s rising economic and financial ties with the Mainland is credit negative is also ungrounded,” a government spokesman said in a statement Monday. Read More … Go to top Cash Flow Is King We are actively purchasing shares in REIT property sectors that we believe have the best risk-adjusted profiles.
https://pace360.in/35 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
During this pandemic, we are cautious of companies that are not capitalized to manage months of rent deferrals. We’re maintaining defensive posturing in an effort to increase wealth by staying laser focused on the optimal “sleep well at night” mantra in which “cash flow is king”. Read More … Go to top Oil: Winter Is Coming In The Shale We reconfirm the business case for oil in an energy hungry world. Patch We venture a guess about the lasting impact of the coronavirus on people's behavior. Document the further and accelerating decline of shale. Forecast where the money being taken out of shale may eventually go to shore up flagging oil production. We highlight a section of the energy market we are keeping a close eye on for entry points. Read More … Go to top QE Infinity: The Fed And Treasury The Fed is slowing down, but continues at a rapid pace. Meanwhile, Treasury Race To $2 Trillion auctions are off the chart. They are selling almost entirely bills under a year. The PPP is already full up, and the results are illuminating. There seems to have been a lot of politics in where the loans went. The banks continue to be risk averse and hoard cash. I don’t blame them; I am too. Cash remains the best bet for most investors. Market volatility will continue to be sharp, and most people do not have the stomach for either side of it. Read More … Go to top How The S&P 500 Became So 50 years ago, Americans mostly bought the same platinum albums, but owned Overrated different stocks. Today, Americans have diverse playlists but more homogenous stock portfolios. The S&P 500 is a relatively well-constructed index with good recent performance, but has its flaws that investors should consider critically. In this article, we take a look at the rise of some of the top S&P 500 funds globally, and 5 problems with too much investment herding into them. Read More … Go to top Bottom-Calling Bets on $4.3 Historic turmoil in the oil market is proving painful for investors who just piled Billion ETF Go Bad Amid Oil into a $4.3 billion energy ETF. Plunge The United States Oil Fund LP, or USO, plunged more than 10% in pre-market trading, with crude tumbling below $12 a barrel amid an unprecedented supply and demand imbalance. USO’s slide came after investors plowed $1.6
billion into the fund last week -- the biggest weekly influx on record for the exchange-traded fund. USO is a popular choice for retail investors looking to bet on short-term price reversals, buying dips and selling rallies. However, those bets soured Monday as slower demand exacerbates a fast-growing glut of oil. “Traditionally, this product is used to play mean reversion. It also attracts outsiders whenever oil is so low it makes the nightly news,” said Eric Balchunas, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “So it’s basically an overcrowded bottom-calling trade gone bad.” State Street’s $8.6 billion Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund, ticker XLE, dropped 5.7% before the market open. Meanwhile, the $1.7 billion SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF, ticker XOP, fell 6.5%.USO, which accounts for about 25% of all outstanding contracts in West Texas Intermediate crude futures, said last week that it will move 20% of its contracts from the nearest month to the second-traded month. The issuer cited market and regulatory conditions in announcing the shift as coronavirus-related fears open up a gap between plunging prices for the nearest dates and the following month. Read More …
https://pace360.in/36 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
Go to top
https://pace360.in/37 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
International Events
Date Time COUNTRY DATA Forecast Previous SunApr 19 Day 3 All IMF Meetings MonApr 4:15am NZD CPI q/q 0.50% 20 4:31am GBP Rightmove HPI m/m 1.00% 5:20am JPY Trade Balance 0.50T 11:30am EUR German PPI m/m -0.40% 1:30pm EUR Current Account 34.7B 2:30pm EUR Trade Balance 17.3B
Tentative EUR German Buba Monthly Report
6:00pm CAD Wholesale Sales m/m 1.80% TueApr 21 7:00am AUD Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes 11:30am CHF Trade Balance 3.57B GBP Average Earnings Index 3m/y 3.10% GBP Claimant Count Change 17.3K GBP Unemployment Rate 3.90% 2:30pm EUR German ZEW Economic Sentiment -49.5 EUR ZEW Economic Sentiment -49.5 6:00pm CAD Core Retail Sales m/m -0.10% CAD Retail Sales m/m 0.40% 7:30pm USD Existing Home Sales 5.77M 8:00pm AUD CB Leading Index m/m 0.40%
Tentative NZD GDT Price Index 1.20%
WedApr 4:00am NZD Business NZ Manufacturing Index 22 6:00am AUD MI Leading Index m/m -0.40% 11:30am GBP CPI y/y 1.70% GBP PPI Input m/m -1.20% GBP Core CPI y/y 1.70% GBP PPI Output m/m -0.30% GBP RPI y/y 2.50% 2:00pm GBP HPI y/y 1.30%
Tentative EUR German 10-y Bond Auction
6:00pm CAD CPI m/m 0.40%
https://pace360.in/38 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
CAD Common CPI y/y 1.80% CAD Median CPI y/y 2.10% CAD Trimmed CPI y/y 2.00% CAD Core CPI m/m 0.70% CAD NHPI m/m 0.40% 6:30pm CNY CB Leading Index m/m -1.00% USD HPI m/m 0.30% 7:30pm EUR Consumer Confidence -12 8:00pm USD Crude Oil Inventories ThuApr 23 4:30am AUD Flash Manufacturing PMI 49.7 AUD Flash Services PMI 38.5 6:00am JPY Flash Manufacturing PMI 44.8 8:30am NZD Credit Card Spending y/y 2.50% 11:30am EUR German GfK Consumer Climate 2.7 GBP Retail Sales m/m -0.30% GBP Public Sector Net Borrowing -0.4B 12:45pm EUR French Flash Services PMI 27.4 EUR French Flash Manufacturing PMI 43.2 1:00pm EUR German Flash Manufacturing PMI 45.4 EUR German Flash Services PMI 31.7 1:30pm EUR Flash Manufacturing PMI 44.5 EUR Flash Services PMI 26.4 2:00pm GBP Flash Manufacturing PMI 47.8 GBP Flash Services PMI 34.5 3:30pm GBP CBI Industrial Order Expectations -29 6:00pm USD Unemployment Claims 7:15pm USD Flash Manufacturing PMI 48.5 USD Flash Services PMI 39.8 7:30pm USD New Home Sales 765K 8:00pm USD Natural Gas Storage Day 1 All G20 Meetings FriApr 24 5:00am JPY National Core CPI y/y 0.60% JPY Tokyo Core CPI y/y 5:20am JPY SPPI y/y 2.10% 10:00am JPY All Industries Activity m/m 0.80% 11:30am EUR German Import Prices m/m 1:30pm EUR German ifo Business Climate 86.1 6:00pm USD Core Durable Goods Orders m/m -0.60% USD Durable Goods Orders m/m 1.20% 6:30pm EUR Belgian NBB Business Climate -10.9 7:30pm USD Revised UoM Consumer Sentiment 71 USD Revised UoM Inflation Expectations 2.10% Day 2 All G20 Meetings
SatApr 25 Tentative CAD Annual Budget Release
SunApr 26 MonApr All Day NZD Bank Holiday
https://pace360.in/39 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
27 11:30am GBP Nationwide HPI m/m
TueApr 28 Tentative JPY BOJ Outlook Report
Tentative JPY Monetary Policy Statement
Tentative JPY BOJ Policy Rate
10:30am JPY BOJ Core CPI y/y
Tentative JPY BOJ Press Conference
3:30pm GBP CBI Realized Sales 6:00pm USD Goods Trade Balance USD Prelim Wholesale Inventories m/m 6:30pm USD S&P/CS Composite-20 HPI y/y 7:30pm USD CB Consumer Confidence USD Richmond Manufacturing Index
Domestic Event
https://pace360.in/40 | Page [email protected]
Major News impacting Markets 20-Apr-20
Disclaimer:: The report and information contained herein is strictly confidential and meant solely for the selected recipient and may not be altered in any way, transmitted to, copied or distributed, in part or in whole, to any other person or to the media or reproduced in any form, without prior written consent. This report and information herein is solely for informational purpose and may not be used or considered as an offer document or solicitation of offer to buy or sell or subscribe for securities or other financial instruments. Nothing in this report constitutes investment, legal, accounting and tax advice or a representation that any investment or strategy is suitable or appropriate to your specific circumstances. The securities discussed and opinions expressed in this report may not be suitable for all investors, who must make their own investment decisions, based on their own investment objectives, financial positions and needs of specific recipient. This may not be taken in substitution for the exercise of independent judgment by any recipient. Each recipient of this document should make such investigations as it deems necessary to arrive at an independent evaluation of an investment in the securities of companies referred to in this document (including the merits and risks involved), and should consult its own advisors to determine the merits and risks of such an investment. The investment discussed or views expressed may not be suitable for all investors. Certain transactions –including those involving futures, options, another derivative products as well as non-investment grade securities - involve substantial risk and are not suitable for all investors. No representation or warranty, express or implied, is made as to the accuracy, completeness or fairness of the information and opinions contained in this document. The Disclosures of Interest Statement incorporated in this document is provided solely to enhance the transparency and should not be treated as endorsement of the views expressed in the report. This information is subject to change without any prior notice. The Company reserves the right to make modifications and alternations to this statement as may be required from time to time without any prior approval. This document is being supplied to you solely for your information and may not be reproduced, redistributed or passed on, directly or indirectly, to any other person or published, copied, in whole or in part, for any purpose. Neither the Firm, not its directors, employees, agents or representatives shall be liable for any damages whether direct or indirect, incidental, special or consequential including lost revenue or lost profits that may arise from or in connection with the use of the information. The person accessing this information specifically agrees to exempt PACE or any of its affiliates or employees from, any and all responsibility/liability arising from such misuse and agrees not to hold PACE or any of its affiliates or employees responsible for any such misuse and further agrees to hold PACE or any of its affiliates or employees free and harmless from all losses, costs, damages, expenses that may be suffered by the person accessing this information due to any errors and delays.
https://pace360.in/41 | Page [email protected]