Hawkish Sign from Bank of Japan and a Sluggish Sign in U.S. Manufacturing December 1, 2025 (163) The final month of 2025 kicked off with two concerning pieces of news to risk-taking investors. The first impulse came from a speech by Bank of Japan Governor Ueda that more convincingly than previous signals suggests that officials…
Unremarkable G20 Annual Summit and A Disappointing German Business Climate Survey November 24, 2025 (164) The 2025 summit of Group of Twenty government leaders, held over the weekend in Johannesburg, South Africa, will likely be remembered for the United States and Argentina boycotting the conference, which proved especially awkward because the U.S. is the designated…
Next Week’s Menu: November 22 – 28, 2025 November 21, 2025 Central Banks: Monetary stances will be reviews next week in New Zealand, Sri Lanka, South Korea and Kyrgyzstan. Minutes from the last reviews will be published by central banks in Australia and Euroland. The European Central Bank also releases its Financial Stability Review.The Federal…
A Downward Momentum of Their Own in Global Equities November 21, 2025 Share prices in Asian Pacific markets ended this difficult week with Friday losses of 3.8% in South Korea, 3.6% in Taiwan, 2.5% in China, 2.4% in Hong Kong and Japan, 1.6% in Australia and 1.0% in Singapore. European markets are under water, led…
A Sixth South African Central Bank Interest Rate Cut November 20, 2025 Based on their improved inflation outlook, policymakers at the South African Reserve Bank unanimously decided to cut their repo rate by a further 25 basis points to 6.75% and bringing the cumulative drop since September 2024 to 150 basis points. “Because of downside…
Reacting to Nvidia’s Sales Leap while Awaiting U.S. Employment Situation Report and Japanese Fiscal Stimulus November 20, 2025 News of a 62% year-on-year leap in Nvidia sales ignited a solid rebound in U.S. equities. At 08:00 in pre-open futures trading, the Nasdaq and S&P 500 were showing rebounds of 1.7% and 1.2%. Investors are also…
Comment on FOMC Minutes from October 28-29 Meeting November 19, 2025 This was the FOMC meeting at which, according to Chairman Jerome Powell, strongly variant opinions emerged regarding the appropriate future monetary policy. The minutes state the obvious dilemma caused by a) U.S. inflation picking up earlier this year and still remaining more elevated than…
Icelandic Central Bank Rate Cut November 19, 2025 A 25-basis point cut in the Bank of Iceland‘s 7-day term rate today to 7.25% had not been expected by analysts. That was the fourth reduction this year and follows two cuts in the final quarter of 2024. Altogether, the rate has dropped two percentage points from…
Sino-Japanese Geopolitical Tensions Reflected in Weak Yen and Nikkei Losses November 19, 2025 Ramifications continued on Wednesday from Prime Minister Takaichi’s parliamentary comment that Chinese steps to seize control of Taiwan could elicit a military response from Japan. That insinuation during a Q&A session led to a forceful verbal response from Beijing officials. The yen…
Look Out Below! November 18, 2025 A plunge of as much as 29.2% in the price of Bitcoin from its early October high of $126,250 six weeks ago to today’s intra-day low of $89,369 this Tuesday reflects the spoils of a tariff policy gone bad, mounting unease over the equity bubble surrounding artificial intelligence, and…