DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Morning Bid: Xi bangs the drums
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Asian markets will open with a spring in their step on Friday after the huge 'risk-on' rally Thursday. They will be on FX intervention alert too, after the dollar's spike to a 32-year high of 147.67 yen. The bullish whoosh across markets on Thursday pulled the dollar back a bit, but it remains above 147.00. A G7 statement late on Thursday reaffirming policymakers' commitment that excessive FX moves are undesirable seems to have barely registered among FX traders. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/IllustrationLONDON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Borrowing costs for UK firms are soaring, with sterling corporate bond prices headed for their biggest monthly fall since the 1990s as fallout from the British government's "mini-Budget" grows. That, according to Vanguard credit portfolio manager Sarang Kulkarni, in turn helped ease conditions slightly in the investment grade bond market. Yields and bond prices move inversely. The sterling corporate bond market, much smaller and less liquid than the equivalent euro or U.S. dollar markets, is driven largely by moves in UK gilts, which have slid in value in recent days. He said that liquidity in the corporate sterling market - not great at the best of times - was looking "almost non-existent" right now.

☆ Sterling crumbles to all-time low, euro at 20-year low
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( Dhara Ranasinghe | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterBut it was sterling's slide that rippled across markets, down as much as 4.9% to an all-time low of $1.0327 . Sterling was also down 1% against the euro, having hit its lowest since September 2020 at 92.60 pence . The euro also touched a fresh 20-year trough at $0.9528 and was last down 0.5%. And the dollar index - where the basket includes sterling, the euro and the yen - reached 114.58 for the first time since May 2002, reflecting the greenback's broad strength. The risk-sensitive Australian dollar dropped to $0.64845, its lowest since May 2020, and the Canadian dollar touched 1.3638 to its U.S. counterpart, its weakest since July 2020.

☆ Sterling crumbles to all-time nadir, euro at 20-year low
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( Dhara Ranasinghe | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Sterling also tumbled 1.3% against the euro, having hit its lowest since September 2020 at 92.60 pence . Kit Juckes, head of currency strategy Societe Generale in London, said markets had a tendency to overshoot but noted two points on sterling's slide. "The second is that the mini budget has allowed sterling to be the short of choice against the dollar." The euro also touched a fresh 20-year trough at $0.9528 , as the pound's slide rippled across markets. China's offshore yuan slid to a new low of 7.1728 per dollar, its weakest since May 2020.

☆ Investors should brace for 'unsettling volatility' and the S&P 500 is headed back to June lows as dysfunction is growing across markets, Mohamed El-Erian says
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( Jennifer Sor | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Markets need to brace for "unsettling volatility," Mohamed El-Erian told CNBC on Friday. The top economist predicted the S&P 500 could retest June lows due to signs of dysfunction in US Treasuries and money markets. But you just can't avoid the macro factor right now," he said in an interview on CNBC on Friday, predicting that the S&P 500 was set to retest lows near 3,600. The S&P 500 already made a start downwards since the Fed delivered another 75-basis-point rate hike on Wednesday, when stocks notched their steepest one-day decline since the pandemic. "They can create very unsettling volatility, not just volatility," he said, noting that turmoil in Treasurys is structural and has largely been exposed to the Fed's quantitative easing, which doubled its balance sheet to $8.9 trillion.

☆ Take Five: Intervention watch is here
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Banknotes of Japanese yen and U.S. dollar are seen in this illustration picture taken September 23, 2022. Election results from Italy, euro area inflation numbers and U.S. and Chinese data also give investors plenty to chew over. Japan's authorities finally had enough of a weak yen and intervened to stem a sharp decline against the dollar. Investors have already ramped up expectations for another 75 bps, ECB rate hike in October, so the data shouldn't change the near-term rate outlook. How a new government navigates an energy crunch that is pushing highly-indebted Italy into recession will also be under scrutiny.

☆ Does the U.K. Really Depend on the Kindness of Strangers?
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( Jon Sindreu | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Three decades after Britain was forced to leave the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, fears of a new sterling crisis are spreading across markets. The currency is hitting 37-year lows against the U.S. dollar just as the country’s current account is at a record deficit and borrowing is about to jump to finance new Prime Minister Liz Truss ‘ plan to freeze energy bills, which could cost north of £150 billion, equivalent to around $169 billion. But worries about the pound might be exaggerated.

☆ Meta's privacy obligations may be added to German antitrust probe, court adviser says
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Foo Yun Chee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

At issue is whether the German antitrust agency overstepped its authority by using its antitrust power to address data protection concerns, which are the remit of national data protection authorities. A German court subsequently sought guidance from the CJEU. "A competition authority may, in exercising its powers, take account of the compatibility of a commercial practice with the General Data Protection Regulation," he said in a non-binding opinion. He said antitrust watchdogs however need to consult with the lead privacy enforcers as well, which in Meta's case is the Irish data protection agency as its European headquarters is based there. In May, it was designated by the German authority as of "paramount importance for competition across markets" subject to tougher rules.

Search resuls for: "Cross Markets"

8 mentions found