I
do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of
inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of
governments.
Friedrich
August von Hayek.
Within hours of posting yesterday’s LIR update, yesterday’s
top story of piracy and other attacks on shipping in the Gulf of Oman went poof
and the story quickly fell apart.Cui
bono?
Iran had decried the reports as suspicious, hinting at a
false story orchestrated for some unstated anti-Iran purpose. A Gulf of Tonkin
incident perhaps set off prematurely?
By noon UK time, the UK Maritime Agency plus others, were
fast rewriting the script.So that’ll be
no new war, for now.
In the central bankster fuelled stock casinos, another
wobble in the US casinos and another pause in Asia. Europe’s casinos will
likely track US casinos, while keeping a close watch on China’s verbal attack
on Chinese gaming stocks. Is official action to follow?
Asia-Pacific stocks mixed;
Chinese online gaming stocks come under spotlight again
SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were mixed in Thursday
morning trade. Investors monitored Hong Kong-listed shares of firms related to
the Chinese video game sector after China’s state media once again took aim at
the industry.
In Thursday morning trade, shares of Tencent in Hong
Kong slipped 0.18% while Netease dropped more than 3%.
The Securities Times, a publication under the Chinese
Communist Party’s official newspaper People’s Daily, published an article on
Thursday arguing that gaming firms should not have preferential tax measures
that were introduced to encourage the development of the domestic software
sector — as the gaming industry is more developed now.
It said that gaming should share the same tax policies as
other industries, and warned that the industry should be “mentally prepared for
this.”
Shares of Tencent and Netease tanked
earlier this week after Chinese state media branded online gaming “opium”
in an article that was deleted a few hours after publication and later
republished with a new headline and a removal of the reference to the word.
Japan’s Nikkei
225 gained 0.34% while the Topix index advanced 0.26%. South Korea’s Kospi stood little changed.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.22%.
Australia recorded a trade surplus of around 10.5 billion Australian dollars
(about $7.75 billion) in July, according to data released by the country’s
Bureau of Statistics on Thursday. That was above forecasts for a 10.45 billion
Australian dollar trade surplus, according to a Reuters poll.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan
traded 0.2% higher.
The
Covid situation in China may have weighed on investor sentiment regionally.
Daily infections have bene rising again in the country as the delta variant
spreads across China, with authorities imposing mass testing and widespread
travel restrictions in some areas.
Overnight stateside, the Dow dropped 323.73 points to
34,792.67 while the S&P 500 slipped 0.46% to 4,402.66. The Nasdaq Composite
outperformed as it rose 0.13% to 14,780.53.
The moves on Wall Street came after jobs data from payroll
processing firm ADP came in well below expectations. The ADP
private payroll survey showed a gain of 330,000 jobs for July, well below
the consensus estimate of 653,000. The more closely watched Labor Department
nonfarm payrolls release is set to be out on Friday.
In other Asian news, Covid variant Delta is starting to
drag on factory production adding to supply chain problems, while weather
problems are now also adding to shipping delays. Buy now for Christmas while
stocks last.
Southeast Asia's factory
powerhouses hit by vaccination woes, Delta
BANGKOK/KUALA
LUMPUR (Reuters) - Fresh outbreaks of the Delta coronavirus variant in
Southeast Asia have crippled its factory sector, disrupting global supplies of
goods such as rubber gloves, semiconductors and SUVs and threatening the $3
trillion region’s recovery.
A series of factory surveys this
week showed business activity across most Southeast Asian economies fell
sharply in July, a contrast to more resilient manufacturing economies in
Northeast Asia and the West, where business growth has slowed but remained in
expansion.
The economic disruptions in
Southeast Asia caused by the virus have been made worse by slow progress in
vaccinations in the region of 600 million people. Governments have struggled to
secure doses and have imposed costly lockdowns that have left many factories
without workers.
The setbacks threaten the growth of
one of the world’s more resilient emerging market blocs, which has withstood
various global crises in recent decades thanks to broad robust economic reforms
and its proximity to China.
HSBC economists warn the low
inoculation rates in Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand, as well
as the uncertain efficacy of their vaccines, put their economies at risk.
“This means that populations in
these countries could remain vulnerable not only to the current outbreak, but
any future mutations that may develop,” HSBC said. “Touch-and-go restrictions
are likely to continue, weighing on the near-term growth outlook.”
For Southeast Asia’s manufacturers,
which are competitive largely because of low-cost labour and access to raw
materials, the impact of new outbreaks on labour supply has been a major
production bottleneck.
In Thailand, Asia’s fourth-largest
auto exporter and a production base for major global car brands, Toyota Motor
Corp suspended production at three of its plants in July in July due to parts
shortages caused by the pandemic.
Following the markets on both sides of the Atlantic since 1968. A dinosaur, who evolved with the financial system as it was perverted from capitalism to banksterism after the great Nixonian error of abandoning the dollar's link to gold instead of simply revaluing gold. Our money is too important to be left to probity challenged central banksters and crooked politicians.
No comments:
Post a Comment