In The News

Wall Street Journal: US Dollar and Global Market Malaise

James Mackintosh July 6, 2018
Uncertainty is disrupting global markets and increasing volatility, and investors are becoming more cautious about riskier investments including emerging markets, bonds and investments associated with countries running high levels of debt, with Chinese stocks down 20 percent, and unconventional investments like bitcoin. In turn, some bank stocks and commodities are under pressure. The many trends...

South China Morning Post: Weakened Yuan as Trade War Looms

Karen Yeung and Enoch Yiu June 28, 2018
The Chinese yuan is falling in value “because of expectations that the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) was shifting to a policy allowing the Chinese currency to depreciate amid an escalation of China-US trade tensions,” report Karen Yeung and Enoch Yiu for the South China Morning Post. “Against a basket of currencies, however, the yuan was trading near a two-year high of 97.88 hit in May, according...

Wall Street Journal: Emerging-Markets Rout Boosts Contagion Fears

Ira Iosebashvili, Ben Eisen and Amrith Ramkumar June 15, 2018
Stocks in emerging economies around the world like Brazil, Turkey and Indonesia have fallen dramatically in recent weeks – mostly driven by the strong US dollar and high US bond yields. Currencies and investments in emerging market bonds also remain low despite global economic growth. Countries like Argentina, Turkey, and Italy accumulated debt when interest rates were at record lows and are now...

Spiegel Online: Trump's Dangerous Game With the US Dollar

Tim Bartz and Martin Hesse February 16, 2018
Economists around the globe suggest the United States is engaging in a currency war. “Even though the U.S. economy has already been growing robustly for years and, with an unemployment rate of just 4.1 percent, is approaching full employment, Trump is continuing to stimulate growth – a focus that could result in an overheated economy, which would present a danger to the entire global economy,”...

The Statesman: The Cryptocurrency Conundrum

Vasu Garg December 11, 2017
Investors are contributing to Bitcoin’s rapid rise. Bitcoin and Ethereum are among 900 digital currencies based on algorithms issued by private creators rather than governments. Such currencies and their software offer blockchain capabilities. “The safety, integrity and balance of ledgers within cryptocurrency systems is maintained by a community of parties referred to as miners,” Vasu Garg...

El País: Brussels Pushes for European Version of IMF

Claudi Pérez December 6, 2017
The European Union is proposing its own version of a bailout fund modeled after the International Monetary Fund. “With initial firepower of €500 billion, which could be boosted up to a further 20%, the new European Monetary Fund will bail out member states in exchange for reforms, as the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) has done in the past with Greece, Ireland and Portugal,” reports El País....

CNBC: 3 Reasons the World Could Turn Its Back on the US Dollar

David Reid October 12, 2017
The US dollar may lose its status as the world’s reserve currency due to weak US governance and geopolitical pressures: the North Korea threat, diminished US-EU transatlantic ties and China’s prominence in global markets, including skill in managing credit excesses, so far, without disrupting the global economy. China strives to increase demand for yuan, announcing plans to buy oil in yuan and...