In March, April, and May, 120 junk-bond issues worth a total of $136 billion saw their credit ratings downgraded, more than at any time since 2020 during the heat of the COVID War, JPMorgan reported.
Category: 1 August 2023
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SPOTLIGHT: BIGS GETTING BIGGER
Private equity firm Tiger Global has sold its 4 percent of Flipkart, the Indian e-commerce company, to Walmart for $1.4 billion, Tiger told investors last week in a letter.
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SPOTLIGHT, TOP TREND 2023: OFFICE BUILDING BUST
A tech company with a staff of 500 workers will need 20 percent less office space now than in the past, due to layoffs and the adoption of remote work, brokerage firm CBRE projected in a new study of North America’s top 50 job markets.
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SPOTLIGHT: CHINA’S ECONOMIC STRUGGLE
China’s manufacturing sector contracted again in July for the fourth straight month.
The country’s official purchasing managers index (PMI) registered 49.3 last month, after notching 49.0 in June, May and 49.2 in April, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported. Ratings below 50 indicate shrinking economic activity.
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CANADA’S ECONOMY SLOWS IN SECOND QUARTER, SHRINKS IN JUNE
Canada’s GDP grew a scant 1 percent in this year’s second quarter, Statistics Canada reported, slower than the 3.1 percent posted in the first quarter and below the Bank of Canada’s 1.5-percent forecast.
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EUROPE’S BANKS INCREASE CASH RESERVES AGAINST FAILING LOANS
In the first six months of this year, London-based Barclays bank set aside £896 million, or about $1.2 billion, to cover loans likely to turn sour, the bank disclosed on 27 July. The amount is more than double that in the first half of 2022.
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FALLING INFLATION RAISES HOPE THAT ECB WILL PAUSE RATE HIKES
Slowing inflation in the Eurozone’s two largest economies have raised hopes that the European Central Bank (ECB) will not raise interest rates again when it meets in September after it raised its key rate by another quarter point on 27 July.
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ECB BOOSTS INTEREST RATE TO 23-YEAR HIGH
As the U.S. Federal Reserve did a day earlier, the European Central Bank (ECB) added a quarter point to its key interest rate on 27 July, bringing it to 3.75 percent. It began raising the rate in July 2022, when it was -0.50 percent.
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WHEN THE ECONOMY FALLS JOBS GO WITH IT
Welcome to week 49 of job losses. Higher interest rates and rising inflation, plus the cheap money flow that governments pumped into economies to artificially drive up equity markets and economies are causing companies in many sectors to lay off employees.
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INFLATION SLOWS AND GROWTH SLOWLY RISES IN THE EUROZONE
In July, inflation across the 20 countries sharing the euro currency edged down to 5.3 percent from 5.5 percent in June, reaching its slowest pace since January 2022, and the area’s GDP expanded by 0.3 percent in the second quarter.