Aurelia Butler

“There can only be a technical, man-made default,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.”There are no objective reasons for such a default. Russia has everything it needs to fulfil all its obligations,” Peskov said. More

According to Japan’s Ministry of Finance data, domestic investors exited a net 2.36 trillion Japanese yen worth of overseas bonds last month, after selling a net 3.2 trillion in February.They also sold foreign equities worth $455.7 billion yen, after buying them in the previous month.”Selling of foreign bonds increased later in the month, indicating that they became more worried about a hawkish pivot from the Federal Reserve around the FOMC,” said Naka Matsuzawa, chief Japan macro strategist at Nomura. The big sales by local investors come despite a sharp decline in the Japanese yen in the last month.Japanese investments in overseas assets – https://tmsnrt.rs/3uqEav6″JPY collapsed in March, just at the time when local investors were bringing almost unprecedented amounts of capital home,” Adam Cole, chief currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets said in a note.He added that many of the bonds sold were likely held on an FX hedged basis, implying limited FX flow and reflecting the low cost of hedging in all G10 markets for the last two years.The cumulative sales of foreign bonds and equities in the first quarter of this year stood at 5.28 trillion yen, the biggest net selling in eight years. The Bank of Japan (BoJ) in its monetary policy meeting in March, maintained its massive stimulus amid uncertainty over the global outlook, reinforcing expectations it would remain an outlier in the global shift towards tighter monetary settings.The data from Bank of Japan showed Japanese investors sold U.S. bonds and equities worth 3.11 trillion yen and 127 billion yen, respectively, in the first two months of this year.However, they purchased 1.16 trillion worth of European bonds in the same period and sold 232 billion yen in European equities.Japanese investors also offloaded Chinese bonds of 294.69 billion yen and equities of 25.26 billion yen, data up to February showed.Japanese investments in US and European assets: https://tmsnrt.rs/3JmULEk($1 = 124.9900 yen) More

BENGALURU (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve is expected to deliver two back-to-back half-point interest rate hikes in May and June to tackle runaway inflation, according to economists polled by Reuters who also say the probability of a recession next year is 40%.With the unemployment rate near a record low, inflation the highest in four decades and a surge in global commodity prices set to persist, most analysts say the Fed needs to move quickly to keep price pressures under control.The latest April 4-8 Reuters poll of more than 100 economists forecast two half-point rate rises this year, the first such move since 1994, taking the federal funds rate to 1.25%-1.50% by the June meeting. That brings the end-year prediction from the March Reuters poll at least three months forward, and more in line with interest rate futures pricing.A strong majority, or 85 of 102 economists, forecast 50 basis points in May, and a still-solid majority of 56 said the Fed would follow up with 50 basis points as well in June.”Given the shift in official commentary and with inflation pressures visible throughout the economy, we believe the Fed will deliver half-point interest rate increases at the May, June and July policy meetings,” said James Knightley, chief international economist at ING.While the central bank, chaired by Jerome Powell, is likely to gear down to quarter-point moves in the second half of this year, the federal funds rate is now expected to end 2022 at 2.00%-2.25%, 50 basis points higher than the median forecast in a poll taken last month.Moving so quickly with interest rates, especially in an economy that has become used to very low borrowing costs for many years, comes with risks.”With the Fed seemingly feeling the need to ‘catch up’ to regain control of inflation and inflation expectations, a rapid-fire pace of aggressive interest-rate increases heightens the chances of a policy misstep that could be enough to topple the economy into a recession,” added Knightley.RAPID SLOWING Indeed, respondents to an additional question gave a median one-in-four chance of a U.S. recession in the coming year, rising to 40% over the next 24 months. The bond market is already showing signs of recession concerns. [US/INT]That partly explains a rapid slowing in the pace of rate hikes next year to only a cumulative 50 basis points, according to the Reuters poll, bringing the fed funds rate to 2.50%-2.75% by the end of 2023.A few economists are already predicting lower rates as soon as the fourth quarter of next year.Yet despite expectations for an aggressive policy tightening path, inflation was not seen dropping to the Fed’s 2% target at least until 2024.The Russia-Ukraine war, which has sent commodity and energy prices soaring, is also making it harder to predict when inflation will eventually come down.Inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was predicted to have peaked at 7.9% last quarter, and average 6.8% this year, a significant upgrade from 6.1% in last month’s poll.The U.S. labor market was expected to further tighten after unemployment dropped to 3.6% last month, only slightly above pre-pandemic levels and what it is forecast to average in 2022.The jobless rate was predicted to average 3.5% next year and stay there in 2024, roughly in line with the Fed’s own optimistic view and not consistent with respondents’ concerns about recession.Growth forecasts were downgraded across the board. The economy was expected to grow 3.3% and 2.2% this year and next respectively, down from 3.6% and 2.4% predicted last month.(For other stories from the Reuters global economic poll:) More

When the CEO of the world’s largest asset management firm proclaims the end of globalisation, it is time to take note. Larry Fink, the BlackRock founder, recently wrote in his shareholder letter that the war in Ukraine, coming on top of pandemic-related supply chain shifts, had put an end to the last three decades of globalisation. He expected more companies and governments to manufacture and source domestically and regionally rather than globally. The war, he wrote, marks “a turning point in the world order of geopolitics, macroeconomic trends and capital markets”.This is a shift that has in fact been coming for a decade or more. In some senses, decoupling between the world’s largest economies, the US and China, really started the day after Lehman Brothers fell, when China rolled out its massive fiscal stimulus program and started rethinking Anglo-American-style financial market liberalisation.Beijing is not alone in this; many countries have decided that global capital has, for the past 40 years or so, flown too far ahead of national economies, creating stresses and inequalities within many nations. Those stresses have sometimes resulted in populist backlashes against globalisation, commonly defined as the ability of goods, people and capital to move wherever it is most productive for them to do so.The last several decades of globalisation created unprecedented prosperity at a global level. But within most countries, inequality grew. Some of the discontent is about stagnating wages and lost jobs, particularly for manual workers and the lower middle classes in rich countries. Most of that is down to technological disruption of labour markets, but some of it is down to what academics such as David Autor have called “the China shock”, meaning the ascent of China into the World Trade Organization.

From 2000 onwards, the flow of western capital into a nation with a cheap labour market of unprecedented size held back industrial wages and jobs in the US. It contributed to winner-takes-all dynamics in which the majority of income growth was claimed by the largest multinational companies, China and other Asian high-growth countries. This was helped by a lack of a proper US antitrust policy and too much financial and corporate deregulation across the west. In fact, globalisation was never complete, as Beijing also ringfenced its capital markets and protected strategic industries in ways that did not mesh with WTO rules.Smaller developing countries have long complained that unfettered free trade would hurt them. Now, many rich countries complain about it too. The solution is not beggar-thy-neighbour trade wars but shifts in both domestic policy and international institutions to help save what is best about globalisation, while also helping to reconnect the global economy to domestic prosperity in ways that make the voting public feel their leaders are looking out for their interests.Financial crisis, pandemic and war have indeed focused corporate minds on how global supply chains could be vulnerable in periods of stress. China’s plans for a circular economy may make a more bipolar world a fait accompli. Greater regionalisation will be the future. Rising wages in Asia, higher energy prices and environmental and social standards make long supply chains costlier. Regions differ over how to regulate data and digital economies. More fractious politics will also play a role.Economic pendulums swing. This particular cycle of globalisation has lasted 40 years. The hope is that things do not swing too far in the opposite direction as we move into a new world order. More

Relief that the far right did not win the first round of French presidential elections lasted only a few hours. The euro has slid back towards Friday’s levels while French stocks are set for a lacklustre start.With French leader Emmanuel Macron and far right challenger Marine Le Pen both qualifying on Sunday for what promises to be a tightly fought presidential election runoff on April 24, risk premia on French assets will remain elevated in coming days.Of more broader concern perhaps is the inexorable march higher in U.S. Treasury yields. That’s got stock futures pointing to a weaker start in Europe and the United States while so-called growth stocks — sectors such as tech that outperform when borrowing costs are low — are on the back foot. Ten-year Treasury yields rose as high as 2.7840% in Asian hours on Monday, the highest since January 2019, for a 125 basis-point plus rise so far this year. The yield has also risen above Chinese government borrowing costs for the first time in 12 years, while the dollar index earlier vaulted above 100 for the first time since May 2020..Elsewhere, Chinese stocks were the biggest laggards in Asia as inflation data spiked higher, denting hopes for aggressive policy easing from Beijing. There are plenty of key data points this week to occupy traders, above all U.S. consumer inflation figures for March (due Tuesday). A headline print above 8% is likely due to the fallout on energy costs from the war in Ukraine. Then there is Thursday’s European Central Bank meeting, which will see policymakers caught between record high inflation and the economic hit from the war. Money markets are already pricing in around 70 bps of cumulative rate hikes for the rest of the year.And finally first quarter earnings will kick off this week offering investors the first glimpse on how companies have dealt with a torrid quarter. Key developments that should provide more direction to markets on Monday: French lender SocGen to exit Russia with Rosbank sale Central bank speaker corner: Fed’s Bostic, Bowman, EvansUK February monthly GDP, industrial, manufacturingU.S. 3-year Treasury note auctionCentral bank meetings: Bank of IsraelSocGen agrees Rosbank sale as it prepares Russian exit More

Electric carmaker Nio led Chinese markets lower on Monday as traders grappled with severe supply chain disruptions in China caused by authorities cordoning off Shanghai from the rest of the country.Nio’s shares closed 8 per cent lower in Hong Kong after the company said at the weekend that suppliers in Shanghai, neighbouring Jiangsu province and north-eastern Jilin had suspended production “one after the other” and that it would postpone deliveries.The Hang Seng China Enterprises index of mainland Chinese stocks fell almost 4 per cent and China’s benchmark CSI 300 index of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed shares shed more than 3 per cent. The Hang Seng Tech index tumbled more than 5 per cent. The market falls signal the rising financial and economic impact of a wave of lockdowns across China and especially in Shanghai, the centre of the country’s worst coronavirus outbreak in two years that has become a test of Beijing’s zero-Covid policy. Authorities in Shanghai on Monday laid out a blueprint for an easing of lockdown measures in specific residential areas.Gu Honghui, deputy secretary-general of the municipal government, said the city was dividing compounds into three risk categories and that several thousand so-called “prevention areas” would have lockdowns lifted if they had no reported cases for two weeks.However, most of the metropolis of 25mn remains under a strict lockdown that has prompted bitter complaints over access to food and medicine. Shanghai accounted for the vast majority of the more than 27,000 new Covid cases recorded across China on Sunday, according to official data.Disruptions to Chinese supply chains have intensified following the complete lockdown of the financial centre since April 1, exacerbating strains on transport and logistics as stringent measures have brought activity in China’s largest onshore financial hub and biggest city to a grinding halt. “Shanghai is economically important for both China’s domestic economy and trade with the rest of the world,” said Johanna Chua, head Asia economist at Citigroup. She added that wait times for semiconductor deliveries had already increased and that “with Shanghai’s significant trade links to East Asia, this could have spillover impacts on regional supply chains”, particularly in South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam.

The southern city of Guangzhou ordered most schools to switch to online learning after the city reported 27 Covid-19 cases on Sunday and has begun mass testing of the city’s 18mn residents, raising fears that the manufacturing hub could be the next to be locked down. Zhenro Properties Group, which became the latest Chinese property developer to default over the weekend, blamed its missed bond payments on the “unforeseen scale and duration of lockdown in Shanghai”, which it said halted some operations and delayed both sales and asset disposals.Inflation data released on Monday showed consumer prices rising almost 1 per cent from a year ago, driven mainly by a jump in fuel costs and food prices. More

Also on Wednesday the U.S. Fed, expected to follow Canada and New Zealand’s lead in May, gets March inflation data.The following day the ECB will face pressure from its hawkish factions to start tightening policy.And while a French election upset did not happen during Sunday’s voting round, it could yet materialise in the runoff later this month.Here’s your week ahead in markets from Tom Westbrook in Singapore, Ira Iosebashvili and David Henry in New York; Sujata Rao and Dhara Ranasinghe in London.1/MADAME LA PRESIDENTE?A late opinion poll resurgence for far-right French politician Marine Le Pen ahead of Sunday’s presidential election voting round had markets running scared. She ended up trailing incumbent Emmanuel Macron — as expected — but the April 24 run-off between the two promises to be a cliffhanger.Macron is still expected to win the presidency. But some pollsters predict the vote split at 51%/49%, meaning victory either way is within the margin of error.Le Pen no longer advocates leaving the euro but a win for her would hamper European cohesion, and her big-spending, tax-cutting agenda would blow out France’s spending bill.The premium investors demand to hold French debt versus Germany has eased slightly after Sunday’s result, but more turmoil looks inevitable before the April 24 final round.French german bond yield spread https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/byvrjbdnmve/france1.JPG2/HAWKS OVER FRANKFURTWith euro area inflation running at 7.5%, the European Central Bank’s meeting on Thursday will see the hawks out in force.They have become increasingly vocal, while markets are now gunning for a July rate rise, having ramped up their bets since the March meeting.ECB chief economist Philip Lane warns against reacting to short-term, energy-driven price surges. And the Ukraine war is taking a toll on the economy and consumer confidence.The ECB knows well the price of making a policy mistake. It has raised rates in the past, only to make a speedy U-turn. Yet inflation shows no signs of peaking, let alone returning to the 2% target. The hawks’ clamour may get louder.Money markets bet ECB will raise rates fast https://graphics.reuters.com/EUROPE-MARKETS/gdpzybkonvw/chart.png3/BIG GUNS, BIGGER RATE HIKES    Canada and New Zealand appear poised for their biggest interest rate hikes in 20 years, underscoring the worldwide scramble to contain inflation.      Both banks meet on Wednesday. Swaps price a 90%-plus chance of a 50 basis-point hike from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and a better-than-80% likelihood of the Bank of Canada does the same.With Canadian inflation seen above target until 2024, another 50 bps move may come in June. New Zealand delivered a 25 bps hike in February — its third — and flagged the possibility of bigger rises ahead.These would be the most drastic G10 hikes this cycle. Until May, when the Federal Reserve is tipped to lift rates 50 bps.New Zealand and Canada cenbanks poised to go large https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/akvezjrmnpr/Pasted%20image%201649304952217.png4/PRICE WARMinutes from the Fed’s March policy meeting showed meatier rate hikes and an aggressive balance sheet runoff are likely in coming months as the central bank battles inflation. .All that puts a spotlight on Wednesday’s inflation data. February’s 7.9% print was the largest annual increase in 40 years. In March, consumer prices grew 8.3% year-on-year, economists polled by Reuters predict, as the Ukraine-Russia war sent commodity prices spiralling higher.And as Americans dig deeper for rent, gasoline and food, wage gains are eroding — inflation adjusted average hourly earnings fell 2.6% year-on-year in February. A chunky inflation print will bolster the case for more dramatic policy tightening.FED AND STOCKS https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/xmpjoqxkavr/Pasted%20image%201649296859647.png5/BANKS TO THE TESTAs rising bond yields, labour shortages and sky-high commodity prices buffet stock markets, first-quarter U.S. earnings will give investors a chance to gauge balance sheet resilience, cost pressures on companies and share buyback plans.Overall, S&P 500 earnings growth is expected at 6.8% in the Jan-March quarter, versus the 53% bounceback seen a year ago from COVID-time doldrums, according to Refinitiv IBES.Big banks kick off the season with JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) reporting on Wednesday, followed a day later by Citigroup (NYSE:C), Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS).Bank shares have fared badly this year, with 11% losses, versus the S&P 500’s 6%The six biggest lenders are projected to show a 35% decline in net income versus a year earlier. Investment bank revenues may have declined, especially after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while some banks must make provisions for Russia-linked losses.Finally, watch whether banks may curb share buybacks after seeing excess capital dented by Q1 losses on their bond holdings. [L2N2W31XD]S&P 500 earnings growth https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-STOCKS/RESULTS/akvezjybjpr/chart.png More