Economy

    The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said the proposals were designed to protect investors and better regulate the way fund managers allocate trading commissions.     The rules, published by the CSRC for public consultation on Friday, are the latest attempt by authorities to revive confidence in the sluggish stock market and comes five months after the regulator urged mutual funds to cut management fees and reduce costs for investors. Analysts say the new rules would benefit brokerages with strong trading and research capabilities win commissions.      According to the draft rules, trading commissions would be reduced for both passive and active fund products. SWS Research estimates that overall commissions would be slashed by one third.In addition, fund managers are banned from paying trading commissions to buy third-party services such as external expert consultancy, financial terminals or databases.    Market participants say it is common for mutual funds to pay brokers additional commissions for services whose value is hard to justify, pushing up trading costs for fund investors.     The draft rules also require the sales team of the mutual funds to not participate in choosing a broker and allocating trading commissions. The proposed rules also require that a mutual fund company must not pay more than 15% of its total trading commissions to a single brokerage, the CSRC said, adding that fund managers should choose brokerages that are “financially sound, well-behaved, and have strong capabilities in trading and research”.    The rules “will guide the brokerage business back to its root, back to research,” Founder Securities said. Kaiyuan Securities expects the CSRC to tighten regulation over fund distribution fees in the next stage of the reform. More

“On the U.S. side, we are just beginning to have our internal discussions about what we might like to talk about with Mexico and Canada as the sunset approaches,” Cohen told CBC News, adding that the process would be devoid of the “existential drama” that gripped the negotiations in 2017-2018.NAFTA was substituted by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in 2020. More

The consumer price index (CPI) dropped 0.5% both from a year earlier and compared with October, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Saturday. That was deeper than the median forecasts in a Reuters poll of 0.1% declines both year-on-year and month-on-month. The year-on-year CPI decline was the steepest since November 2020. The numbers add to recent mixed trade data and manufacturing surveys that have kept alive calls for further policy support to shore up growth.Xu Tianchen, senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said the data would be alarming for policymakers and cited three main factors behind it: falling global energy prices, the fading of the winter travel boom and a chronic supply glut.”Downward pressure will continue to rise in 2024 as developers and local governments continue to deleverage and as global growth is expected to slow,” Xu said.Year-on-year core inflation, excluding food and fuel prices, was 0.6%, the same as October. Bruce Pang, chief economist at Jones Lang Lasalle (NYSE:JLL), said the weak core CPI reading was a warning about persistently sluggish demand, which should be a policy priority for China if it is to deliver more sustainable and balanced growth.Although consumer prices in the world’s second-biggest economy have been teetering on the edge of deflation in recent months, China’s central bank Governor Pan Gongsheng said last week inflation was expected to be “going upwards”.The producer price index (PPI) fell 3.0% year-on-year against a 2.6% drop in October, marking the 14th straight month of decline and the quickest since August. Economists had predicted a 2.8% fall in November.China’s economy has grappled with multiple headwinds this year, including mounting local government debt, an ailing housing market and tepid demand at home and abroad. Chinese consumers especially have been tightening their purse strings, wary of uncertainties in the elusive economic recovery. Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) on Tuesday issued a downgrade warning on China’s credit rating, saying costs to bail out local governments and state firms and to control the property crisis would weigh on the economy.China’s finance ministry called the decision disappointing, saying the economy would rebound and risks were controllable.The authorities will spur domestic demand and enhance economic recovery in 2024, the Politburo, a top decision-making body of the ruling Communist Party, was quoted by state media as saying on Friday.Markets are awaiting more government stimulus at the annual agenda-setting “Central Economic Work Conference” later this month. More

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – President Joe Biden kicked off a three-day, star-studded fundraising trip in California on Friday by mocking Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for claiming he would be a dictator just on his first day in office if he became president again.Trump said on Tuesday that he will not become a dictator if he becomes U.S. president again, except “on day one.””Thank God, only one day,” Biden quipped at a fundraiser in Los Angeles at the home of Michael Smith, a celebrity interior designer, and his partner, James Costos, a former HBO executive who was President Barack Obama’s ambassador to Spain.Biden called Trump, who lost the 2020 election but sought to overturn the results, a threat to democracy. Trump was indicted in August for wide-ranging attempts to overturn the election.Biden’s trip comes a day after the Department of Justice filed new criminal charges against Biden’s son, Hunter, accusing him of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes while spending millions of dollars on a lavish lifestyle. The president did not mention his son during his remarks at the fundraiser.California – and the deep-pocketed entertainment industry – has long served as a major funding source for Democrats, but long strikes by actors and screenwriters had a chilling effect on fundraising.The end of the labor unrest has unlocked pent-up dollars, said Jeffrey Katzenberg, a movie mogul and campaign co-chair who has emerged as an influential voice in Biden’s effort to win re-election in November 2024.”It will be the most successful day and a half for the campaign to date and likely one of the most successful day and a halfs prior to a general election, where things sort of kick into a whole ‘nother gear, that we’ve ever had out here for any candidate ever,” Katzenberg said in an interview with Reuters.Biden was scheduled to participate in two Los Angeles fundraisers expected to include directors Steven Spielberg and Rob Reiner and musicians Barbra Streisand and Lenny Kravitz. The California swing is part of a blitz of at least nine fundraisers Biden will hold before the end of the month.The fundraisers in California and an earlier round in Boston are expected to raise at least $15 million, according to a source familiar with the events, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The total haul in the fourth quarter of 2023 is expected to be close to $67 million, the source said, adding that the amount will be similar to that raised by then President Obama during the same period in 2011.Katzenberg, who is helping to organize one of the fundraisers, said the final number was still fluid.”The number is big. I know that,” said Katzenberg, who co-founded DreamWorks Animation.Biden stopped briefly in Las Vegas on Friday to announce $8.2 billion in funding for 10 new passenger rail projects.”Trump just talks the talk. We walk the walk,” Biden told a crowd of unionized carpenters there. “He likes to say America is a failing nation. Frankly, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. I see shovels in the ground, cranes in the sky. People hard at work rebuilding America together.”The projects, funded by the $1 trillion infrastructure law, include $3 billion for the nation’s first high-speed rail line, which will run through California, according to a senior administration official.Biden also announced a $3 billion investment to help create another high-speed rail corridor between Las Vegas and Southern California, along with money for projects in North Carolina, Virginia and Washington.Biden has spent the last year crisscrossing the country announcing new funding tethered to his signature pieces of legislation: the infrastructure law, the Chips and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. It is part of a bid to boost his poll ratings and convince voters he is the right person to lead the U.S. economy, but recent public opinion polls show the effort has had little success. More

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Nasdaq OMX Armenia provided services to Iran and Iran’s state-owned Bank Mellat, it said.”The settlement amount reflects OFAC’s determination that Nasdaq’s conduct was non-egregious and voluntarily self-disclosed,” OFAC said.Nasdaq said in an emailed statement that the settlement acknowledged mitigating factors, including Nasdaq’s voluntary disclosure of the transactions in 2014 and its sale of the Armenian subsidiary in 2018.Nasdaq acquired the Armenian Stock Exchange, subsequently renamed Nasdaq OMX Armenia, when it acquired Swedish financial company OMX AB in February 2008. More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Biden administration has asked Congress to approve the sale of 45,000 shells for Israel’s Merkava tanks for use in its offensive against Hamas in Gaza, according to four sources familiar with the matter, including a U.S. official and a former U.S. official.The request is being made even as concerns grow about the use of U.S. weapons in a war that has killed thousands of civilians in the Palestinian enclave since Israel responded to an attack on Oct. 7 by Hamas militants.The potential sale, worth more than $500 million, is not part of President Joe Biden’s $110.5 billion supplemental request that includes funding for Ukraine and Israel. It is under informal review by the Senate Foreign Relations and House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committees, which allows members the privilege to stall the sale, or have informal discussions with the administration about concerns.The U.S. State Department is pushing the congressional committees to quickly approve the transaction, said a U.S. official and Josh Paul, a former State Department official, amid objections from rights advocates over the use of U.S.-made weapons in the conflict.”This went to committees earlier this week and they are supposed to have 20 days to review Israel cases. State (Department) is pushing them to clear now,” said Paul, who in October resigned from the State Department in protest over what he called the administration’s “blind support” for Israel.The administration is also weighing using Arms Export Control Act emergency authorities to allow a portion of the ammunition, 13,000 of the 45,000 shells, to bypass the committee and review period, two U.S. officials said, although a final decision was yet to be made. The move would allow Israel to prepare for contingencies given the high tensions in the region, one of the U.S. officials said.A State Department spokesperson said as a matter of policy, “we do not confirm or comment on proposed defense transfers or sales until they have been formally notified to Congress.”Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat on the chamber’s foreign relations committee, said congressional view was a critical step for large weapons sales.”The administration should not consider short-circuiting the already short time frame for congressional review of this or any other arms transfer,” he said. Online images of the war show that Israel regularly deploys Merkava tanks in its Gaza offensive and on its southern border with Lebanon, where skirmishes have erupted since Oct. 7.RISKING COMPLICITYThe tanks are also linked to incidents that involved the death of journalists.On Thursday, a Reuters investigation revealed that an Israeli tank crew killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and wounded six reporters by firing two shells in quick succession from Israel while the journalists were filming cross-border shelling.Israel has sharply increased strikes on the Gaza Strip since a seven-day-long truce ended a week ago, pounding the length of the Palestinian enclave and killing hundreds in a new, expanded phase of the war that Washington said veered from Israeli promises to do more to protect civilians.Gaza’s health ministry said the death toll from Israel’s campaign in Gaza had risen to 17,487.As the war intensified, how and where exactly the U.S. weapons are used in the conflict has come under more scrutiny, even though U.S. officials say there are no plans to put conditions on military aid to Israel or to consider withholding some of it.Rights advocates expressed concern over the sale, saying it doesn’t align with Washington’s effort to press Israel to minimize civilian casualties.”By continuing to provide Israel with weapons and diplomatic cover as it commits atrocities, including collectively punishing the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, the U.S. risks complicity in war crimes,” said Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch.The United States on Friday also vetoed a proposed United Nations Security Council demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, a move that diplomatically isolated Washington as it shields its ally.Earlier this week, Amnesty International said US-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) were used by the Israeli military in two air strikes on homes full of civilians, the first time a rights group has directly linked U.S. weapons to an attack that killed civilians.Israel says it is providing detail about which areas are safe for civilians and how to reach them, and says Hamas is to blame for harm that befalls civilians because it operates among them, an accusation the Islamist group denies.Israel launched what it says is a campaign to destroy Hamas after the Islamist militant group attacked Israeli towns in a surprise cross-border incursion on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 240 hostages. More

China’s policymakers will set direction for next year while Bitcoin enjoys a stellar rally. Here’s your week ahead in financial markets from Lewis Krauskopf in New York, Kevin Buckland in Tokyo, Yoruk Bahceli in Amsterdam, and Naomi Rovnick and Elizabeth Howcroft in London.1/ FED FIRST     There’s no bigger factor than the Fed for markets in their bets on when rate cuts might come, with policy makers getting one last chance this year to roil markets when the world’s top central bank gives its final 2023 policy statement on Wednesday.     Holding rates seems a done deal, with investors laser focused on comments from Chair Jerome Powell that could indicate when the Fed might look to cut rates after 525 basis points of hikes since March 2022.    Projections the Fed is poised to start lowering rates early in 2024 have helped fuel that huge rally in stocks and bonds, sending the S&P 500 to a new closing high for 2023 and pulling 10-year Treasury yields back down closer to 4%.    U.S. November inflation data on Tuesday could provide a wrinkle for markets. October’s consumer price index reading was unchanged, a first in more than a year.2/ AND THEN THE REST It is not just in the U.S. that traders have ignored policymaker warnings that bets on steep rate cuts next year have gone overboard. Major central banks elsewhere are on the jam packed agenda with the Swiss National Bank, Norges Bank, Bank of England and European Central Bank all meeting Thursday. All but Norway are tipped to stay on hold. With markets pricing five Fed and six ECB cuts next year, focus is on how policymakers, who can’t sound the all-clear on inflation just yet, grapple with the pressure. Comments from rates-setters, such as ECB hawk Isabel Schnabel, have prompted traders to double down, and they are likely to pounce on any clues central bankers are starting to come around. But if policymakers decide enough is enough and challenge markets, expect a broad sell-off.3/ HIGH STAKESRecession roulette has been a high-stakes game since late 2021 and it’s not getting easier. Forecasters at top investment banks are deeply divided between those sticking to predictions of a long-expected U.S. downturn and rapid Federal Reserve rate cuts and others recommending folding on the bet. Goldman Sachs expects the world’s largest economy to decelerate without contracting, with borrowing costs staying near current levels. Deutsche Bank predicts a mild recession followed by a whopping 175 basis points of cuts that will drive the S&P 500 about 10% higher by late 2024. Uncertainty seems to rise despite November’s red-hot rally for stocks and bonds. PMI readings due out in days to come will provide a frontline view. Outflows from equity and bond funds show investors – currently well compensated for holding cash – are stepping away from the table. Citi’s risk aversion is ticking higher. 4/ ANIMAL SPIRITSChina’s economy is sending mixed signals about its health, just as policy makers convene for pivotal closed-door meetings to set the 2024 agenda. Government advisers have told Reuters they’ll recommend a repeat of the 5% growth target, but also more stimulus in order to get there.     Measures so far, have for the most part fallen short, with confidence fragile among consumers and factory managers. Beijing needs a return of animal spirits to fill the hole left by patchy property market growth.    Retail sales data on Dec. 15 will provide an update, after figures out in recent days showed a surprise contraction for imports – suggesting subdued domestic demand – even as exports unexpectedly rebounded.    Real estate remains the elephant in the room though, and was at the heart of a Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) decision to cut the outlook for China’s debt rating – a move reverberating through Chinese capital markets all week.5/ BACK TO 2022Bitcoin has been rising again. On Tuesday it hit $44,490 – its highest since April last year. In other words, it’s back to levels it was at before 2022’s most high-profile crypto firm collapses: TerraUSD, Three Arrows Capital, Celsius and FTX.The gains are fuelled by hopes that the U.S. might approve applications for a spot bitcoin ETF, analysts say, as well as investors betting on Fed rate cuts next year.But those outcomes are far from guaranteed, and JPMorgan has called the bitcoin rally “overdone”.Meanwhile crypto fans don’t appear worried about the U.S. Treasury warning about consequences for the industry if firms fail to block and report the flow of illicit funds. (Graphics by Sumanta Sen, Pasit Kongkunakornkul, Prinz Magtulis and Kripa Jayram; Compiled by Karin Strohecker; Editing by Toby Chopra) More