Market News

The highlight of this week was the high-level US-China trade negotiations in Washington on 10-11 October. The top trade negotiators met for the first time since late July to find a way to end the 15-month trade war.  On Thursday top US and Chinese negotiators wrapped up …

This week Prime Minister Boris Johnson was expected to present his proposals for an amended Brexit agreement. In his closing speech at the Conservative Party’s annual conference, Boris Johnson stuck to his hard line on Brexit. He made a final Brexit offer to the EU and said that unless the bloc compromised…

After Parliament was suspended, or prorogued in the formal term, from 10th September to 14th October, the UK Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to shut down parliament in the run-up to Brexit was unlawful. 

An attack on Saudi Arabia over the weekend that shut 5 percent of global crude output caused Brent crude to post its biggest intra-day percentage gain since the 1991 Gulf War.  Saudi Arabia is the world’s biggest oil exporter and the attack on state-owned producer ….

As Mario Draghi’s eight-year mandate as president of the European Central Bank draws to an end, the ECB approved a fresh stimulus package by cutting interest rates and approving a new round of bond purchases to push down borrowing costs even lower, kick-start activity…

Boris Johnson on Tuesday evening lost his majority in Parliament as British lawmakers defeated him in a bid to prevent taking Britain out of the EU without a divorce agreement.  This prompted the prime minster to announce that he would immediately push for a snap election. 

The leaders of the world’s major industrialised nations met at the French coastal resort of Biarritz on Saturday. Sharp differences emerged in areas such as global trade tensions, Britain’s exit from the EU and how to respond to the fires raging in the Amazon rainforest.

The head of the ruling 5-Star Movement, Luigi Di Maio, signalled the imminent demise of Italy’s coalition government on Tuesday.  He thanked Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte for his time in office.  On Tuesday Italy’s prime minister resigned after launching an attack on his own interior minister, Matteo Salvini…

The Trump administration will delay imposing a 10 percent tariff on certain Chinese products, including laptops and cell phone, that had been scheduled to start next month, said the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) on Tuesday.  The USTR said in a statement, other products whose tariffs will be delayed until 15th December include …

China on Monday let the yuan tumble beyond the 7-per dollar for the first time in more than a decade.  Weakness in the official guidance rate came after heavy losses in the spot yuan as the tensions over the trade war between the US and China spread to foreign exchange policy.

In a statement at the end of a two-day policy meeting, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by twenty-five basis points on Wednesday to 2 percent – 2.25 percent.  Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the move might not be the start of a lengthy campaign to shore up the economy against risks including global weakness. 

Boris Johnson was elected as leader of Britain’s governing Conservative Party.  On Thursday, the New Prime Minister Boris Johnson filled his cabinet with Brexiteers and vowed to leave the European Union on 31st October with or without a transitional deal.