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USD remains elevated even as the economy shows signs of weakening The U.S dollar saw a bounce on Monday after a sustained dip on the back of signs of easing inflation and the recent bank stress. Resilient retails sales, optimistic earnings in Wall Street, and hike-signalling from the Fed have caused the dollar to surgeContinue Reading

Alibaba Cloud has unveiled its AI chatbot, Tongyi Qianwen The Chinese tech giant, Alibaba Cloud, unveiled an AI-driven chatbot  Tongyi Qianwen that will gradually become available across all Alibaba products, from enterprise communication to e-commerce, in the coming period. The chatbot will possess Chinese and English language capabilities and will be initially deployed on DingTalkContinue Reading

On Wednesday, 12 April, the U.S. CPI data was released, showing that March’s headline inflation in the U.S. slowed more than anticipated, with the year-on-year number showing a drop from 6.0% in February to 5.0% in March; lower than the expected 5.2%. The monthly rate decreased to 0.1% from 0.4%, which was lower than theContinue Reading

Asian markets were mixed as investors digested a US labour report showing a drop in job openings to their lowest level in almost two years in February. New Zealand’s central bank increased its benchmark cash rate by 50 basis points to 5.25%, causing the New Zealand dollar to strengthen by almost 0.9%. Meanwhile, Japan’s NikkeiContinue Reading

Oil prices surged at the beginning of the week after OPEC+ unexpectedly announced crude output cuts that could tighten the market, causing inflationary concerns for the global economy. The cuts, which will exceed 1 million barrels a day, were not expected by traders who anticipated output to remain steady. Goldman Sachs raised price forecasts forContinue Reading

Has the banking crisis abated? Equity investors seem to think so, with the Nasdaq surging close to 2% on Wednesday as the markets assess a successful containment of the banking crisis caused by the failure of regional banks and one Credit Suisse. This puts the tech-heavy index technically in bull market territory, closing more thanContinue Reading

Investors hoping for a pause in rate hikes were disappointed as the U.S. Federal Reserve pushed ahead with a quarter-point hike at its interest rate decision on Wednesday. While way lower than 2022’s mega-hikes of 50 to 75 bps and in line with economist expectations, March’s 25-point hike is a calculated risk amid what isContinue Reading

The latest and largest fall in the recent banking turmoil is embattled Swiss lender Credit Suisse. Credit Suisse Group AG bondholders suffered a historic loss of about CHF 16bn ($17.3bn) worth of risky notes when a takeover by UBS Group AG triggered a “complete write-down” of the bank’s additional tier 1 (AT1) bonds in orderContinue Reading

In a continued chain of unrelentingly robust jobs data, the U.S. ADP Nonfarm printed a reading of 242,000  for February, higher than an estimated 205 000 and up from a revised 119,000 for January. The service sector had the largest contribution to  job additions with 190,000, of which a majority came from the leisure andContinue Reading

On Wednesday, China released its Manufacturing PMI and Caixin Manufacturing PMI for February, beating economists’ expectations of 50.5 and 50.2 respectively. A reading above 50 indicates expansion from the previous month. This is the highest reading since April 2012, marking a faster-than-expected rebound for the world’s second-largest economy after covid-19 related shutdowns slowed growth toContinue Reading