Money Talk

Troubled property developer China Evergrande said Thursday that it will suspend trading of all its local bonds for one day for investors to assess the impact of a credit rating cut by China Chengxin International. Evergrande's Shanghai traded corporat...

Retail sales and industrial output in China missed economists’ forecasts in August, suggesting the mainland economy slowed further last month, with growth hit by the spread of the Delta variant and adverse weather conditions. Retail sales in August sl...

Shares of the world’s most indebted property developer China Evergrande, which has more than US$300bn of liabilities, plunged further on Tuesday morning, after it filed a highly negative update on its business operations and liquidity condition with t...

The Financial Times is reporting that China is planning to break up Ant's Alipay and force it to create a separate app for its highly profitable loans business, in the most dramatic restructuring proposed to date of Jack Ma’s Ant Group. The plan will ...

Credit growth in China staged a powerful rebound in August, with Total Social Financing nearly tripling from 1.06 trillion yuan in July to 2.96 trillion yuan in August. New bank loans to the real economy in China grew from 1.08 trillion yuan in July t...

Hong Kong stocks have fallen by the most in six weeks after China urged companies in the gaming sector to end their focus on profits and amid reports that Beijing has halted approvals for new games. Closely watched investor Cathie Wood, the chief exec...

An editorial in China’s People’s Daily said the regulation of private education, data security and the platform economy is “not targeted at specific industries or businesses.” It said new regulations were aimed at establishing a “new development struc...

China’s trade unexpectedly surged last month despite the spread of the Delta variant. China's exports, in US dollar terms, rose 25.6% y/y in August from 19.3% in July and compared to economists’ forecasts of 17.1%. By value, exports hit a record high ...

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He yesterday tried to calm concerned business leaders and rattled international investors over the ongoing regulatory crackdown. He said, “the principles and policies for supporting the development of the private economy have ...

Chinese regulators including the transport ministry yesterday summoned 11 ride-hailing firms to a meeting, including Didi, T3 and Meituan. They have accused the companies of "disorderly expansion" and "vicious competition" tactics and require them to ...

PMI readings from across Asia show Southeast Asian economies struggling to contain the impact of the Delta variant of Covid-19 whilst North Asian economies are still expanding. The manufacturing gauges for Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines and...

Official economic data from China show that activity in the mainland services sector has unexpectedly fallen into contraction. The National Bureau of Statistics said the non-manufacturing PMI for August fell to 47.5 from 53.3 in July, the second lowes...

An opinion piece carried widely by Chinese state media has described President Xi Jinping’s regulatory crackdown as a “profound revolution '' and warned that anyone who resisted would face punishment. The article went on to say, “this is a return from...

US Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell, said the central bank could begin to withdraw stimulus this year, but it was in no rush to raise interest rates. However, he gave no timetable for when the tapering of US$120bn a month of bond purchases migh...

South Korea’s central bank has raised interest rates, making it the first developed economy to do so in the pandemic era. The Bank of Korea raised its main policy rate, for the first time in almost three years, by 25bps to 0.75%, as expected by econom...

Prominent Hong Kong University microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung and his team said yesterday that herd immunity is now impossible to achieve in Hong Kong. Taking into account the use of Sinovac jabs which have a lower efficacy rate, the vaccination rate n...

Hong Kong Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, has told the private sector to order their staff to get vaccinated, as this will help allow social distancing measures to be relaxed. She said "there's a common objective between the business world and the Hong K...

In the latest fallout from the regulatory crackdown by Beijing on big business, China’s securities regulator has halted 42 IPOs in Shanghai and Shenzhen while it investigates a law firm, an investment bank and other parties which gave advice on the de...

China’s National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) delayed an expected move on Friday to apply the country’s anti-sanctions law to Hong Kong. The SAR’s member of the NPCSC, Tam Yiu-chung, said a vote on adding the law to the SAR's Basic Law...

Singapore said yesterday that it will lift its quarantine requirement for travellers arriving from Hong Kong, after both governments agreed to stop pursuing a travel bubble between the two sides. From midnight today, Hong Kong visitors will be allowed...

President Xi Jinping yesterday urged China’s wealthy to “give back to society” to ensure “common prosperity”. He vowed to “strengthen the regulation and adjustment of high income, protect legal income, reasonably adjust excessive income, and encourage...

Hong Kong’s sole delegate to the National People's Congress Standing Committee, Tam Yiu-chung, said a resolution on adding China’s anti-sanctions law to Annex III of the Basic Law is expected to pass on Friday. He said he’s not worried that the legisl...

Economic activity on the mainland slowed further in July and missed analysts’ forecasts. China's industrial output expanded 6.4% y/y last month, down from 8.3% in June and missing expectations for growth of 7.9%. Retail sales grew 8.5% y/y in July, co...

Hong Kong’s 2021 economic growth forecast has been revised upwards by the government. GDP is now expected to expand by 5.5% to 6.5%, up from the previous growth forecast of 3.5% to 5.5%.The government cited strong economic growth in the first half and...

US inflation steadied at a 13-year high last month. The consumer price index rose 5.4% in July from a year ago, exceeding the 5.3% expected by economists, and in line with the 5.4% increase reported in June. China’s credit growth slowed sharply in Ju...

The US Senate passed President Biden’s US$1tn infrastructure package yesterday in a rare bipartisan vote, before sending it to the House of Representatives. The bill includes US$550bn in new spending on so-called hard infrastructure, including roads, ...

Producer price inflation and core consumer prices on the mainland accelerated last month according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics. The Producer Price Index, which reflects the prices that factories charge wholesalers for the...

US non-farm payrolls increased by 943,000 last month, the best gains in 11 months and easily beating economists’ consensus forecast that 870,000 jobs would be created.The US Labour Department's closely watched employment report also showed strong wage...

The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee voted seven to one to keep interest rates at a historic low of 0.1% and to continue the £150bn programme of purchases of government debt until the end of the year. The MPC said that “some modest tighteni...

The private sector in Hong Kong continued to expand last month but at a slower pace. The IHS Markit Hong Kong PMI was at 51.3 in July, little changed from 51.4 a month earlier. This was the sixth straight month of growth in the private sector, as the ...

China’s online gaming industry has become the latest sector to come under intense pressure from state media. The Economic Information Daily, an offshoot of China’s official Xinhua News Agency slammed the online gaming industry as “spiritual opium” and...

Data released yesterday showed retail sales growth in Hong Kong slowed sharply in June. Retail sales rose 5.8% to HK$28.1 billion from a year ago, down from the 10.5% growth seen the previous month and far lower than economists' estimates of 14.1%.  ...

The US stock market regulator has launched a crackdown on new Chinese listings. The Securities and Exchange Commission said on Friday, China-based companies will have to disclose more about the way their offerings are structured and contacts with the ...

US economic growth was much weaker than expected in the second quarter. GDP accelerated 6.5% on an annualised basis, considerably less than the 8.4% expected by analysts, and compared with 6.3% growth in the first quarter. However, US output is back a...

The US Federal Reserve has concluded its two-day monetary policy meeting by leaving interest rates on hold near zero and said the economy continues to improve despite concerns over the spread of the pandemic. But FOMC members noted "risks to the econo...

Chinese technology shares have slumped for the third consecutive day as the regulatory crackdown by Beijing broadens. On the first anniversary of its inception, the Hang Seng Tech Index fell by the most since it was launched one year ago. Hit by waves...

Shares in Hong Kong and mainland China have plunged after Beijing announced the biggest ever overhaul of China’s US$120bn tutoring industry. Online education firms have been told they can no longer make a profit or go public and foreign investment in ...

About US$16bn was wiped from the value of three major Chinese education companies listed in New York on Friday after China's State Council said it would ban academic tutors from making a profit. Institutions which provide tutorial classes on the schoo...