Tag: Business and finance

THE Hong Kong dollar is one of the most and least manipulated monies in the world. For over 34 years the territory’s monetary authority, the HKMA, has kept it pegged to America’s currency at around HK$7.80 to the dollar, resisting all temptations to let it fall or rise. In 2005 it refined the peg with two promises: to buy dollars at the price of HK$7.75 and to sell them for HK$7.85.

The strength of the Hong Kong dollar has obliged the HKMA to keep the first promise many times since. Its purchases of American dollars have even drawn the accusation that it manipulates its currency for competitive advantage.

In fact, the HKMA has always been ready to manipulate its currency upwards, too. But since 2005 it has had no occasion to, until last week. On April 12th the Hong Kong dollar weakened to HK$7.85, forcing the authority to buy HK$51bn over the next few days in exchange for American dollars.

The Hong Kong dollar’s weakness reflects the gap between rising American interest rates and…Continue reading

WATCHING financial markets can be like watching a horror film. A character walks into the darkness alone. A floorboard creaks. The latest spooky sign is the spread between the three-month dollar London interbank offered rate (LIBOR) and the overnight index swap (OIS) rate. It usually hovers at around 0.1%, but has recently climbed to 0.6% (see chart). As it widens, bankers are bracing for a jump scare.

To see why, consider what each rate represents. LIBOR is the rate that banks charge other banks for unsecured loans. The OIS rate measures expectations for the federal funds rate, which is set by the central bank. As LIBOR rises above the OIS rate, that suggests banks fear it is getting riskier to lend to each other. (The gap was 3.65 percentage points in the depths of the crisis, after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.)

Market-watchers were already twitchy. Last November they shuddered as the yield curve, which plots the yields of Treasury bonds of different maturities, abruptly flattened….Continue reading

THE aftermath of the 2007-08 financial crisis ought to have been a moment of triumph for economics. Lessons learned from the 1930s prevented the collapse of global finance and trade, and resulted in a downturn far shorter and less severe than the Depression. But even as the policy remedies were helpful, the crisis exposed the economic profession’s continued ignorance of the business cycle. That is bad news not just for the discipline, but for everyone.

The aim of those studying the macroeconomy has always been to understand the economy’s wobbles, and to work out when governments should intervene. That is not easy. Downturns come often enough to be a serious irritant, but not often enough to give economists sufficient data for rigorous statistical analysis. It is hard to distinguish between short-run swings and structural economic changes resulting from demography or technology. Most classical economists were sceptical of the idea that the macroeconomy needed much oversight at all.

By…Continue reading

WHEN the Foreign & Colonial Government Trust was launched in 1868, The Economist had its doubts. “The shape is very peculiar,” we worried, adding that “the exact idea upon which it starts has never been used before.” Some of the trust’s promises were “far too sanguine to ever be performed”. Nevertheless, we concluded that: “In our judgment, the idea is very good.”

That turned out to be one of this newspaper’s more successful forecasts. One hundred and fifty years later, the trust is still going strong, having delivered a compound annual return of 8.1%. It now looks after a portfolio of £3.5bn ($5bn), rather than the £588,000 it raised at launch.

In its own way, the trust is an example of how much the financial sector has changed—and how much it has stayed the same. The idea of a pooled portfolio seems commonplace now, but at the time it was revolutionary.

This was the 19th century, when Britain was confident of its worldwide role. The…Continue reading

WHEN the Foreign & Colonial Government Trust was launched in 1868, The Economist had its doubts. “The shape is very peculiar,” we worried, adding that “the exact idea upon which it starts has never been used before.” Some of the trust’s promises were “far too sanguine to ever be performed”. Nevertheless, we concluded that: “In our judgment, the idea is very good.”

That turned out to be one of this newspaper’s more successful forecasts. One hundred and fifty years later, the trust is still going strong, having delivered a compound annual return of 8.1%. It now looks after a portfolio of £4bn ($5.7bn), rather than the £588,300 it raised at launch.

In its own way, the trust is an example of how much the financial sector has changed—and how much it has stayed the same. The idea of a pooled portfolio seems commonplace now, but at the time it was revolutionary.

This was the 19th century, when Britain was confident…Continue reading

SIR ELTON JOHN has a three-year farewell tour planned. This columnist has only a few weeks to go, before heading off to a new Economist beat. So it seems like a good idea to summarise some of the themes which have dominated this blog. 

To start, long-term investing. Here are a set of precepts every investor should remember.

1. You can’t start too early. Albert Einstein may not have said that compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world but it is a good motto to remember. Buttonwood started a pension plan for his daughters when they were three years old. Let us assume a return of 4% a year. That means a sum doubles in 18 years, quadruples in 36 and rises eightfold in 54. Looked at another way, say you have a set sum in mind for retirement. If you start saving at 20, you need to contribute only half as much money a month, as if you start…Continue reading
   

A SOUTHWEST AIRLINES flight became the stuff of nightmares on April 17th when a jet engine apparently exploded in mid-air and a passenger was partially sucked out of a window before being rescued by fellow flyers. The flight from New York’s LaGuardia airport was bound for Dallas, but at 11:30 am, when it was near Philadelphia, the left engine blew up, according to multiple reports. Details are still unconfirmed, but according to reports by passengers and media, a piece of shrapnel from the engine shattered a window in the cabin, and a woman was partially sucked out of the hole. Other passengers scrambled to assist and pulled her back in. Oxygen masks were released in the cabin, and the plane dropped from 32,500 feet at a rate of more than 3,000 feet per minute before levelling out at about 10,000 feet, according to NBC, a broadcaster. The pilots were able to…Continue reading

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A SOUTHWEST AIRLINES flight became the stuff of nightmares on April 17th when a jet engine apparently exploded in mid-air and a passenger was partially sucked out of a window before being rescued by fellow flyers. The flight from New York’s LaGuardia airport was bound for Dallas, but at 11:30am, when it was near Philadelphia, the left engine blew up, according to multiple reports. Details are still unconfirmed, but according to reports by passengers and media, a piece of shrapnel from the engine shattered a window in the cabin, and a woman was partially sucked out of the hole. Other passengers scrambled to assist and pulled her back in. Oxygen masks were released in the cabin, and the plane dropped from 32,500 feet at a rate of more than 3,000 feet per minute before levelling out at about 10,000 feet, according to Continue reading

JUST a few years ago Wuhan, a sprawling metropolis in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, exemplified China’s economic woes. Municipal debt had soared. The most senior local official was known as “Mr Dig Up The City”, a reference to his zeal for grandiose construction projects. A movie theme park, intended as a landmark, closed after failing to draw crowds. It would take nearly a decade, it was estimated, to sell all of Wuhan’s vacant homes.

These days, the city of 11m stands as a monument to China’s resilience. Its economy has accelerated even as the government has controlled debt more strictly. Five subway lines were opened or extended in the past two years alone; they are jammed in rush hour. Investment is pouring into semiconductor production, biotech research and internet-security companies. The glut of unsold homes is almost cleared.

But today China’s economy, like Wuhan’s, looks in much better shape. Then, the country was reeling from a stockmarket crash,…Continue reading

Airbus recently announced that it has entered into a partnership with Zodiac Aeropsace, a French aviation-equipment company, to develop “lower-deck modules with passenger sleeping berths.” In other words, passengers in need of 40 winks might eventually be able to go below decks to the cargo hold and sleep in bunk beds. The video released by the companies shows a clean, white, modern, and comfortable-looking space, although one conspicuously devoid of windows.

Starting in 2020, Airbus says, the beds will be available on its widebody A330 planes, and could possibly appear on A350s as well. The sleeper modules will be easily swapped in and out, the company…Continue reading