Last month the Bank of Japan announced aggressive easing of its monetary policy and shocked the global financial markets.This led to the yen hitting fresh lows against the dollar. The weakening of the yen is believed to reverberate through the Asian markets.
Legal & Regulatory
U.S. House to hold hearing on oil export ban
A House of Representatives panel will hold a hearing on Dec. 11 to explore whether a decades-old law that prohibits the export of crude oil makes sense in an era of domestic energy abundance.
Countries engaging in currency wars?
The central banks are finding it difficult to boost growth by increasing domestic demand and hence the need to depend upon foreign demand. The progressive rate cuts and monetary easing measures have led to massive falls in these currencies thereby helping these countries to increase exports.
Microsoft sues IRS for details of probe on internal transactions
Microsoft sued the Internal Revenue Service on Monday, seeking information about a law firm hired by U.S. tax authorities in a review of how the software company books sales between subsidiaries.
China considers tougher tobacco controls: Xinhua
China, the world's biggest tobacco market, is considering a draft regulation that would ban indoor smoking, limit outdoor smoking and end tobacco advertising, the state-run Xinhua news agency has reported.
Latest News
China's leadership and central bank are ready to cut interest rates again and also loosen lending restrictions, concerned that falling prices could trigger a surge in debt defaults, business failures and job losses, said sources involved in policy-making.
Recently released Chinese data suggest a grim economic outlook for the country. Foreign direct investment has been consistently declining; consumer price index showed some stability this month but remained below 2 percent, flash manufacturing PMI also declined in November and gross domestic product fell to its slowest pace since the global financial crisis, registering 7.3 percent year-on-year expansion in the third quarter.
While the fall in the oil prices is generally regarded as positive for many businesses, it has a major influence on inflation expectations, interest rates and bond prices at the global level.
Singapore said on Friday it plans to regulate fast-growing third-party taxi booking services like Uber and GrabTaxi for the first time, capping fees and requiring them to dispatch only licensed cabs and drivers.
The top U.S. housing finance regulator said on Wednesday his agency would unveil a new framework in early 2015 for how government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will set mortgage guarantee fees.
Today, the minutes of the MPC meeting held on 5th and 6th November was released. The Committee set monetary policy to meet the 2% inflation target in the medium term, and in a way that helped to sustain growth and employment.
With US Fed likely to increase the interest rates by mid 2015 and ECB and BoJ keeping their monetary policy accommodative, there could be major capital flows from euro area and Japan into the US and thereby leading to further strengthening of the US dollar.
Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank gave introductory remarks at the EP’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee on 17th November 2014. He mostly spoke about the ‘relationship of financial fragmentation and monetary policy’ and the ‘Eurosystem’s collateral framework’.
Vernalis plc today announces a change to its accounting reference date and financial year end from 31 December to 30 June and provides an update on its cough cold pipeline since it announced its half year result in August.
