Austria on Wednesday became the first euro zone country to price a public sale of debt below the European Central Bank’s deposit rate, as expectations of more ECB stimulus and worries over the global economy push yields in the bloc to new lows. Source: Reuters
Economics
Canada’s bank regulator, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, on Tuesday raised the capital requirement level for ‘systemically important’ banks in the country by 25 basis points, to 2%. Source: Reuters
- U.S. industrial production fell in April, dragged by a big drop in factory output as production of autos and auto parts continued to slide.
- The Federal Reserve says industrial output — reflecting total production at factories, utilities and mines — dropped 0.5% in April.
- Industrial production also fell 0.5% in February.
“The main installations have been completed, the shut-off valves have been installed, so we can assume that the project will be completed by the end of 2019,” said project spokesman Jens Müller. Source: The Local Deutschland
Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom will start filling the Power of Siberia (Sila Sibiri) natural gas pipeline that connects Russia to China from September 1, Gazprom Transgaz Tomsk said in its corporate magazine on March 14, as cited by Prime. Source: Intellinews
Index provider MSCI Inc. said it would quadruple the contribution of mainland Chinese companies’ to its benchmarks, a move that makes shares in Shanghai and Shenzhen all but unignorable for many international investors. Source: MarketWatch
Japan’s industrial output contracted in November and partially reversed the previous month’s gain, while retail sales slowed sharply as increasing global risks drag on demand and threaten the country’s export-reliant economy. Source: Reuters
The strike on US military base at Erbil airport with the use of a drone is a cunning test by Iran and its allied militias in Iraq of the willingness of the US to step up its response after such assaults, analysts say.
The drone attack which late Wednesday hit a previously safe area far from the reach of the pro-Iranian militias’ missiles, is also seen as a test of the Kurds, and specifically whether they themselves will respond to the strike. Source The Arab Weekly
The police and firefighters fell into an ambush this Tuesday evening in Épinay-sur-Seine (Seine-Saint-Denis). Many individuals attacked them. The officials responded with tear gas in particular. Source Actu17
Denmark has become the first European nation to revoke the residency permits of Syrian refugees, insisting that some parts of the war-torn country are safe to return to.
At least 189 Syrians have had applications for renewal of temporary residency status denied since last summer, a move the Danish authorities said was justified because of a report that found the security situation in some parts of Syria had “improved significantly”. Source The Guardian
Denmark will stop using the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine altogether because of suspected rare but serious side effects. Meanwhile, South Korea reported its highest case count in three months. Follow DW for the latest. Source DW
NATO allies on Wednesday agreed to wind down their operations in Afghanistan, after President Joe Biden’s administration announced all US troops would leave the country by September 11. The US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks by jihadist organization al-Qaida, with other NATO countries also deploying military forces to the South Asian country. Source DW
Beijing warned on Tuesday it was determined to stop Taiwan getting close to Washington with the use of military action, ahead of a visit by a former US politician and officials to the island at US President Joe Biden’s request. Source South Chinese Post
Ankara late Wednesday condemned the Greek deputy foreign minister’s “provocative” remarks against Turkey and its president that could escalate tensions. “We strongly condemn the immoral statements, which are not in line with political and diplomatic practices, of Deputy Foreign Minister of Greece Miltiadis Varvitsiotis about our country and our president in an interview with a television channel,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Source Daily Sabah
China has sent more fighter jets into Taiwan’s air defence zone in an increased show of force, as Taiwan’s foreign minister vowed the island would fight to the end if China attacks. Taipei’s defence ministry said it scrambled aircraft to broadcast warning messages to the latest incursion, which included 12 Chinese fighters. Source The Guardian
A top Russian official has warned that Moscow could intervene to help Russian-speaking residents in eastern Ukraine if Ukraine launches an all-out assault on separatists there. Source BBC
Andrey Minin, a director of a Nord Stream 2 regional subsidiary in north-west Russia, told Moscow news wire Interfax that Russian supporting vessels had fended off attacks on operations at the Gazprom-led project from an unidentified submarine and a Polish fishing trawler. Source Up Stream
The Turkish military listed 131 islands, islets and rock formations in the Aegean Sea whose status was disputed with neighboring Greece and prepared plans to take them over during a conflict, according to a confidential document obtained by Nordic Monitor. Source Nordic
It finally happened, that glorious moment, when, after teetering on the verge for weeks – for reasons we’ll get into shortly – the incredibly spiking US gross national debt, after kissing the line a couple of times for a moment, finally, and suddenly by a big leap, jumped over the $28-trillion mark, with a $143-billion leap in one day on Wednesday, March 31, following some big Treasury sales. Source Wolfstreet
The Russian Akademik Cherskiy vessel has arrived at the construction site to lay pipes for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, Nord Stream 2 AG, project operator company, told reporters. Source Tass
Holders of UK government bonds are suffering the worst quarter in at least two decades as Britain’s economic prospects brighten, setting a contrast with the eurozone where a more sputtering recovery from the coronavirus crisis is helping haven assets hold their value. Source FT
Sales of new U.S. single-family homes fell to a nine-month low in February amid bitterly cold weather, and expensive lumber and rising mortgage rates could cool the housing market this year. Separately on Tuesday, the Commerce Department said the current account deficit, which measures the flow of goods, services and investments into and out of the country, surged 34.8% to a 12-year high of $647.2 billion in 2020 as the pandemic severely disrupted exports. Source Reuters
Turkey’s currency tumbled as much as 15% after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sacked the country’s central bank governor over the weekend. Naci Agbal had been credited as a key force in pulling the lira back from historic lows. Source BBC
- The Fed expects core inflation to hit 2.2% this year, but has a long-run expectation of it sticking around 2%.
- The U.S. central bank also indicated that it didn’t plan to hike interest rates through 2023 and that it would continue its program of buying at least $120 billion of bonds a month.
- Guy LeBas, chief fixed income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott, described the move in yields as a “belated overreaction” to the Fed’s projections and Jerome Powell’s statements on Wednesday. Source CNBC
The US State Department called for companies to cease activity on the controversial pipeline or face sanctions. The US has slammed the project as a Russian plan to “divide Europe and weaken European energy security.” Source Deutsche Welle
Nokia on Tuesday (16 March) announced plans to cut up to 10,000 jobs within two years to trim costs and invest more in research capabilities, as the Finnish telecoms group seeks to step up its challenge to Sweden’s Ericsson and China’s Huawei, write Supantha Mukherjee and Essi Lehto. Source EU Reporter
- Industrial production jumped 35.1% in the January-February period from a year earlier, compared with a median estimate of 32.2% in a Bloomberg survey of economists.
- Retail sales climbed 33.8% in the period, versus a forecast of 32%.
- Fixed-asset investment rose 35%, well below a projection of 40.9%.
- The jobless rate was 5.5% at the end of February, up from 5.2% in December.
- The CSI 300 Index pared an earlier loss of as much as 1.5% after the data dump to trade 0.8% lower as of 10:25 a.m. in Shanghai.
- The yuan was little changed in both onshore and offshore markets. Source Japan Times
Pushed by drastically increased public spending and a record-setting economic slowdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Italy’s national debt ratio surged last year, reaching 155.6 per cent of the country’s GDP, authorities said. Data issued on Tuesday by the country’s National Statistics Institute (ISTAT) revealed that the national debt in 2020 totalled 2.57 trillion euros ($3 trillion), Xinhua news agency reported. Source Menafn
Data analyzed by Finbold indicates that the top five countries globally with the highest public debt added $9.17 trillion between March 2020 and March 2021. The United States tops with the debt growing by $4.57 trillion from $23.45 trillion to $28.0.2 trillion. Source Finbold
