Asia

Three weeks ago we reported an amusing anecdote out of China in which robot waiters in a Guangzhou restaurant had been "fired" because whencustomers flocked to the Heweilai Restaurant chain in the southern Chinese city, they found they were not all they are cracked up to be. "A staff member said the robots couldn't effectively handle soup dishes, often malfunctioned, and had to follow a fixed route that sometimes resulted in clashes. A customer also said the robots were unable to do tasks such as topping up water or placing a dish on the table."

"Forgive the macros – they know not what they do."

• The Fed Is Meeting in April to Talk About June (BBG)
• Global stocks, oil prices climb as investors ready for Fed (Reuters)
• Apple Results to Show How Far iPhone Sales Have Fallen  (BBG)
• On Election Eve for five states, Trump rips Cruz and Kasich (Reuters)
• President Xi Jinping’s Most Dangerous Venture Yet: Remaking China’s Military (WSJ)
• Oil's Recovery Inches Higher as 'Fracklog' Awaits Price Trigger (BBG)
• Malaysia’s Reputation Takes Another Hit as State Fund Defaults  (BBG)

With the Fed decision just one day away, followed the very next day by the increasingly more irrational BOJ, stocks had no desire to make significant moves and overnight's boring session was the result, as European stocks and U.S. index futures rose modestly but mostly hugged the flatline while Asian declined 0.2% for a third day as raw-material shares declined and Tokyo equities slumped before central bank meetings in the U.S. and Japan this week. China’s stocks rose the most in almost two weeks, up 0.6% but failed to rise above 3000 on the Shanghai Composite, in thin trading.

Submitted by Andrew Zeitlin of Moneyball Economics

Semiconductors Tell the Real Story of Global GDP

The industrial slowdown predicted by semiconductors is coming true.