Business

What a difference three weeks makes. On January 18, heading into the Lunar New Year holidays, we reported that the PBOC had injected a record 1.04 trillion yuan into the liquidity-starved banking system in an attempt to avoid a liquidity crunch as telegraphed just days prior by dramatic surge in short-term repo rates.

Since then, however, between the end of the holidays, and the stated Chinese intention to tighten the monetary system, things have changed drastically.

From reports that Japan's giant pension fund, the GPIF, will invest in US infrastructure, to promises that Japan will present a "package" to create 700,000 US jobs, there is a distinct smell of appeasement and nervousness oozing out of Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's every pore two days before his summit meeting, golf game and dinner with Donald Trump on Friday (it is unclear who will pay for Abe's trip, and it could be an issue).

Submitted by Chris Hamilton via Econimica blog,

In this article, I want to spend a little time reviewing two of the most relatively reliable data sets, population size/growth and energy consumption/growth.  I'll compare the total energy consumption of nations / groupings of nations vs. their core (25-54yr/old) employed populations and total core (25-54yr/old) populations.

With the Trumflation rally fizzling with every passing day, the only question asked by traders is "Is it time to sell the market?" According to Bank of America, the answer, at least for now, is no.

Submitted by Charles Gave via MauldinEconomics.com,

I find myself in the strange situation of cheering Donald Trump’s nascent program of economic renewal for the US, while worrying deeply about the domino effect that may topple a dollar-based global financial system whose health has relied greatly on benign neglect by the United States.