Japan's long and sordid dance with unconventional monetary policy continues. With most analysts expecting a 'nothingburger' from Kuroda (though some hinting at the potential for shock-and-awe), The BOJ delivered... nothing - no change. However, most critically, the BOJ admitted defeat of deflation and delayed the timing of reaching their 2% inflation goal to around FY2019.
No change to policy:
Looking at tomorrow's main event, the much anticipated ECB announcement in which Draghi may (or may not) announce a hawkish shift to the cental bank's policies and/or reveal the bank's tapering plans, Citi (whose titled we borrowed) gives the 30 second summary, and says that the market seems quite split on whether the ECB will remove the asset purchase program easing bias, but thinks that there’s room for mild disappointment. After all, it says, this meeting is just a warm up for the September meeting (and Jackson Hole).
The Wall Street Journal published a headline today that should strike fear into the heart of every crusaders in the fight for $15: “Robots Are Replacing Workers Where You Shop.”
As the story explains, Wal-Mart is replacing some of its non-customer facing workers with robots, like bookkeepers who were responsible for counting and storing the store's cash supply.
By Priceonomics
Who else visits your favorite sites?
Just because a website makes content for a specific audience – say women or baby boomers – doesn’t mean that other groups won’t find and consume it too. If you could walk into a brick-and-mortar version of your favorite news site, what would you see? Mostly women? Millennials? Would you be surprised with what you found?
China's overall housing market remained resilient in June according to official NBS data on Tuesday, with the average property price rising 0.7% for the month and 10.2% on an annual basis (fractionally below the 10.4% yoy increase in May) even as the decline in Tier 1 cities accelerated and home prices in Beijing fell for the first time in more than two years, while Shanghai declined further and Shenzhen stalled, pointing to significant cooling in China's biggest real estate markets.