Yesterday's China stock market rout, in which the Shanghai Composite tumbled the most since June 2016 to three month lows, and which prompted traders to question the dedication of Beijing's plunge protection team, appears to have been forgotten, with the Composite closing unchanged on Friday after some early session weakness, as Chinese yields declined broadly across the board from 3 years highs.
China announced it is slashing import tariffs on 187 consumer products starting next month.
The Euro has jumped to a six week high following the latest record high print in the German IFO Business Climate index, which rose from 116.7 to 117.5 (exp.
Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
Punxsutawney Phil Hammond, the UK chancellor, presented his Budget yesterday and declared five more years of austerity for Britain. As was to be expected. One doesn’t even have to go into the details of the Budget to understand that it is a dead end street for both the country and for Theresa May’s Tory party.
The Irish government was on the verge of collapse as it faced a vote of no confidence in the deputy prime minister by a party whose votes are critical for Prime Minister Leo Varadkar to pass laws (the government is a minority administration). As Reuters reported late on Thursday, the opposition Fianna Fail party threatened it would put a motion of no confidence in Deputy Prime Minister Frances Fitzgerald on Tuesday - a move sparked by Fitzgerald’s handling of a legal case involving a police whistleblower - and which would breach the "confidence and supply" agreement that allowed Taoiseach