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Fed Rate Hike Dec 2018

On what’s said to be the final big event for the year that is market moving, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate a quarter-point but lowered its projections for future hikes. Heading into the announcement, many analysts had expected a "dovish" interest rate increase paired with strong verbal cues that the central bank would not tighten excessively in a period when global stocks have retreated amid concerns over slowing growth and trade wars. However, the Fed and Chairman Jay Powell did not go far enough to assuage markets. As markets had expected, the central bank took the target range for its benchmark funds rate to 2.25 percent to 2.5 percent. The move marked the fourth increase this year and the ninth since it began normalizing rates in December 2015. Officials, though, now project two hikes next year, which is a reduction but still ahead of current market pricing of no additional moves next year. As Trump views the condition of the s...

Macroeconomic Outlook

The world is going through a complete tailspin at the moment where the collusion of political and macro-economic factors are taking over headlines. Starting off with the most powerful country in the world, the US, we can see that Trump continues to protect his anti-free trade stance. His recent meeting with President Xi at the G20 summit did prove to be positive towards the future of trade with Trump declaring that he will not impose tariffs on China from January next year. However, many analysts believe that this might just be a small stint to boost the markets as he continues to protect American jobs and promote wage growth. Next we move on to the EU, where anti EU sentiment continues to grow. French protests against Macron on his taxation policies are bringing about much unjust to the economy. The “yellow vest” group are so much so demanding for President Macron’s impeachment that may bring about a new election with Marine Le Pen as the frontrunner. Another anti-Eu campaigner. ...

My take on the growing Sino-US trade war

The commercial battle between the United States and China heated up on Monday as the economic powerhouses slapped each other with the largest rounds of tariffs yet, unleashing punitive duties now on roughly half of their traded goods. US president Donald Trump imposed fresh levied on US$200 billion in Chinese imports, prompting Beijing to respond with tariffs on US$60 billion in American good, approaching the point of running out of US products to target. As discussed in my last video, the trade deficit for the USA with regards to China stands at around 350 billion dollars. To be more specific, in 2017, The China imported only 130 billion dollars’ worth of USA goods in contrast to 505   billion dollars of goods exported to the USA   from China. Neither of the world’s 2 largest economies showed signs of backing down, and there is no further trade talks scheduled to resolve the dispute. Thousands of goods now face border taxes of up to 10 per cent, including grocery sta...