The Cambridge Weekly – 8 October 2018
Published
10th October 2018
Categories
The Cambridge Weekly
Bond market sell-off surprise
Having written only last week that Trump’s trade wars may prove a bizarrely supportive factor towards safely unwinding overvalued bond markets, I feel as if I provoked bond markets to prove me wrong. Amongst the other news stories, bond markets will have been hardly noticed by most and, so far, the bond sell-off and resultant rise in yields has not been so dramatic that it would divert mainstream media attention from party conferences or potentially untruthful US supreme court candidates.
Italy lives up to its reputation – again
As Mark Twain (probably) didn’t say, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes”. Maybe so, but with certain news stories you can’t help but feel like you’ve heard this song before. Italy, with its struggles, scares and ‘showdowns’ against EU leaders, is a case in point.
China: Not terrible, not great
It’s not been an easy year for China. The worsening trade war with the US has come at the same time as the government’s deleveraging process has been slowing the economy. The result has been more stress in the economy than the country’s central planners anticipated. Opinion on China now ranges from those who expect a crash landing to those who see a smooth exit from this tough period. We’re somewhere in the middle.
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