Author: Daniel Wilson

(Bloomberg) — Taiwan’s central bank spent a record amount of money defending its currency last year and may need to do more, given worsening stock market outflows and escalating trade tensions. Most Read from Bloomberg The central bank sold $16.4 billion on a net basis in the foreign exchange market in 2024, according to a report to lawmakers. The dollar sales were a third year in a row and the most since data going back to 2018. Governor Yang Chin-long presented the report to lawmakers on Thursday morning. “Together with Trump 2.0-induced uncertainties, concentrated and massive short-term foreign capital flows…

Getty; Chelsea Jia Feng/BI The stock market, mired in one of its worst sell-offs in years, got a much-needed boost Wednesday. Investors cheered the smallest inflation increase in four months, which came in below forecasts. It’s a positive sign for the path of rate cuts, which could be used to fight an economic slowdown. The stock market, rattled by President Donald Trump’s trade war, saw a glimmer of good news on Wednesday. It came in the form of the latest inflation data, which showed that prices cooled slightly more last month than economists had expected. The 0.2% increase was the…

Tesla stock has crashed in recent months, down 55% from its mid-December high. Investors are concerned about CEO Elon Musk’s time commitment to the company. “It’s become clear he’s now spending more time on DOGE than anything else,” one analyst said. As Tesla’s stock price crashes, frustrated investors are yearning for their CEO back. As you may have heard, Elon Musk has instead been in Washington, DC, overseeing a cost-cutting government overhaul. As he’s worked to scrap entire agencies and lay off thousands, the company’s stock has slipped. Shares have been down each of the past seven weeks that Musk…

(Bloomberg) — A global stocks selloff fueled by concerns about the American economy eased as US equity futures signaled modest gains on Wall Street. Bitcoin was poised to snap five days of losses. Most Read from Bloomberg Contracts for the S&P 500 were up 0.4% after the benchmark index fell the most this year on Monday. Those on the Nasdaq 100 rose after the gauge’s deepest slump since 2022. Europe’s Stoxx 600 index was steady. Asian shares bounced off an intraday five-week low. The euro strengthened 0.6% amid optimism lawmakers in Germany will reach an agreement over defense spending. A…

(Bloomberg) — Citigroup Inc. downgraded US equities to neutral from overweight while upgrading China to overweight, saying that US exceptionalism is at least on pause. Most Read from Bloomberg The US investment bank had been overweight American stocks since October 2023, but the hiatus in their ability to outperform has become more obvious, Dirk Willer, the firm’s global head of macro research and asset allocation, wrote in a note. Meanwhile, he said, Chinese stocks look attractive even after their recent rally, given DeepSeek’s artificial-intelligence technology breakthrough, the government’s support for the tech sector and still-cheap valuations. “The news flow from…

(Bloomberg) — The tariff throwdown between Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau has slowed Canadian corporate bond sales to a trickle over the past week as investors demand a higher premium to hold loonie debt. Most Read from Bloomberg The US president’s looming 25% tariff on Canadian goods — which briefly took effect last week before being paused until April — threatens to send the Canadian economy spiraling into a recession, spurring job losses and price spikes that fuel inflation. Canada’s vulnerability in the trade war has bubbled up in a credit market that has historically been largely indifferent to macro…

(Bloomberg) — Michael Saylor is stepping up plans to tap capital markets to accelerate Strategy’s Bitcoin buying binge, saying the firm will issue up to $21 billion of preferred stock and use the proceeds to buy more of the cryptocurrency. Most Read from Bloomberg The 8% series A perpetual-strike preferred shares, which are convertible into class A common stock, will be sold in an “at the market offering” program, the company said in a press release on Monday. The sales of preferred stock— rare, debt-like securities — would build on a deal the company struck in January when it raised…

(Bloomberg) — Bond traders are signaling an increasing risk that the US economy will stall as President Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff rollouts and federal-workforce cuts threaten to further restrain the pace of growth. Most Read from Bloomberg Speculation that Trump would pour stimulus onto the nation’s expansion — and keep upward pressure on Treasury yields — is being rapidly swept aside less than two months into his presidency. Instead, traders have been piling into short-dated Treasuries, pulling the two-year yield down sharply since mid-February, on expectations the Federal Reserve will resume cutting interest rates as soon as June to keep…

(Bloomberg) — Equities and Treasury yields fell on Monday as concerns about the health of the US economy weighed on investors’ appetite for risk. Most Read from Bloomberg A gauge of Asian shares dropped as equity futures contracts for the S&P 500 declined 0.4% and those for the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 also fell. Treasury yields slipped across maturities as investors sought the safety of fixed income assets. The shift toward havens lifted both the yen and the Swiss franc, while a gauge of the dollar held just shy of its lowest since November as confidence in further US economic outperformance…

(Bloomberg) — An unprecedented accumust weekation of power in Indonesia’s corporate st weekandscape is fueling investor concern about political influence and transparency in Southeast Asia’s biggest equity market. Most Read from Bloomberg Newly launched sovereign wealth fund Danantara — which has a direct reporting line to President Prabowo Subianto — announced last month it would take over management of seven state-owned enterprises. Its holdings include three of the nation’s biggest banks, with total assets of more than $340 billion. Worries about the deal sent shares tumbling by the most in weeks, pressuring a stock market that’s already one of the…