Month: October 2023

Asian stocks sank to 11-month lows on Wednesday as an ongoing rout in global bond markets saw U.S. yields reach 16-year highs, challenging equity valuations and souring appetite for risk assets in general.

The spike in Treasury yields lifted the dollar to new heights with only the yen showing some fight amid speculation the Japanese authorities might be intervening behind the scenes.

The yen breached the 150-per-dollar level in the London afternoon on Tuesday before suddenly shooting to 147.3.

There was no confirmation from Tokyo, where Japan’s finance minister and top currency diplomat have made no direct comment on the move. The yen last stood at 149.181 per dollar.

Stronger-than-expected U.S. job openings data, meanwhile, sent the 10-year yield up nearly a dozen basis points (bps) on Tuesday and it rose a further three bps in Asia to 4.838%, the highest since 2007.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) dropped by more than 1% for a second day running. Japan’s Nikkei (.N225) and South Korea’s Kospi (.KS11) fell by more than 2%. S&P 500 futures fell 0.3%.

“With the risk-free rate so high, it’s not really compelling for people to allocate away from short-term cash-like investments,” said Mel Siew, a portfolio manager at Muzinich & Co in Singapore. The S&P 500 (.SPX) fell 1.4% on Tuesday.

Since the move has not come with much of a shift in market gauges of inflation expectations, U.S. yields in real terms – subtracting inflation – are also at almost 15-year highs and are sucking money from all corners into dollars.

Across Asia’s emerging markets bonds are under pressure and the Thai baht , Taiwan dollar , Malaysian ringgit , Indonesian rupiah and Indian rupee are all at or near milestone lows, with some central banks stepping in to stem the tide.

The dollar’s march pushed the euro to its lowest in 10 months at $1.0448 overnight and sterling to a seven-month trough at $1.20535.

Both traded near those levels on Wednesday.

For the yen, its slide back past the weak side of 149-per-dollar suggested some scepticism around whether Japan’s finance ministry had really ordered an intervention, though it was enough to quieten short sellers.

“We should be cautious of the pair as it is around sensitive levels for Japanese authorities, even after the unknown shock,” said Ryota Abe, economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation in Singapore.

At $0.6304 the Australian dollar was pinned near an 11-month low while the New Zealand dollar was just above a similar milestone after the central bank left rates on hold and offered little suggestion of an imminent hike.

“For now, the FX market is a bystander,” said SocGen strategist Kit Juckes, “watching Treasuries and waiting for them to break something.”

Federal Reserve officials see rising yields on long-term U.S. Treasury debt as not triggering alarm bells yet.

In commodity markets, the stronger dollar has helped put the brakes on oil prices and higher yields have weighed on gold.

Brent crude futures were last steady at $90.87 a barrel, having hit an 11-month high of $97.69 last week.

Spot gold touched a seven-month low of $1,814 an ounce on Tuesday and was last at $1,819.

The U.S. Justice Department announced a sweeping crackdown on the global fentanyl network, charging eight Chinese chemical companies and 12 of their employees in connection with the deadly opioid crisis ravaging the United States.   

In eight separate indictments unsealed in Florida, federal prosecutors accused the companies and their employees of producing fentanyl and methamphetamine, distributing synthetic opioids, and supplying precursor chemicals for the illicit drug.     

“We know that the global fentanyl supply chain, which ends with the deaths of Americans, often starts with chemical companies in China,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference in Washington.    

“The United States government is focused on breaking apart every link in that chain, getting fentanyl out of our communities, and bringing those who put it there to justice,” he said.     

This is the second time the U.S. Justice Department has charged Chinese companies and their employees for trafficking fentanyl precursor chemicals into the United States.  

In June, four Chinese chemical manufacturing companies and eight executives and employees were indicted for illegally trafficking chemicals used to make fentanyl. Two of the defendants were arrested.   

Deadly drug threat

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that can kill with a dose as tiny as a few grains of salt, is wreaking havoc on the nation.  

More than 105,000 Americans died of drug overdoses from February 2022 to January 2023, according to the U.S. Justice Department. Most of these deaths involved fentanyl or its analogues, which are chemically similar but often more lethal.   

Today, fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 49, making it the deadliest drug threat the U.S. has ever faced, according to law enforcement officials.   

Attack on supply chain

The fentanyl crisis is fueled by a global supply chain that extends from China, where the chemicals are produced, to Mexico, where cartels mix the drug and smuggle it across the border into the United States.   

The DEA says it is attacking every aspect of this global supply chain, targeting the producers, traffickers and distributors of fentanyl.  

“These eight cases are the result of DEA’s efforts to attack the fentanyl supply chain where it starts — in China,” Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram said at the news conference.    

In addition to fentanyl precursors and analogues, Chinese firms are exporting dangerous additives — xylazine and nitazenes — into the U.S. and Mexico, she said.   

“DEA will not stop until we defeat this threat,” Milgram said.  

The cases announced on Tuesday span two Florida districts, where the defendants allegedly shipped the drug and its precursors.     

In the Middle District of Florida, five Chinese companies and eight nationals face charges of illegally importing fentanyl and fentanyl-related chemicals into the United States.  

Prosecutors say the defendants openly advertised their ability to evade U.S. customs and deliver fentanyl to Florida and elsewhere in the United States.   

In the Southern District of Florida, three Chinese companies and four officers and employees face charges of trafficking fentanyl and synthetic opioids, importing precursor chemicals, defrauding the U.S. postal service, and making and using counterfeit postage.   

Taiwan’s baseball team took the field Tuesday sporting caps and jerseys not with “T” for Taiwan, but “CT” for Chinese Taipei.

China claims the democratic self-governing island as its own, and a decades-old agreement between Taipei and Beijing means that Taiwanese teams can only compete internationally if they don’t use the name — or flag — of Taiwan.

Opposing them on the new field in Shaoxing was Hong Kong, representing what Beijing hopes is Taiwan’s future — a team playing under its own regional flag, with its own athletes, but still very much a part of China.

At the Asian Games, China has been going out of its way to be welcoming to the Taiwanese athletes, as it pursues a two-pronged strategy with the goal of taking over the island, which involves both wooing its people while threatening it militarily.

Unlike the Beijing Winter Olympics last year where Taiwan only sent four athletes, there are more than 500 here for the Asian Games, providing China a golden opportunity to put on a welcoming face not only for the competitors, but for their fans watching from home in Taiwan.

At the opening ceremony in Hangzhou, the Taiwanese delegation got one of the largest cheers from the crowd, with the local broadcaster making sure to cut to show Chinese President Xi Jinping clapping for the team as it was introduced.

In events where Taiwan wins, the broadcasts regular pan to Chinese fans in the stands cheering for them, while waving Chinese flags.

After Tuesday’s win against Hong Kong, many fans stayed behind to get Taiwanese players to sign baseballs and caps, and the players say they don’t worry too much about the wider political situation.

“I came to join the games, and did not think too much” about it, said Lin Tzu-Wei, a Taiwanese left fielder who played with the Boston Red Sox and briefly with the Minnesota Twins before returning home.

“I come here for the games, that’s it,” he said.

The fact that they must compete under the name “Chinese Taipei” is nothing new for the Taiwanese. Its team used the same name at the World Baseball Classic earlier this year, which it hosted along with Japan and the United States.

The issue of the name hasn’t featured in local reporting on the games, and Taiwanese officials with the delegation in Hangzhou refused to comment on it, saying their focus was on the performance of their athletes.

Yet China continues its aggressive external approach toward the island, which is only about 600 kilometers from Hangzhou, the primary host city for the Asian Games.

Taiwan and China split in a civil war that brought the Communist Party to power in China in 1949, with the rival Nationalists setting up their own government in Taipei. Chinese President Xi has repeatedly said he would not rule out the use of force to take the island of 24 million people.

Beijing has been conducting increasingly large military drills in the air and waters around Taiwan, as tensions have been rising between the rivals and Taiwan’s most important backer, the United States.

A few days before the two-week Asian Games began, China sent 103 warplanes flying toward Taiwan, which Taiwanese officials said was a new high for recent times.

Despite not ruling out force, China prefers to have Taiwan come under its control voluntarily, and has offered a “one country, two systems” framework similar to Hong Kong in which the former British colony became part of China in 1997 but was promised a degree of autonomy. The ruling Communist Party however has cracked down on dissent in Hong Kong and critics say the Western-style freedoms are disappearing.

Taiwan has firmly rejected that idea of a Hong Kong-style approach.

At the Asian Games, Hong Kong sends its own athletes who compete separately from China. Similarly, the former Portuguese colony of Macao, which is now also a part of China, sends its own athletes and competes under its regional flag.

For baseball manager Wu Shih-Hsih, a former infielder who was part of the Taiwan team that won silver in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, the trip to mainland China is just about baseball, and he’s setting his sights on a gold medal for his team.

“Sports is sports, politics is politics,” he said after Sunday’s 12-1 win against Thailand.

“We are here for the sports.”

Bibi Netanyahu is poised to form a government with allies once seen as completely outside the norms and boundaries of Israeli politics.

Ford Motor (F.N) said on Tuesday it had made a new comprehensive contract offer in an effort to resolve a 19-day old targeted strike by the United Auto Workers but said a dispute over battery plants remained unresolved.

The Dearborn, Michigan automaker said the new offer boosted wages for temporary workers, increased company 401(k) contributions and had further shrunk time needed to get to the top wage rate.

UAW President Shawn Fain on Friday expanded the first-ever simultaneous strike against the Detroit Three to a GM Lansing, Michigan, plant and a Ford Chicago assembly plant, but Stellantis was spared after last-minute concessions.

Ford said Tuesday the UAW “has taken a hard line on battery plants” after CEO Jim Farley accused the UAW of holding the contract “hostage” over the fate of those plants, a charge the union rejected. The UAW says “job security” in the electric vehicle transition remains an open issue.

The UAW declined comment Tuesday on Ford’s new offer.

The UAW said on Monday it presented a new contract offer to General Motors (GM.N). GM said despite the offer “significant gaps remain.” The UAW also held a new round of bargaining with Chrysler-parent Stellantis (STLAM.MI) Monday.

Earlier Tuesday, GM said it furloughed 163 UAW workers at GM’s Toledo Propulsion Systems plant that makes transmissions for both the automaker’s Missouri and Lansing Delta Township assembly plants that are on strike.

GM said in total it has been forced to lay off 2,100 workers at five plants in four states including halting production at its Kansas car plant because of strike impacts.

On Monday, GM and Ford said they laid off another 500 workers at four Midwestern plants because of the impact of the strike. Stellantis has furloughed nearly 370 workers in Ohio and Indiana.

Anderson Economic Group on Monday estimated total losses from the first two weeks of the strike at $3.9 billion, including $325 million in wages, $1.12 billion in losses for the Detroit Three, $1.29 billion for suppliers and $1.2 billion for dealer and customer losses.

The U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in its history has booted its speaker out of the job, as infighting in the narrow and bitterly divided Republican majority toppled Kevin McCarthy from the position.

Here is a look at what comes next:

Immediately following Tuesday’s 216-210 ouster vote, Republican Representative Patrick McHenry, a McCarthy ally, was appointed acting speaker pro tempore. He can serve for only a very limited time — up to three legislative days in this case.

The acting speaker pro tempore’s duties are vague, according to a guide to the chamber’s rules and procedures: That person “may exercise such authorities of the office of speaker as may be necessary and appropriate pending the election of a speaker or speaker pro tempore.”

While the speaker sets the overall legislative agenda in the House, it is the House majority leader who schedules specific bills to debated and voted upon in the chamber.

Republican Representative Kelly Armstrong told reporters that McHenry’s main task will be to “get us a new speaker.” Anything further, he said, would spark a move to oust McHenry.

Until a House speaker is installed, it is unlikely that further action will be taken on bills to fund the government, with lawmakers facing a Nov. 17 deadline to provide more money or face a partial government shutdown.

Battles over those bills and anger over McCarthy’s failure to win extremely deep spending cuts sought by hard-right conservatives sparked the successful move by Representative Matt Gaetz to unseat him.

The House’s 221 Republicans and 212 Democrats huddled privately to figure out their next steps — both political and legislative.

Each party was expected to try to settle on a candidate for speaker. That’s fairly easy for Democrats as they are solidly behind Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who ran for speaker in January against McCarthy and other candidates.

Republicans, because of their obvious divisions, especially among a small group of hard-line conservatives seeking very deep cuts in federal spending, could have a harder time settling on a candidate.

McHenry could have an advantage now that he is acting speaker. It was unclear whether he wants the job. McCarthy is not barred from running again.

The House finds itself in an unprecedented moment and so it was unclear exactly how quickly an election will be held in the full House. Normally, the elections for speaker are scheduled at the start of the new Congress every two years.

The leaders of both parties will have to decide when they are ready to enter into the process of electing a speaker.

The January endeavor was sloppy as McCarthy for days could not get enough votes to win and had to endure 15 ballots.

It could be at least as chaotic this time around for Republicans, unless they conclude that such chaos is creating a public backlash that could doom their election prospects in 2024 and they unite.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the House speaker does not have to be a member of Congress. That is the reason some Republicans have floated the name of former President Donald Trump for the job, even though he is running for president and has said he does not want the job.

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