The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Japan edged lower to 2.3 percent in June from 2.4 percent a month earlier, ending slightly below market estimates of 2.4 percent. June’s unemployment rate was the lowest in the four-month period, with 60,000 unemployed personnel finding jobs, while the number of employed expanded by 70,000 to 67.01 million.
Taiwan’s forex (foreign exchange) reserves reached record levels at the end of July, largely due to the exceptionally high returns on the Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan)’s investment portfolio, as confirmed by the bank on Monday.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the US Federal Reserve System (the Fed) will be heading into its fifth monetary-policy meeting for the year on July 30, with markets keenly eyeing the outcome, in spite of the majority of market indicators already pricing in a rate cut.
The pound sterling fell to 27-month lows against the greenback on July 16, after Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, frontrunners to succeed outgoing UK Prime Minister Theresa May, hardened their Brexit pitches over the Irish backstop.
Gold prices are advancing amid a slump in global equities and on the back of expectations that the US Federal Reserve (the Fed) will cut interest rates at least twice this year, beginning in July. The price of the precious metal rose to a more than 13-month high on Friday, June 7, after unexpectedly weak US jobs data raised hopes that it would provide the necessary trigger for the Fed to ease rates.
The ongoing US-China trade conflict took an ugly turn in May after the United States imposed sanctions on the world’s biggest supplier of telecom equipment and smartphones, China’s Huawei Technologies, cutting the company off from all of its trading partners in the US and barring US companies from supplying components without government approval.
Despite expressing downright disdain for bitcoin on several occasions in the past, it would appear that Jamie Dimon has had a major change of heart for digital currencies. The JPMorgan Chase chief executive was a renowned critic of cryptocurrencies once upon a time, but on February 14
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), in its monetary-policy statement published on May 10, indicated that the Australian economy is witnessing subdued growth in household income and that the adjustment in the housing market is taking a toll on consumer spending.
Germany’s seasonally adjusted retail-sales figure surged 3.3 percent month-on-month in January to its highest level since October 2016, rebounding sharply from a downwardly revised -3.1 percent in December, according to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) left benchmark interest rates, or the cash rate, unchanged at 1.5 percent following its monetary-policy meeting on February 5.