China has begun moving at the margins to withdraw excess cash from the financial system, as a spike in lending in the first few weeks of the year prompted concerns that credit growth was getting out of hand.
Consumer spending rose slightly less than expected last month as savings jumped to a six-month high, indicating that households remained too cautious to spend despite an improvement in incomes.
China has ordered a further clampdown on excessive bank lending to ensure credit has not illegally entered the stock or property markets as two surveys on Monday showed the mounting challenges faced by policymakers.
Consumer spending rose slightly less than expected in December as households opted to save extra cash, lifting savings to a six-month high, a government report showed on Monday.
China's economy made a strong start to the year, according to a pair of business surveys released on Monday that also underlined the mounting challenge policymakers face to curb inflation.
World shares sank to a three-month low on Monday as concerns about Greece's debts and a reminder of the challenges China faces to curb inflation stung risk demand, helping push the dollar to a six-month high versus a currency basket.
The United States has escaped the danger of a Japanese-style deflationary trap, but it is not yet time to start tightening policy, St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard told the Financial Times.
The Bank of Japan may need to do more on the monetary policy front to stop deflation, the Nikkei daily quoted Japan's Finance Minister Naoto Kan as saying, keeping pressure on the BOJ to help support a fragile economic recovery.
The economic recovery is suddenly looking more robust. If it is going to stay that way, the labor market will need to catch up soon.
A senior Federal Reserve official warned on Friday that the uncertain path of interest rates poses risks for banks inattentive to the match of durations among their assets and liabilities.
The U.S. economy grew at a faster-than-expected 5.7 percent pace in the fourth quarter, the quickest in more than six years, as businesses made less-aggressive cuts to inventories and stepped up spending.
Asian stocks fell for the ninth straight day on Wednesday on fears that China's heightened efforts to rein in soaring credit growth could hamper the global economic recovery.
(Corrects in first line and in text that Asia stocks ex-Japan fell for the 9th straight day, not the 8th)
Standard and Poor's on Tuesday threatened to cut Japan's credit rating unless it produced a credible plan to rein in its soaring debt and lift growth in an economy plagued by persistent deflation.
Japanese Finance Minister Naoto Kan will ask the Bank of Japan to support the economy through flexible monetary policy in a speech in parliament this week, the Nikkei financial daily reported on Tuesday. Kan will make the unusual reference to the central bank's policy in a speech planned for Friday as part of the government's efforts to to overcome deflation, the paper said without citing sources.
In the coming decade, nobody can stop the rise of gold, that is what the opinion of Owen Hegarty, an Australian expert in mineral resources. He told a Chinese news agency that gold prices are expected to remain on an upward track in a decade to come despite recent fluctuations. For the foreseeable future, or at least in this decade, all reasons to buy gold are positive, he said.
China's gross domestic product growth is likely to grow about 9.5 percent in 2010, largely driven by strong domestic consumption and corporate investment, a government researcher said in remarks published on Monday.
¨Gold prices will continue to witness an uptrend in 2010 but investors should expect continued high volatility-resembling an amusement park roller coaster ride, according to Jeffrey Nichols, Senior Economic Advisor to Rosland Capital. In his latest commentary on market trends, Jeffrey Nichols said that gold prices won't move up higher without interruption.The two main sources of gold price volatility will continue to be the investment demand for the yellow metal and volatility in dollar's exchan...
China easily beat its 2009 growth target after a blistering fourth quarter performance that set the stage for further monetary tightening and put it on course to overtake Japan to become the world's second-largest economy.
Most Asian stock markets fell on Thursday as investors worried that China would take more measures to temper growth after reporting its fastest quarterly growth in two years.
China's economy finished 2009 with a flourish as a 10.7 percent year-on-year increase in fourth-quarter GDP took full-year growth to 8.7 percent, easily surpassing Beijing's 8 percent target.
China's economy finished 2009 with a flourish as a 10.7 percent year-on-year increase in fourth-quarter GDP took full-year growth to 8.7 percent, easily surpassing Beijing's 8 percent target.
