As China’s maiden aircraft carrier nears its sea trials one question that evades analysts’ minds is why China is building a carrier. For many of the carrier’s potential missions: from “recovering” Taiwan; to “solving” the Paracel, Spratly and Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands disputes; to “safeguarding” China’s Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC), a fully operational carrier is considered logistically unattainable, at least in the near term. While several [...]
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by Dian Chu, SA Risk analysis firm Maplecroft just released its new fiscal risk index ranking of 163 countries. Europe trumps all other regions with 11 out of twelve countries rated as “extreme risk.” However, quite surprisingly, only one PIIGS country–Italy which takes the top spot–is in the top 12. The others include many big economies in Europe – Belgium (2), France (3), [...] By Dian L. Chu Crude oil market has been on a wild roller coaster ride ever since riots started escalating in Egypt and Libya. The latest Libyan supply disruptions sent WTI futures surging above $103 a barrel in New York on Thursday, Feb. 24, while Brent oil in Europe was also closing in on $120 a barrel. However, both oil markers retreated mostly due to traders scrambling to [...] By Dian L. Chu Risk analysis firm Maplecroft just released its new fiscal risk index ranking of 163 countries. Europe trumps all other regions with 11 out of twelve courtiers rated as “extreme risk.” However, quite surprisingly, only one PIIGS country–Italy which takes the top spot–is in the top 12. The others include many big economies in Europe – Belgium (2), France (3), Sweden (4), Germany (5), [...] By Dian L. Chu, EconForecast On Tuesday Feb. 15, China reported its consumer prices (CPI) rose 4.9% year-over-year (yoy) in January, which came in less than expected. Economists were expecting 5.4% inflation, based on a Bloomberg survey. However, after digesting the data, Asian markets closed mixed on that news, with China’s Shanghai Composite staying flat after a choppy trading session. Well, the reason why markets reacted that way [...] By Dian L. Chu, EconForecast Talk about another internet bubble. New York Times broke the news on Jan. 2 that Facebook, the social network website, was able to get $500 million in funding–$450 million from Goldman Sachs and $50 million from Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investment firm that has already pumped about half a billion dollars into Facebook. But the real eye popping fact is that this latest deal [...] By Dian L. Chu, EconForecast For the most part of 2010, the typical image of Europe—one of cultural sophistication—has been replaced by widespread riots, burning cars, large scale strikes over labor reform and unemployment resulting from austerity measures amid a sovereign debt crisis in the region. Gold Chart’s European Tale Fear about defaults and more bailouts throughout the European Union (UN) has formed a dark storm [...] By Dian L. Chu, EconForecast It is inevitable that when you have a market run up like we have had recently driven mostly by liquidity and Santa Claus Rally, many stocks would see pullbacks in the New Year. The following are just five of such candidates that I believe capable of some meaningful downside risk, and are not intended to be all inclusive. Could This CAT Bounce? Caterpillar stock has had an [...] By Dian L. Chu, EconForecast Have you noticed the price of oil lately? It’s $90 a barrel in a dismal economy with unemployment hovering around 10%. The problem with Fed chairman Bernanke`s latest QE 2 initiative is that he has just given more access of cheap money to the big banks. Non-Productive Use of QE Money And what are they doing with all this cheap money? Nothing productive [...] By Dian L. Chu, Economic Forecasts & Opinions The United States economy grew at a sluggish annual rate of 2 percent in the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported last Friday. On the bright side, the economy is growing faster than the 1.7 percent growth in the second quarter and has registered the fifth straight quarter of expansion. But here comes the dark side – the [...] |
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