https://www.scmp.com/rss/523386/feed George Saravelos is the Global Co-head of FX Research at Deutsche Bank in London, leading fundamental analysis of major currency markets and advising clients on risks and opportunities. He proposed the ’Pennsylvania Plan’, a strategy for rebalancing US debt by shifting ownership to domestic investors and promoting stablecoins. He holds degrees from Cambridge and Harvard, and previously worked at the IMF. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Nicholas Spiro Nicholas Spiro It is one of the oldest sayings on Wall Street, yet the adage “markets hate uncertainty” has never stood up to scrutiny. Like most maxims, it has a ring of truth but is a gross oversimplification. What is indisputable, however, is that for several decades investors took major economic, financial and political trends for granted. For a long period beginning in the 1980s, the world was relatively predictable. Many economists dubbed this era “the great moderation”. Others pointed to the impact of... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3344685/trumps-normalisation-market-chaos-can-only-go-so-far?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3344685/trumps-normalisation-market-chaos-can-only-go-so-far?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 26 Feb 2026 10:45:14 +0000 Sylvia Ma Sylvia Ma China’s central bank strengthened the yuan’s daily fixing for a third consecutive session to a nearly 16-month high, as the currency also held firm in offshore markets despite recent US dollar strength. On Tuesday, the People’s Bank of China set the yuan’s midpoint rate, also known as the daily fixing rate, at 7.0103 to the US dollar – the strongest showing since the end of September 2024, when the rate was set at 7.0074. That official midpoint rate, however, was still weaker than that of the... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3339699/chinas-central-bank-sets-onshore-yuan-fixing-strongest-point-nearly-16-months?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3339699/chinas-central-bank-sets-onshore-yuan-fixing-strongest-point-nearly-16-months?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 13 Jan 2026 06:00:15 +0000 Nicholas Spiro Nicholas Spiro Is this the year emerging market stocks finally turned the corner? At the start of 2025, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the main gauge of equities in developing economies, was near the same level it was at in September 2010. The benchmark S&P 500 index, by contrast, was up almost 500 per cent. For the past 15 years, emerging market shares have underperformed their developed market peers. This is one of the most striking disconnects between economic heft – developing countries’ share of global... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3332584/emerging-market-rally-much-about-fleeing-us-finding-value?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3332584/emerging-market-rally-much-about-fleeing-us-finding-value?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 13 Nov 2025 08:30:11 +0000 Nicholas Spiro Nicholas Spiro This week marks the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election. Trump’s return to the White House was a stunning political comeback that cleared the way for him to carry out his “America first” agenda of higher trade tariffs, more confrontational relationships with traditional US allies and a clampdown on immigration. At the time, many investors were worried about the consequences of Trump’s nationalist policies. A week after the election, Bank of America... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3331716/has-trump-20-really-been-boon-stock-markets-and-economy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3331716/has-trump-20-really-been-boon-stock-markets-and-economy?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 06 Nov 2025 08:30:08 +0000 Nicholas Spiro Nicholas Spiro Goldbugs have a spring in their step these days. In the third quarter of this year, gold was the second-best performing major financial asset after silver, according to Deutsche Bank data. Last month, the price of bullion hit a record high 13 times and currently stands just above US$4,000 per troy ounce after surging 54 per cent this year, the biggest gain since 1979. The past several years have been a boon to the yellow metal, whose role as a store of wealth is amplified during times of... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3328307/global-uncertainty-driving-gold-prices-higher-despite-bubble-fears?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3328307/global-uncertainty-driving-gold-prices-higher-despite-bubble-fears?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 09 Oct 2025 08:30:08 +0000 Nicholas Spiro Nicholas Spiro Where are the guardrails and checks on US President Donald Trump’s radical agenda? This is a question that was asked frequently in the first three months of his second term as America’s financial and business community came to terms with his fierce assault on the global trading system and his contempt for the rule of law. Yet in the past few months, another, more alarming question has arisen. What if there are no effective restraints on Trump’s policies, or too much damage is done before... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3324278/china-standing-trump-unlike-us-courts-wall-street-or-business?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3324278/china-standing-trump-unlike-us-courts-wall-street-or-business?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 04 Sep 2025 08:30:09 +0000 Nicholas Spiro Nicholas Spiro In the past month, Wall Street banks have come out with their midyear outlooks for the global economy and markets. The tone and substance of the reports are markedly more upbeat than the research published as recently as early May. Bank of America said “faster trade de-escalation means the global outlook is somewhat better than we anticipated”. Morgan Stanley said “we push back against the idea that foreign investors would or should abandon US assets significantly”. Barclays, meanwhile, went so... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3316752/why-investors-banking-peak-trump-are-dangerously-wrong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3316752/why-investors-banking-peak-trump-are-dangerously-wrong?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 03 Jul 2025 08:30:10 +0000 Leopold Chen,Mandy Zuo Leopold Chen,Mandy Zuo With the US Senate voting to move an updated version of US President Donald Trump’s sweeping budget legislation – the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” – forward in the legislative process, the controversial bill now comes closer to becoming law. It has also brought the country’s mounting debt back into the spotlight. Rife with spending increases, tax cuts and no additional revenue sources to compensate, the bill has been estimated to add US$3.3 trillion to the nation’s debt over the next decade; a... https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3316399/trumps-big-beautiful-bill-debt-bomb-can-pennsylvania-plan-defuse-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3316399/trumps-big-beautiful-bill-debt-bomb-can-pennsylvania-plan-defuse-it?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 30 Jun 2025 11:00:01 +0000