MARKET UPDATE

Dollar sags below 20-year peak as euro lifted by ECB bets

The dollar struggled to regain momentum on Tuesday after being beaten back from a two-decade high versus major peers by a reinvigorated euro.

The tables turned for the two currencies as traders began ramping up bets for a super-sized 75-basis-point interest rate increase by the European Central Bank while paring the odds for one by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

“Recent days have arguably been dominated more by hawkish ECB-speak than Fed speak,” Alvin Tan, a Singapore-based strategist at Royal Bank of Canada, wrote in a client note.

 

Bleeding bitcoin’s holding out for a hero

The world’s biggest cryptocurrency can’t seem to catch a break. It finally looked to be regaining strength this month, breaching $25,000 for the first time since its June collapse, only to relapse towards $20,000.

A deflating end to August has forced the market to confront the Big Bitcoin Question: where will a real rally come from?

Right now, doughty retail investors are looking like the most likely source of relief, as institutional players get cold feet in the midst of a macro maelstrom.

 

Stocks, bonds fumble for footing as focus turns to data

Stock and bond markets attempted to steady on Tuesday, as investors turned their focus to inflation data and this week’s U.S. labour market report, to gauge if interest rate hikes that have been priced in around the world are justified.

By early afternoon, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.2%, while Japan’s Nikkei stock index rose 1.2%, in part helped by a fresh round of weakness in the Japanese yen.

 

Chinese Property Giant Country Garden’s Profit Slumps 96%

Country Garden Holdings Co Ltd (HK:2007), one of the largest property developers in China, logged a nearly 96% decline in earnings for the first half of the year, amid a worsening property crisis.

Net profit attributable to shareholders for the six months to June 30 fell to 612 million yuan ($88.5 million) from nearly 15 billion yuan ($2.17 billion) a year earlier, the property developer said in a statement on Tuesday. The figure is in line with a profit warning issued by Country Garden earlier this month.

 

 

 

 

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