市场消息

LONDON (Reuters) – British ministers are divided over the government’s next steps if Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal with the European Union is not approved by parliament next month.

With just under 100 days until Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29, deep divisions in parliament have raised the chances of leaving without a deal and increased calls for a second referendum to break the deadlock.

Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd said late on Wednesday there would be a “plausible argument” for another referendum if parliament failed to reach a consensus on the way forward, something May has repeatedly ruled out.

House of Commons leader Andrea Leadsom said a so-called “people’s vote” would be unacceptable and a “managed” no deal would be an alternative.

Some ministers have indicated they would quit the government if the no deal option became official policy.

Earlier this week the government said it would implement plans for a no-deal Brexit in full and begin telling businesses and citizens to prepare.

With no clear majority in parliament for any way forward, several ministers have said they would support the idea of holding an “indicative vote” of lawmakers as to what Brexit option they would like to see pursued.

Rudd said parliament should reach a majority on how Britain leaves the EU, but if it could not then another referendum was an option.

TOKYO, Dec 20 (Reuters) – Asian shares slid on Thursday after the U.S. Federal Reserve raised rates, as expected, and kept most of its guidance for additional hikes over the next two years, dashing investor hopes for a more dovish policy outlook.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped 1.1 percent, with Australian shares also declining 1.3 percent to a two-year closing low.

Markets across the region are nearing gloomy milestones, with Japan’s Topix and South Korea’s KOSPI falling into a bear market, which means they are down more than 20 percent from their recent highs, to join Shanghai and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng.

Financial spread-betters expect London’s FTSE Frankfurt’s DAX and Paris’s CAC to fall between 1.2 and 1.4 percent when they open.

Japan’s Nikkei shed 2.8 percent to close at its lowest since September 2017.

China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite and the blue-chip CSI 300 fell 0.5 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively, while the Hang Seng was off 1.1 percent.

In New York, U.S. S&P 500 Index lost 1.54 percent to hit its lowest level since September 2017. U.S. stocks are on pace for their biggest December decline since 1931, the depths of the Great Depression.

But the slight revision was not enough to ease market fears over a further U.S. economic slowdown on the back of trade tensions, a waning boost from tax cuts and tightening monetary conditions for companies.

As investors flocked to the safety of government bonds, the 10-year U.S. Treasuries yield fell to as low as 2.748 percent, a level last seen in early April.

A rise in short-term interest rates and a fall in the long-dated yield rekindled worries of an inversion in the yield curve, where shorter-debt yields become higher than longer-term ones.

Historically, an inversion between short-yields, such as three-month and two-year yields, and 10-year yields has been seen as a fairly reliable indicator of a recession down the road.

“We expect additional rate hikes will invert the three-months to 10-year yield curve which is a reliable signal for a bear market for stocks and a coming recession for both the U.S. and the rest of the world,” said Jeffrey Kleintop, Chief Investment Strategist at Charles Schwab in Boston.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – After weeks of market volatility and calls by President Donald Trump for the Federal Reserve to stop raising interest rates, the U.S. central bank instead did it again, and stuck by a plan to keep withdrawing support from an economy it views as strong.

U.S. stocks and bond yields fell hard. With the Fed signaling “some further gradual” rate hikes and no break from cutting its massive bond portfolio, traders fretted that policymakers could choke off economic growth.

Wednesday’s rate increase, the fourth of the year, pushed the central bank’s key overnight lending rate to a range of 2.25 percent to 2.50 percent.

In a news conference after the release of the policy statement, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank would continue trimming its balance sheet by $50 billion each month, and left open the possibility that continued strong data could force it to raise rates to the point where they start to brake the economy’s momentum.

Powell did bow to what he called recent “softening” in global growth, tighter financial conditions, and expectations the U.S. economy will slow next year, and said that with inflation expected to remain a touch below the Fed’s 2 percent target next year, policymakers can be “patient.”

Fresh economic forecasts showed officials at the median now see only two more rate hikes next year compared to the three projected in September.

But another message was clear in the statement issued after the Fed’s last policy meeting of the year as well as in Powell’s comments: The U.S. economy continues to perform well and no longer needs the Fed’s support either through lower-than-normal interest rates or by maintaining of a massive balance sheet.

ECONOMIC PROJECTIONS

Fed policymakers’ median forecast puts the federal funds rate at 3.1 percent at the end of 2020 and 2021, according to the projections.

That would leave borrowing costs just above policymakers’ newly downgraded median view of a 2.8 percent neutral rate that neither brakes nor boosts a healthy economy, but still within the 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent range of Fed estimates for that rate.

Gross domestic product is forecast to grow 2.3 percent next year and 2.0 percent in 2020, slightly weaker than the Fed previously anticipated. The unemployment rate, currently at a 49-year low of 3.7 percent, is expected to fall to 3.5 percent next year and rise slightly in 2020 and 2021.

Inflation, which hit the central bank’s 2 percent target this year, is expected to be 1.9 percent next year, a bit lower than the 2.0 percent forecast three months ago.

There were no dissents in the Fed’s policy decision.

LONDON (Reuters) – With just 100 days until Brexit, the EU’s executive cautioned that most banking, insurance and other financial firms in Britain would be cut off from the European Union if there is no divorce deal.

Prime Minister Theresa May’s failure to find a deal the British parliament will approve means the world’s fifth largest economy now faces three main choices: agreeing a last-minute deal, halting Brexit or leaving the EU without a deal.

No deal means there would be no transition so the exit, set in law as 2300 GMT on March 29, would be abrupt. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said leaving the EU with no transition could be akin to the 1970s oil shock.

With fears growing that the political brinkmanship in London could lead, as May has warned, to Britain leaving without a deal, businesses and the EU’s executive ramped up planning for such an eventuality.

“Businesses of all sizes are reaching the point of no return, with many now putting in place contingency plans that are a significant drain of time and money,” the heads of Britain’s five biggest business lobby groups said.

(Reuters) – Days after a judge in Texas declared that the Obamacare healthcare law is unconstitutional, Maryland’s Democratic attorney general on Wednesday will pursue his request that another judge rule the opposite way.

The lawsuit brought by Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh also seeks to challenge President Donald Trump’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general, another bone of partisan contention.

Frosh is asking U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander in Baltimore to declare that the 2010 health law, known as the Affordable Care Act, is lawful in a bid to counter attempts by the Trump administration to undermine it.

BEIJING (Reuters) – A third Canadian citizen has been detained in China, Canada’s National Post newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing the Canadian foreign ministry.

China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, told a daily news briefing in Beijing that she was unaware of the report.

Two Canadians – former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor – were detained after Canadian police arrested Huawei Technologies Co Ltd’s [HWT.UL] chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, on Dec 1.

Canada’s Global Affairs office told the National Post that they were aware of a detention but did not provide details and did not suggest a connection to Meng’s detention.

The newspaper did not identify the third person to be detained but a source who had spoken to the individual’s family told the newspaper that the individual was not a diplomat or an entrepreneur.

The Canadian government has said that there is also no explicit link between Meng’s arrest and the detentions of Kovrig and Spavor.

But Beijing-based Western diplomats and former Canadian diplomats have said they believe the detentions are a form of “tit-for-tat” reprisal by China, in response to Meng’s arrest.

China has repeatedly called for Canada to correct its mistake and to release Meng or face unspecified consequences.

Both Kovrig and Spavor are being investigated on suspicion of endangering China’s state security, the Chinese government has said.

BEIJING/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Oil prices clawed back some ground on Wednesday as global equity markets showed signs of stabilizing, but crude was still under pressure from worries about oversupply and a slowing global economy that had driven sharp losses in the last three sessions.

West Texas Intermediate futures (WTI) had climbed 7 cents, or 0.15 percent, to $46.31 per barrel by 0722 GMT, after plunging 7.3 percent the day before in a session when it touched its lowest since August 2017.

Global benchmark Brent crude futures rose 0.36 percent, or 20 cents, to $56.46 per barrel. They dropped 5.6 percent on Tuesday, at one point hitting a 14-month low.

Brent is down more than 30 percent from a recent peak of $86.74 per barrel on Oct. 3, while WTI has declined nearly 40 percent from a multi-year high of $76.9 per barrel recorded on Oct. 4.

“(WTI prices are holding on Wednesday as) traders look for some solace in U.S. equity markets as risk sentiment appears to be stabilizing,” said Stephen Innes, head of trading for Asia-Pacific at OANDA
“But we are far removed from any bullish flip in investor sentiment.”

LONDON (Reuters) – Brexit minister Stephen Barclay said on Tuesday Britain’s Article 50 notice to leave the European Union could be not be revoked as a temporary measure.

Earlier this month, the EU’s top court ruled that the British government may reverse its decision to leave the bloc without consulting other member states. Any extension of Article 50, however, would require the agreement of the rest of the EU.

Asked by a lawmaker if there were circumstances in which the government might revoke Article 50 as a de facto extension while it prepared for a no deal Brexit or sought a better deal from the EU, Barclay said: “What the court case was clear (about) is one can’t revoke as a temporary measure.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday further sought to pressure the Federal Reserve as the central bank prepared to start its two-day policy meeting, warning the Fed’s board not to “make yet another mistake” ahead of an expected interest rate hike.

“Don’t let the market become any more illiquid than it already is. Stop with the 50 B’s. Feel the market, don’t just go by meaningless numbers. Good luck!” Trump wrote.