A G20 ministerial meeting took place in Nagoya, Japan. The Japan-S.Korean relations overshadowed the meeting as the countries have already removed its other from the list of favored trading parties, and this week they almost stopped sharing military information. Mike Pompeo, did not participate in the meeting. USA and India are not part of RCEP (framework to boost free trade).
EU: Germany escaped the technical recession, due to strong consumer spending of 3Q19. The much needed fiscal expansion becomes more unlikely.
EU:Singapore: A trade deal between the two enters into force.
US-China: No phase 1 deal has yet been reached. New presented time milestone becomes the end of the year, while December 15 remains the date for increased tariffs. New York Times published Chinese documents on the muslim minorities of Uyghurs and Kazakhs. Congress (both the Democrats controlled House and the Republicans controlled Senate) voted a bill to protect human rights in Hong Kong. Yet, Trump has not signed it(nor veto-ed it) into law, declaring that he stands by both President Xi and freedom. The default scenario in this case, is for the bill to become a law on December 3.Global trade is foretasted to record 1.2% growth in 2019 and 2.7% growth in 2020, confirming the taxi drivers of global trade (i.e. Greek ship-owners) that believe that trade tensions are affecting the routing and not the actual volume of global trade. On the other hand, nowcasting models are giving negative surprises for the US GDP growth.
Israel: Israel stroke Iranian targets in Syria at the same day that the US administration declared that Israel’s settlements in Palestinian territory comply with international law. Meanwhile, neither Netanyahu, nor his rival Benny Gantz managed to form a government.
US-South Korea: Negotiations on who should bare the cost of US troops in the peninsula did not coclude. The USA is asking a 5 times bigger contribution from what S.Korea paid for 2018.
USA-EU-Turkey-Russia: Russia returned the 3 seized vessels to Ukraine.
Cryptos: Total market cap was crashed to $197bn (-15.8% w/w, -46% from the 2019 high, -76% from the all time high of January 2018).
Oil: Aramco is valued at $1.7trillion. 1.5% stake goes public for $25.6bn. Back on 2017, the Saudis were hoping for a $4trillion valuation. Earlier this year they were hoping for $100bn at a $2trillion valuation.
District elections took place today in Hong Kong with record number of voters. 24 weeks of never ending protest, several arrests later, a bill voted by the US Congress that favors a serious investigation on police conduct, pro-China candidates are expected to to suffer a major defeat. This would not be the first time happening, but it will definitely be the first time that is happening with the global spotlight on the region. Worth noting the decision of Hong Kong court that ruled against the anti-mask ban, infuriating Beijing.
