Indian bonds ready for the big time – Asia Times

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The addition of American government bonds in two exclusive worldwide indexes, the JPMorgan Government Bond Index- Growing Markets ( GBI- EM) and the Bloomberg Index Services’Emerging Market Local Currency Index, has spewed positive vibes throughout the world markets.

This historic achievement not only marks India’s growing connectivity with the world market, but it also evokes a new age of chance and growth for the world’s fastest-growing big economy.

India’s participation in these renowned international bond indexes represents a turning point in the country’s economic evolution. &nbsp,

For the first time in its history, the country finds its royal securities listed among the world’s most renowned purchase measures, a testament to the country’s rising prominence on the international stage. &nbsp,

This integration with international indexes improves India’s visibility and strengthens its standing as a reliable and appealing investment destination for foreign investors.

The effects of inclusion in these stocks go far beyond simple symbolic meaning. Analysts believe that this action could lead to billion-dollar inflows into India’s federal loan market, which is denominated in rupees. &nbsp,

For instance, Goldman Sachs projects that India’s connection markets may experience inflows of upwards of US$ 40 billion between the time of the news and the end of the scale, or about US$ 2 billion per quarter.

Like significant flows indicate a vote of confidence from international buyers in India’s growth prospects and economic fundamentals. One of the immediate advantages of having India’s higher borrowing costs included in international bond indexes is that it has the power to lower its higher borrowing costs. &nbsp,

As demand for American government bonds surges, relationship yields are expected to decline, thus reducing the government’s cost of borrowing. This decline will increase fiscal sustainability and free up resources for important social welfare and infrastructure development, thus promoting economic growth and development.

India’s participation in international bond indexes gives it more room for investors, giving it more money to finance its expanding economy. &nbsp,

Usually, institutional investors like as banks, mutual funds and insurance companies have been the major purchasers of India’s federal loan. However, having been included in international stocks opens up new avenues for charity, drawing in a wide range of foreign investors, including those who are pension funds and sovereign wealth funds. &nbsp,

This expansion of India’s investor base did improve investor confidence, boost market liquidity, and lessen investor reliance on local funding sources. To my thinking, the walk reinforces India’s status as a leading player in the global economic environment. &nbsp,

It underscores the government’s dedication to fiscal reform, transparency and regulatory adherence, aligning its relationship market with global best practices. &nbsp,

This harmonisation with international standards improves India’s appeal as a destination for investment and promotes greater integration with global financial markets, facilitating cash flows and purchase diversification.

It strengthens the nation’s position as a global economic powerhouse and should provide a wealth of new possibilities for continual growth and development.

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Why is it so hard for bike-sharing companies to survive in Singapore?

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According to transportation expert Tham Chen Munn, any bike-sharing business model may include a better chance of coming to fruition if businesses improved their marketing strategy for the start.

He noted that some providers frequently misunderstand their user profiles by focusing on advantages like decarbonization and adopting” car-lite” strategies.

However, the reality is that regular users are” not bothered at all” by these advantages; they just want to get from Point A to Point B.

” ( Whether ) I’m a first- time or regular user, I want to know where are the bikes, are the bikes in good working condition … the more useful information. Not ( whether ) I can save 10kg of carbon”, he said. &nbsp, &nbsp,

While online critics have frequently attributed a lack of political engagement to bike-sharing bouncing in Singapore, Mr. Tham believes this is “human nature” rather than Singaporean-specific behavior.

Should A SPECIAL BUSINESS MODEL APPEAR?

Mr. Tham suggested a model where a software makes it easier for neighbors to bike-share with one another or for people who have their own bikes.

” I am aware that many of my neighbors have bicycles that are n’t in use. Is there a plan where, maybe, we can rent out specific motorbikes to families? The energetic mobility expert explained that because various people have different requirements, some may require the basket provider and so on.

” Little things like that… maybe a bike-sharing business can expand because they are reaching out to a customer base who ( wants to ) use bicycles for various reasons.”

However, any bike-sharing unit must first establish a clear line between the needs of the public and the company, according to Assoc Prof Theseira.

What you will likely end up with are very limited types of bike-sharing that only occur in nearby geographical areas where it’s cost-effective to supply, he said.

” For instance, you may support college campuses which are a little spread out, the CBD (central company city ) or gardens. This may or may not help the objectives of public transportation.

” Cherry- picking” in a competitive business environment may end in “more attractive” areas being identified and supplied, while nobody will want to provide areas which are more marginal, Assoc Prof Theseira added.

Doing so, however, also creates the possibility that some markets are n’t large enough to support multiple companies.

And this leads to return, he noted,” as we’ve seen some days before”.

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Hints of a yuan versus yen currency war – Asia Times

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TOKYO – The costs of a chronically weak yen only grew by US$ 18 trillion as China’s economy, Asia’s biggest, may be joining the race to the base.

It’s also unclear if the fall in the Foreign exchange rate that began Friday is the start of a trend that would undoubtedly metal international markets or simply a fluke. But the relationship with the Chinese currency’s reduction is hard to ignore.

To be sure, President Xi Jinping’s staff threw areas a lifeline on Monday. The People’s Bank of China signaled that the renminbi might not be about to fall with a somewhat higher- than- expected regular reference level of 7.0996 per dollar. That’s the biggest strengthening discrimination since November.

Even so, some analysts think the PBOC may become suddenly losing tolerance with Japan allowing the yen exchange rate to fall so far with much blowback in Washington– especially as China struggles to keep economic growth as near to its 5 % target as possible.

Chinese authorities do n’t announce weaker- than- expected daily fixing levels in a vacuum. The decision on Friday to fix the yuan rate lower as the yen was sliding anew hardly seems a coincidence.

” After Friday’s fireworks with the PBOC nudging the yuan weaker, markets have run with it”, says Sean Callow, senior currency strategist at Westpac.

Are the beggar- thy- neighbor currency strategies of the past returning to China’s$ 18 trillion economy? &nbsp,

Economist Brad Setser, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, speaks for many when he observes that Friday’s hint still “leaves the’ why now’ question unanswered”.

Only time will tell. Odds are, Xi and Premier Li Qiang would prefer to keep any weakening in the yuan orderly. Unleashing panic in currency circles– and in a US election year– hardly seems in Beijing’s best interest.

Already, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump is threatening 60 % taxes on all Chinese imports and has even suggested 100 % tariffs. US President Joe Biden, meanwhile, might engage in his own race to the bottom in a who can be more anti- China contest on the campaign trail.

Look no further than the overwhelming bipartisan support for banning ByteDance’s TikTok app on national security grounds.

In this context, says economist Robin Brooks at the Brookings Institution, Sino- US trade tensions could be seen as yuan- negative. ” You can think of a tariff as a negative” in “terms of a trade shock on a country like China. So, it’s a perfectly rational response for markets to price a stronger US dollar and weaker RMB, in this case. Market behavior is entirely in line with what theory would prescribe”.

Yet the specter of a weaker yuan could be a game- changer on a number of levels. The fallout in Washington could be considerable. Just about the only thing Biden’s Democrats and Republicans loyal to Trump agree on is tightening the screws on China.

The charged conversations at US Treasury Department headquarters alone will be a matter of breathless intrigue among analysts. Treasury Secretary Janet&nbsp, Yellen&nbsp, will be under growing pressure to add Xi’s government to its currency manipulation watchlist.

At the same time, Trump’s threat to revoke China’s “most favored nation” status might leave Biden’s White House feeling compelled to sign on, too. Or to go even further to limit China’s access to semiconductors and other vital technology. Tesla founder Elon Musk, for example, is practically begging for fresh tariffs on China’s electric vehicle ( EV ) makers to protect his US market.

It would put Treasury officials in a tough spot if they gave Tokyo a pass on currency depreciation, opening the US to charges of selective outrage.

Last week’s landmark Bank of Japan rate shift flopped in unexpected ways. Since March 19, when the BOJ ended its negative yield policy and raised rates to between 0 % and 0.1 %, the yen weakened 1.4 %. It’s both a sign that traders were unimpressed with the BOJ’s modest pivot and that Tokyo seems comfortable with the yen’s recent losses.

Sure, top Japanese officials are warning traders not to test their patience for a weaker yen with the exchange near 2022 intervention levels.

” The current weakening of the yen is not in line with fundamentals and is clearly driven by speculation”, Masato Kanda, vice finance minister for international affairs, &nbsp, told reporters Monday. ” We will take appropriate action against excessive fluctuations, without ruling out any options”.

Kanda added that” we are always prepared” to intervene. ” We have seen a large fluctuation of 4 % in just two weeks in the dollar- yen, a move that is n’t reflecting fundamentals and I find this unusual”, Kanda said.

Strategist Masafumi Yamamoto at Mizuho Securities thinks Kanda’s “dialed&nbsp, up” warning suggests intervention might happen around the 155 level to the dollar. Goldman Sachs strategist Kamakshya Trivedi thinks 155 is a possibility as macroeconomic dynamics weigh on Japan’s economy.

Yet Japan’s soft economic performance suggests Tokyo is n’t as keen to halt the yen’s drop as its official protestations might suggest. At the close of 2023, Asia’s second- biggest economy only narrowly avoided recession.

Japan’s economy contracted 3.3 % in the July- September quarter year on year and expanded just 0.4 % in the October- December period. Household spending plunged&nbsp, 6.3 % in January from a year earlier, the sharpest drop in 35 months.

” The economy is n’t in recession but it’s not far from one”, says Stefan Angrick, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. As such, he adds, “it’s hard to see the BOJ embarking on quick- fire rate hikes from here. Household and business spending are weak and inflation is falling”.

At the moment, indications are that manufacturers have “enjoyed notable and wide- ranging improvement thanks to the weak yen, with particularly marked gains in retail, wholesale, transport and utilities”, notes Masayuki Inui, an economist at Morgan Stanley MUFG.

Risks abound, of course. One is the BOJ upending the so- called yen- carry trade. Two- plus decades of zero rates and quantitative easing made Japan the globe’s top creditor nation. Since the late 1990s/early 2000s, financiers of all stripes – hedge funds, especially – routinely borrowed cheaply in&nbsp, yen &nbsp, and moved that cash into higher- yielding assets everywhere.

As such, sudden&nbsp, yen &nbsp, moves have a knack for shoulder- checking world markets. They often reverberate through stock, bond, commodity and real estate markets from New York to Sao Paulo to London to Mumbai to Seoul.

Given that bourses in Shanghai and Shenzhen lost around$ 7 trillion of market value from a 2021 peak to January of this year, you would think&nbsp, yen- driven chaos is the last thing Asia wants.

Yet the yen’s trajectory may be giving Xi’s Communist Party geopolitical cover to engineer a more advantageous exchange rate, too. It’s become “more of an option” for the PBOC” as the economy struggles to find its footing”, notes economist Brendan McKenna at Wells Fargo Securities.

Erwan Rambourg, luxury industry analyst at HSBC, notes that the consumer demand situation in China is “proving tough”. At the same time. Beijing has made limited progress toward ending Japan’s property crisis, stabilizing local government financing or addressing record youth unemployment.

Raising China’s financial system, recalibrating growth engines and restoring confidence would be easier in a stable economic environment. These reforms and others were detailed at this month’s National People’s Congress.

As Trivium, a China consultancy, puts it:” This may all sound abstruse, but it’s critically important. Xi is asking officials to rethink fundamental aspects of how the party runs the economy. That opens the door to all sorts of changes with respect to property rights, state ownership and how resources are allocated in society. In other words, this could be big”.

As China’s cracks deepen, many investors worry that Xi’s team might not have the broadband or the audacity to shift growth engines from excess investment and smokestack industries in favor of the private sector. Or the ability to multitask to build the social safety nets needed to increase domestic demand.

Amid intensifying headwinds, no lever might reap bigger or quicker&nbsp, benefits than a weaker yuan. So far, Xi’s men have avoided this option. On the one hand, it might squander progress Xi’s team has made over the last 8- 10 years to build trust in the yuan as a reserve currency alternative to the dollar.

On the other, it might give Biden and Trump common cause to intensify Washington’s trade war on the world’s biggest trading nation. A weaker exchange rate also might increase the odds that more giant Chinese property developers default in the months ahead, ala China Evergrande Group.

Asia’s paranoia about a weak yuan dates back to the 1997- 98 Asian financial crisis. Back then, devaluations in Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea caused one of modern history’s most dramatic&nbsp, financial domino effects.

The resulting chaos pushed Malaysia and the Philippines to the brink. It also put Japan against the ropes. At the time, officials worried that if Beijing let the yuan drop it would trigger even bigger devaluations in Bangkok, Jakarta, Seoul and beyond.

Twenty- five- plus years later, it’s now a chronically weak yen that might give Xi all the ammunition he needs to pull the exchange rate trigger. With reason, of course. The last thing Beijing would want to be blamed for is catalyzing the next global crisis. Hence the PBOC moving today to signal its support for the status quo with a firmer daily reference rate.

But the longer Tokyo pursues a weak yen policy at a moment of increasing peril for China’s economy, the greater the odds Beijing will follow suit. Expect Beijing’s daily yuan fixing exercise to become an obsession among global investors in the days, weeks and months ahead.

Follow William Pesek on X, formerly Twitter, at @WilliamPesek

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America has no Ukraine Plan B except more war – Asia Times

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There last weekend a couple dozen original Cabinet members, older military officers, academics and think container analysts met to examine the world defense situation. &nbsp,

I can say that I have n’t been so scared since the fall of 1983, when I was a junior contract researcher doing odd jobs for then Special Assistant to the President Norman A Bailey at the National Security Council. That was the top of the Cold War and the too- realistic&nbsp, Ready Archer 83&nbsp, exercise roughly set off a nuclear conflict.

Today, the US foreign policy creation has staked its legitimacy on humiliating Russia by pushing NATO’s edges to within a few hundred meters of Moscow, while crushing Moscow’s market through restrictions. &nbsp,

It has pulled every twit it has with Western governments, mobilizing its army of journalists, think tankers and stipended politicians to encourage the Ukrainian surrogate war, with the intent of degrading Russia’s military forces and eventually forcing regime change in Russia.

The communications from the most distinguished participants – former Cabinet users with protection and national security portfolios – is that NATO is also determined to win at any cost. ” The question is whether Russia you make proper reserves”, one rapporteur said,” Its official army is at 50 % power and it has no depth of non- commissioned officers”.

” The Russians are taking massive losses of 25, 000 to 30, 000 a month”, the former official added. ” They ca n’t sustain the will to fight on the battlefield. The Russians are close to a breaking point. Can they sustain their national will? Not if the rigged election]of Vladimir Putin this month] was any indication. Their economy has real vulnerability. We need to redouble sanctions and financial interdiction of supplies getting to Russia. The Russians have a Potemkin portrayal of strength”.

All the above is demonstrably false and known to be false by the rapporteur in question. The notion that Russia is taking 25, 000 to 30, 000 casualties a month is ludicrous. Artillery accounts for about 70 % of casualties on both sides and by every estimate Russia is firing five or ten times as many shells as Ukraine. Russia has carefully avoided frontal assaults to preserve manpower. &nbsp,

The most important fact about Putin’s re- election is that 88 % of Russians voted, a much higher turnout than in any Western democracy. Russians may not have had much choice of candidate but they had a choice of voting or not. The massive turnout is consistent with Putin’s 85 % approval rating according to the independent Levada poll.

Putin’s Approval or Disapproval Rating in the Levada Poll. Source: Statista

Instead of collapsing, Russia has become the focal point for a reorganization of global supply chains and their financing, and its economy is growing, rather than shrinking by half, as President Biden promised in March 2022. &nbsp,

Ukraine is running out of soldiers and ca n’t agree on a new conscription law. One prominent military historian expostulated,” Everywhere you go in Ukraine you see young men hanging around and not in uniform! Ukraine refuses to go all in”.

Russia produces anywhere between four and seven times more artillery shells than Ukraine. Ukraine’s air defenses are exhausted as its old Soviet- era anti- aircraft missiles have been fired and NATO’s stocks of Patriot missiles are dwindling. &nbsp,

Russia has an inexhaustible supply of Soviet- era large bombs fitted with cheap guidance systems, fired accurately at Ukrainian targets from Russian aircraft standing 60 miles (96.5 kilometers ) off. With five times Ukraine’s population, Russia is winning the war of attrition.

Another rapporteur at the weekend meeting denounced Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other European leaders for worrying too much about the “nuclear threshold” – the point of escalation after which Russia might use nuclear weapons. He demanded that Germany supply its long- range Taurus cruise missile to Ukraine, with a 1, 000- kilometer range and a two- stage warhead suitable for destroying major infrastructure.

Senior German air force officers&nbsp, last month discussed using 20 of the Taurus missiles to destroy the Kerch Bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland, in a conversation covertly recorded and published by Russian media. The conversation also revealed the presence of hundreds of British and other NATO personnel on the ground in Ukraine.

Taking the war to Russia’s homeland and destroying major infrastructure is one way to transform the proxy war with Ukraine into a general European war. Another is to deploy NATO soldiers in Ukraine, something that French President Emmanuel Macron has broached ( but almost certainly does not intend to do ).

Remarkably, not a word was said about a possible negotiated solution to the conflict. Any negotiated outcome at this juncture would award Russia the Eastern Ukrainian oblasts that it has annexed and probably give Russia a buffer zone reaching to the east bank of the Dnieper River – followed by a normalization of economic relations with Western Europe. &nbsp,

Russia would emerge triumphant and American assets in Western Europe would be degraded. The impact on America’s world standing would be devastating: As several attendees observed, Taiwan is watching carefully to see what happens to American proxies.

The rules of the meeting prevent me from saying much more but I am free to report what I told the gathering: Sanctions against Russia have failed miserably because Russia had access to unlimited amounts of Chinese ( as well as Indian and other ) imports, both directly and through a host of intermediaries including Turkey and the former Soviet republics. &nbsp,

But Russia’s economic resilience in the face of supposedly devastating sanctions is only one reflection of a great transformation of world trade. China’s exports to the Global South doubled during the past three years and China now exports more to the South than to developed markets. China’s unprecedented exporting success, in turn, stems from the rapid automation of Chinese industry, which now installs more industrial robots per year than the rest of the world combined.

This is evident, I added, in China’s newfound dominance in the world automotive market but it also has critical military implications. China claims that it has automated plants that can make 1, 000 cruise missiles a day—not impossible given that it can manufacture 1, 000 EVs a day, or thousands of 5G base stations. &nbsp,

The implication is that China can produce the equivalent of America’s inventory of 4, 000 cruise missiles in a week while American defense contractors take years to assemble them by hand.

No one disputed the data I presented. And no one believed that Russia is taking 25, 000 casualties a month. Facts were n’t the issue: The assembled dignitaries, a representative sampling of the foreign policy establishment’s intellectual and executive leadership, simply could n’t imagine a world in which America no longer gave the orders. &nbsp,

They are accustomed to running things and they will gamble the world away to keep their position. &nbsp,

Follow David P Goldman on X, formerly Twitter, at @davidpgoldman

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Employers and employees both have part to play in workers’ career health amid industry disruptions: Panellists

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“ACCELERATED” Upheaval In his starting statement before the panels dialogue, Dr Tan spoke about how technologies- driven problems are occurring at an “accelerated” speed. Against this backdrop, it is important for workers to take possession of their job health. Much like real wellness, taking a proactive and strategic approach isContinue Reading

Nvidia streets ahead of China in AI chip race – Asia Times

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On March 18, CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote presentation at Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference ( GTC 2024 ) provided an outstanding presentation of the opposition Huawei and another Chinese high- tech firms face alongside the punitive issue of US- led restrictions.

In a two- afternoon excursion to the frontiers of artificial intelligence, Huang introduced the agency’s fresh Blackwell AI computer, which he said” will be the most effective product launch in our story”.

Named for US mathematician David Blackwell, the Blackwell B200 graphics processing unit ( GPU) has 208 billion transistors compared with 80 billion for its Hopper H100 predecessor and is five times faster. The H100 has several times more computing power than the H20 that the US Commerce Department still allows Nvidia to sell in China.

The result of two rounds of enforced dumbing down, the H20 is being rejected by Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent and other Chinese cloud computing companies in favor of Huawei’s Ascend and other Chinese- designed AI processors, which are as good, or almost as good, without the risk of being subject to future sanctions.

But despite their impressive indigenous efforts, the Chinese are falling behind in the race to develop more powerful AI processors. Blackwell GPUs are scheduled to ship later this year to Amazon, Dell, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Tesla and other customers outside China.

They are made by TSMC using 4nm process technology based on ASML’s EUV lithography, which is not available in China. The same day as Huang’s presentation, TSMC and Synopsys announced they are going into production with Nvidia’s cuLitho computational lithography platform, which uses GPU- accelerated computing and generative AI to accelerate IC fabrication.

The world’s leading IC foundry and the world’s largest electronic design automation ( EDA ) company have integrated cuLitho into their software and manufacturing processes, resulting in “great leaps in performance, dramatic throughput improvement, shortened cycle time and reduced power requirements”, according to TSMC CEO C C Wei.

Nvidia says that 350 NVIDIA H100- based cuLitho systems can replace 40, 000 CPU- based systems, accelerating production while reducing costs, floor space and power consumption. Additional gains should be forthcoming in the not- too- distant future with the introduction of Blackwell architecture GPUs.

Nvidia CEO Jen- Hsun” Jensen” Huang has an AI vision. Image: Twitter

Sassine Ghazi, president and CEO of Synopsys, says” With the move to advanced nodes, computational lithography has dramatically increased in complexity and compute cost. Our collaboration with TSMC and NVIDIA is critical to enabling angstrom- level scaling … to reduce turnaround time by orders of magnitude through the power of accelerated computing”.

While SMIC, China’s leading foundry, embarrassed the US Commerce Department by using DUV lithography and multiple patterning to fabricate 7nm chips and develop 5nm capability, TSMC and Intel are advancing toward process nodes measured in angstroms, first equivalent to 2nm ( 20A in Intel terminology ) and 1.8nm ( 18A ) but aiming for 1nm around the end of the decade and sub- 10A after that.

Nvidia calls Blackwell” the engine of the new industrial revolution”. Talking about the next generation of industrial software at the GTC event, Siemens president and CEO Roland Busch said that the introduction of Nvidia- accelerated computing and generative AI will lead to the release of new cloud- based product lifecycle management software later this year that” will provide engineering teams with the ability to create an ultra- intuitive, photorealistic, real- time and physics- based digital twin that eliminates workflow waste and errors”.

Busch demonstrated this with a presentation of a workflow visualization developed for South Korean shipbuilder HD Hyundai’s ammonia- and hydrogen- powered ships, which have more than seven million parts. Workflow optimization that previously took days can be done in hours, according to Siemens and Nvidia,” with engineering data contextualized as it would appear in the real world”. They call this the “industrial metaverse”.

Nvidia also announced that several electric vehicle ( EV ) manufacturers and fleet operators have adopted DRIVE Thor, a new in- vehicle assisted and autonomous driving platform that is expected to go into mass production beginning next year. The successor to the widely- used DRIVE Orin, the DRIVE Thor centralized auto computer will be based on the Blackwell architecture, supporting large language models and generative AI.

BYD – China’s and now the world’s largest electric vehicle maker – will not only adopt DRIVE Thor but also use Nvidia’s AI architecture for factory planning. While BYD sells more EVs than Tesla many observers wonder if can it match Tesla’s autonomous driving technology. With DRIVE Thor, it probably can.

Hyper, a premium brand owned by China’s GAC AION, plans to use DRIVE Thor in EVs with Level 4 highly automated driving capability that is scheduled to go into production in 2025. Hyper currently uses DRIVE Orin in Level 2 partially automated vehicles.

Chinese EV makers XPENG, Li Auto and ZEEKR have also adopted DRIVE Thor, as has Nuro, a US developer of Level 4 autonomous driving technology founded by engineers who previously worked at Google, Plus, a Silicon Valley provider of Level 2 automated driving software for commercial vehicles that will use DRIVE Thor for Level 4 autonomous driving, Waabi, a Canadian company that is developing autonomous driving software for long- haul trucks, and WeRide, the Chinese robotaxi company founded in Silicon Valley that now operates in California, China, Singapore and the Middle East.

More than a dozen Chinese EV makers use the older DRIVE Orin processors, including BYD, Li auto, Nio, Xpeng and ZEEKR. In the first half of 2023, Nvidia had 53 % of China’s autonomous driving chip market, according to Gaogang Industry Research Institute. Nvidia was followed by Horizon Robotics with 31 %, Texas Instruments with 9 % and Huawei and Mobile Eye with 4 % each.

China’s BYD is leaving rivals behind in both China’s and global EV markets. Image: BYD

The risk for Nvidia and TI is that, as in the case of Apple, anti- American sentiment and hedging against the possibility of future sanctions will drive Chinese EV makers to shift to Chinese vendors.

US President Joe Biden, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and vocal members of Congress have all called Chinese EVs a threat to US national security. In response, the Chinese government has asked Chinese EV makers to use domestic autonomous driving chips.

For the time being, they seem to prefer Nvidia but if the US government decides to interfere in this market next as part of its tech war with China, it might create an opportunity for Horizon Robotics and Huawei.

Follow this writer on&nbsp, X: @ScottFo83517667

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Irrational AI exuberance blowing big Asian bubbles – Asia Times

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Tokyo: Surging stocks are n’t always good news, especially given that Asia is already experiencing a significant artificial intelligence ( AI ) boom.

And to batten down the hatches. Asia is navigating an exceedingly precarious 2024 due to the downturn in China, the US Federal Reserve’s easing techniques, and political uncertainty at every change.

Eastern stocks are rising to two-year peaks on little more than AI-inspired madness, which suggests that new stock bubbles are being inflated day by day. Bubbles that, if they collapse, was smash economies throughout the region.

What’s more, Tony Wang, director of the US$ 9 billion T Rowe Price Science &amp, Technology Fund, thinks the AI march is only just getting started.

Multiples “are quite sensible right now”, Wang tells Bloomberg. ” We will experience a decline eventually,” but” I think it also feels a little premature and difficult to call the bottom.”

However, a downturn could occur at any time and trigger a chain reaction when the location is at its worst risk.

In China, for example, Xi Jinping’s group just just managed to put a ground under a plunging stock market. Between the 2021 top and January this year, the$ 7 trillion defeat has already caused incalculable harm to business and home confidence and success.

At the same time, China’s home issue remains a clear and present danger. In Asia’s largest economy, report youth unemployment and deteriorating economic conditions are at odds with negative pressures.

Japan, however, just barely avoided slowdown in the next quarter of 2023. The economy lost 3.3 % of its GDP in the July to September quarter, down 3.3 % from the previous quarter, and only eked out 0.4 % in the final three months of the year. In January, household spending plunged&nbsp, 6.3 % from a year earlier, the sharpest cut in 35 weeks.

All this at a time when the Bank of Japan is going through its first tightening period since 2007. And as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s approval score drops to a paltry 20 %, he lacks the political will to restart the transformation process.

On top of events in China and Japan, Southeast Asia faces the possibility of “higher for longer” US relationship provides. The area was persuaded by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s team that interest rates do drop repeatedly in 2024 as the year approached.

Firmly higher inflation is thwarting those expectations. Growing fuel and food prices are a looming threat from the Ukraine to the Red Sea to Sino-US tensions, which is a threat that looms over developing Asia’s season.

Without capital markets going gangbusters for reasons that few people understand, or in any other way to connect Asia’s prospects, this backdrop may be difficult enough.

There is a lot of frothiness now that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is on the verge of 40, 000 and the Nikkei 225 Stock Average is moving above that amount, which is a Chinese history.

Take the example of this week’s incident with device manufacturer Broadcom Inc. Its shares rose by the time the corporation held an occasion revealing potential AI investments. That boosted researchers at TD Cowen, Matthew Ramsay, and Broadcom. His word to customers was headlined:” Better Later Than Not”?

It’s difficult not to feel late 1990s software stock mania vibes. All Walmart or Macy’s department stores had to do at the time to raise stock prices was add” .com” to the end of their names.

Similar sentiments to the meme investment craze that pushed the stock of GameStop, Bath &amp, Beyond, and another undervalued businesses into the past are not discernible.

As this latest episode of possible “irrational exuberance” intoxicates world industry, it’s worthwhile reflecting on the nature of that infamous word. Alan Greenspan, the next Fed Chairman, tipped up in December 1996 to warn of a bubble in US tech stocks.

How can we tell when irrational exuberance has unreasonably increased asset values, which are then subject to unexpected and protracted contractions, Greenspan questioned in the middle of a somewhat dry financial speech?

Especially, Greenspan was referring to Japan’s early 1990s property fall. However, US traders did not overlook the fact that Wall Street was being sucked into by the Fed in a facetious bomb.

Decades later, Greenspan wrote” I was choosing my words very thoroughly. I cautiously hedged what I had to say in my typical Fedspeak.

Maybe very carefully, as analyst Chris Turner at ING Bank points out. In the three centuries after Greenspan’s caution, the S&amp, P 500 doubled. The catalog peaked, Turner information, amidst the major tick of the circle- org bubble in 2000.

The problem today is what Powell’s group does. We should n’t underestimate or become complacent about how complicated the interactions between the economy and asset markets, as Greenspan once said back in 1996. So, evaluating shifts in balance sheets frequently, and in asset prices especially, may be an integral part of the development of financial policy”.

Powell’s choices are n’t great. Count property expert Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research is among those who think Powell’s staff may eventually throw cool water on an AI protest that is driven more by “fear of missing out” than economic fundamentals. Fear in markets could spread quickly, he notes, in the event of a “more hawkish” crouch by the Fed.

The Fed is somewhat of an analog power in a digital world where speculative frenzies are moving at warp speed, just like the meme stocks rallies or Bitcoin hit new highs.

Asian markets are on the front lines as ferociousnesses involving chipmaker Nvidia Corp’s shares and ChatGPT’s disruptive potential upend trading strategies.

Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote speech at the company’s GPU Technology Conference ( GTC ) conference this week appeared to be receiving more media attention than the BOJ’s first-ever rate increase for Japanese customers since 2007 despite the company’s GTC conference’s keynote address.

‘ Godfather of AI ‘ has a new nickname,’ Ond- trillion man. Jensen Huang, the founder and CEO of Nvidia, envisions a successful business balance between Taiwan and mainland China. Photo: YouTube Screengrab / Unique Satellite TV

” Move over Taylor Swift, you’re not the only one that can sell out a stadium as Jensen presented his GTC keynote to a packed crowd” in San Jose, California, write analysts at Bernstein in a note to clients. When she refers to Nvidia as the” Paris Hilton” of stocks, strategist Amy Wu Silverman of RBC Capital Markets speaks for many.

All of this raises the question of whether central banks ‘ power has diminished as markets move beyond their control. For now, though, the most powerful central bank is taking a wait- and- see approach to domestic trends.

” Overall, the]Fed ] has stuck to its view that the underlying inflation picture is improving, notwithstanding the disappointing numbers in the past two months”, says economist Ian Shepherdson at Pantheon Macroeconomics. They see the most recent numbers as a temporary pause rather than a trend change, they say.

Mohamed El- Erian, Allianz’s chief economic advisor, agrees that the Fed is telegraphing a wait- and- see approach. Powell’s team, El- Erian says, is “indicating a willingness to tolerate higher inflation for longer”.

The same goes for the implementation of’quantitative tightening’. According to him,” the first aspect of patience aligns with the objective of maintaining economic well-being,” while the second reflects a desire to prevent market functioning from being affected by liquidity-related disruptions.

The choices are even more uncertain for the BOJ. Governor Kazuo Ueda made the smallest possible steps this week to put an end to quantitative easing. Tokyo ended the world’s most recent negative interest rate regime on March 19 and abandoned yield curve control measures. Its new range for policy rates is between 0 % and 0.1 %, moving away from the previous -0.1 % target.

However, the BOJ has been very cautious so far about predicting a significant rate change. ” The BOJ’s reticence to provide forward guidance is understandable but will become increasingly important for shaping the structure&nbsp, of&nbsp, the yield curve”, says Idanna Appio, a portfolio manager at First Eagle Investments: &nbsp,

In February, Japanese inflation rose at the quickest pace in four months. Consumer prices, excluding fresh food, jumped 2.8 % year on year. These data appear to support predictions that the BOJ will increase its rate by 17 points to 20 later this year.

Takeshi Yamaguchi, an economist at Morgan Stanley MUFG, finds great significance in the signs that” a good number” of business survey respondents worry about the “impact of slowing Chinese growth” on Japan’s outlook.

Nevertheless, the yen’s 1.8 % decline since the BOJ’s alleged tightening move suggests that traders are unconvinced Ueda will be moving again anytime soon. Global markets are “half in doubt” about recent tightening moves, as strategist Noriatsu Tanji at Mizuho Securities puts it.

Analysts like Simon Harvey of Monex Europe Ltd believe Team Ueda has the financial “firepower” to stop the yen’s decline toward its lowest levels since 1990 in the interim.

According to Harvey, policymakers ‘ verbal interventions will now be more effective because they can effectively influence expectations of upcoming policy in a hawkish direction to support the yen because government bond yields are now able to flexibly adjust higher as long as it is in a moderate manner.

Shunichi Suzuki, the minister of finance, stated on March 19 that his team is paying close attention to yen movements. Japanese officials are no more in charge of the financial situation than anyone else in Asia, despite AI-driven manias that have sent stocks into bubble territory.

William Pesek is on X, formerly Twitter, at @WilliamPesek

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Clavell’s ‘Shōgun’ reimagined for new TV generation – Asia Times

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In 1980, when James Clavell’s movie historic novel Shōgun was turned into a TV series, some 33 % of American families with hdtv tuned in. It quickly rose to the top of the list of most watched series on the only behind” Origins,” which was the only other one that was watched as a result.

I’m a Japanese writer who is interested in the early modern Tokugawa time ( 1603- 1868 ), when the majority of the action in Shgun occurs. As a first-year student scholar, I spent five times glued to the television, impressed by someone’s commitment to producing a series about the era in Japan’s recent that had captured my imagination.

I was n’t alone. According to writer Henry D. Smith, one-fifth to one-half of students taking college courses about Japan at the time had read the book and had grown engaged in Japan as a result of it.

He continued,” Shgun probably gave more people about the daily life of Japan” than any other book series written by scholars, journalists, and novels since the Pacific War.

Some also give the line credit for making sushi popular in the US.

That 1980 miniseries has now been remade as FX’s” Shōgun”, a 10- show creation that is garnering scream reviews– including a around- 100 % standing from review- aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes.

Both movie closely resemble Clavell’s 1975 book, a fictitious retelling of Will Adams ‘ life and John Blackthorne’s. Adams was the first Englishman to travel to Japan.

Despite this, each line has subtle differences that highlight the ethos of each period and America’s shifting behaviour toward Japan.

The “miracle of Japan”

The initial 1980 set reflects both the optimism of wartime America and its fascination with its once-resurrected past foe.

World War II had left Japan devastated financially and physiologically. But by the 1970s and 1980s, the region had come to dominate international markets for customer technology, electronics and the cars.

Its gross national product per capita rose spectacularly: from less than$ 200 in 1952 to$ 8, 900 in 1980 – the year” Shōgun” appeared on television – to almost$ 20, 000 in 1988, surpassing the United States, West Germany and France.

Many Americans were interested in learning the technique to Japan’s head-spinning economic magic, or” Japanese miracle.” Had Japan’s history and culture present clues?

During the 1970s and 1980s, researchers sought to understand the mystery by analyzing not just the Chinese economy but also the country’s diverse institutions: schools, social plan, business culture and surveillance.

Sociologist Ezra Vogel argued in his 1979 text Japan as Number One: Lessons for America that the US may know a bit from Japan by examining the country’s long-term financial planning, cooperation between state and business, investments in education and quality control of goods and services.

A window into Japan

Shogun was published in 1975 by James Clavell, and it sold millions of copies. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Clavell’s expansive 1, 100- page novel was released in the middle of the Japanese miracle. It sold more than seven million copies in five years. Then the series aired, which prompted the sale of another 2.5 million copies.

In it, Clavell tells Blackthorne’s story, who was shipwrecked off Japan’s coast in 1600, and finds the nation in a tranquillity after a period of civil war. However, that harmony is about to be shattered by the five regents who have been chosen to ensure the succession of a young heir to their former lord’s position as top military leader.

Local leaders are unsure whether to treat Blackthorne and his crew as risky pirates or as harmless traders in the interim. His men end up being imprisoned, but Blackthorne’s knowledge of the world outside of Japan and his shipload of cannons, muskets and ammunition save him.

He ends up offering advice and munitions to one of the regents, Lord Yoshi Toranaga, the fictional version of the real- life Ieyasu Tokugawa. With this edge, Toranaga rises to become shogun, the country’s top military leader.

In the 1980 television series, viewers watch Blackthorne gradually pick up the Japanese language and begin to understand its significance. For example, at first he’s resistant to bathing. His Japanese hosts find his refusal irrational because cleanliness is deeply rooted in Japanese culture.

Blackthorne’s, and the viewers’, gradual acclimatization to Japanese culture is complete when, late in the series, he is reunited with the crew of his Dutch ship who have been held in captivity. Blackthorne demands a bath to purge himself of their contamination because they are so filthy.

In contrast to the West, Blackthorne views Japan as much more civilized. Just like his real- life counterpart, Will Adams, he decides to remain in Japan even after being granted his freedom. He marries a Japanese woman, with whom he has two children, and ends his days on foreign soil.

From enthralling to frightened

However, the positive views of Japan that its economic miracle generated, and that Shogun reinforced, eroded as the US trade deficit with Japan ballooned: from$ 10 billion in 1981 to$ 50 billion in 1985.

When American autoworkers smashed Toyota cars in March 1983 and congressmen smashed a Toshiba boombox with sledgehammers on the Capitol lawn in 1987,” Japan bashing” spread in the country and sparked visceral outrage in the country. The magazine Foreign Affairs issued a warning about” The Coming US-Japan Crisis” that year.

Newsweek magazine cover that reads 'Japan Invades Hollywood' and features a graphic of a woman in a kimono posing like the woman in the Columbia Pictures logo.
Newsweek’s October 9, 1989, cover describes Sony’s purchase of Columbia Pictures as an invasion.

This backlash against Japan in the U. S. was also fueled by almost a decade of acquisitions of iconic American companies, such as Firestone, Columbia Pictures and Universal Studios, along with high- profile real estate, such as the iconic Rockefeller Center.

Japan’s economy stalled after the concept of it as a threat reached its height in 1989. The 1990s and early 2000s were dubbed Japan’s “lost decade“.

Yet a curiosity and love for Japanese culture persists, thanks, in part, to manga and anime. More Japanese feature films and television series are also making their way to popular streaming services, including the series” Tokyo Girl“,” Midnight Diner” and” Sanctuary“. The Hollywood Reporter reported that Japan was “on the precipice of a content boom” in December 2023.

Widening the lens

As FX’s remake of” Shōgun” demonstrates, American viewers today apparently do n’t need to be slowly introduced to Japanese culture by a European guide.

In the new series, Blackthorne is not even the sole protagonist.

Instead, he shares the spotlight with several Japanese characters, such as Lord Yoshi Toranaga, who no longer serves as a one- dimensional sidekick to Blackthorne as he did in the original miniseries.

The fact that Japanese characters now use English subtitles to communicate with the audience directly facilitates this change. In the 1980 miniseries, the Japanese dialogue went untranslated. There were English- speaking Japanese characters in the original, such as Blackthorne’s female translator, Mariko. But they spoke in a highly formalized, unrealistic English.

Instead of using the contemporary Japanese, which made the 1980 series so unpopular with Japanese viewers, the show’s Japanese characters speak in the native language of the early modern era, which is in addition to depicting authentic costumes, combat, and gestures. Imagine George Washington speaking like Jimmy Kimmel in a movie about the American Revolution.

Of course, authenticity has its limits. Both television series producers made a decision to closely resemble the first book. They are perhaps unintentionally reproducing some stereotypes about Japan by doing this.

Most strikingly, there’s the fetishization of death, as several characters have a penchant for violence and sadism while many others commit ritual suicide, or seppuku.

Part of this may have been simply a function of author Clavell being a self- professed” storyteller, not an historian“. However, this may have been reflected in his experiences during World War II, when he spent three years in a Japanese concentration camp. Still, as Clavell noted, he came to deeply admire the Japanese.

His novel, as a whole, beautifully conveys this admiration. The two miniseries have, in my view, successfully followed suit, enthralling audiences in each of their times.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has a professor of history named Constantine Nomikos Vaporis.

This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Surprise dollar surge spells trouble for Asian currencies – Asia Times

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In 2024’s money markets, the US dollar is emerging as the strong pressure, challenging forecasts of a decrease following a period of relative strength. &nbsp,

This unexpected dollar rally is putting fresh pressure on Asian economies, with the greenback rising by more than 2 % since the start of the year.

As experts, myself included, review their projections, it’s becoming increasingly evident that US dollars strength poses significant problems to Asian markets, with several important aspects exacerbating the situation.

Experts were generally attracted to the US Federal Reserve’s plan to start a series of interest rate reductions in 2024, which sparked expectations for a broad-based loss of the money at the start of the time. &nbsp,

However, these estimates have been quickly revised, with some presently anticipating just a solitary US price cut in 2024. &nbsp, This change in expectations has been instrumental in the economy’s rise, as traders recalibrate their methods.

In contrast, the timed method adopted by big central banks across the globe, especially in Asia, has unwittingly bolstered the US currency’s position as the world’s reserve currency. &nbsp,

The differences in interest charges between the US and other markets are expected to decrease as other world central banks are likely to pursue the Federal Reserve’s result in implementing monetary easing methods. &nbsp,

This integration causes the money to experience an increase in demand, which in turn puts pressure on the dollar. It also highlights the relative attractiveness of US assets.

The effects of a persistent US dollars power on Asian economies are complex and extensive. &nbsp,

The negative effects on export-focused economies, which rely heavily on dynamic exchange rates to sustain their global competitiveness, are one of the immediate concerns. &nbsp,

For example, the South Korean won and the Japanese money, both strongly linked to the success of their respective trade sectors, have experienced pronounced loss in relation to the renewed greenback. &nbsp,

In response to rising trade tensions and geopolitical uncertainty, this depreciation not only reduces export profitability but also makes other countries vulnerable. &nbsp,

Asian central banks tasked with striking the balance between price stability and economic growth face additional challenges as a result of the appreciation of the US dollar. &nbsp,

As the dollar rises, Asia’s central banks may feel compelled to take action in foreign exchange markets to stop what they believe is excessive currency appreciation, which will weaken their reserves and restrict their policy flexibility. &nbsp,

Countries like Indonesia and India, both of which are experiencing external imbalances and inflationary pressures, are particularly susceptible to the negative effects of currency volatility.

Additionally, the US dollar’s strength makes Asian economies ‘ debt burdens more bearable with significant dollar-nominated liabilities, aggravated by currency imbalances and raising the risk of financial instability. &nbsp,

In emerging markets like Malaysia and Thailand, where corporate and sovereign borrowers are vulnerable to currency depreciation-induced debt servicing challenges, this phenomenon is acutely felt. &nbsp,

The challenges that policymakers must overcome in order to maintain macroeconomic stability are further compounded by increased financial market volatility and capital outflows.

As concerns about currency depreciation and increased volatility weigh on sentiment, the US dollar’s appreciation is likely to dampen broad investor appetite for emerging market assets, including Asian currencies and equities. &nbsp,

A change in investor preferences could then cause Asian financial markets to experience downward pressure, leading to asset price corrections, capital outflows, and potential financial instability.

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