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Showing 581 - 590 of 2991 results for Benjamin Ong

Chief economist update: Does the Fed lift or cut interest rates just for the heck of it?

BENJAMIN ONG  |  THURSDAY, 13 DEC 2018
The British Parliament has put a full stop to months of speculation over PM Theresa May's leadership when she emerged victorious - 200 to 117 - over her own party's (the Conservative Party) no confidence motion lodged against her. The Party's ...

Chief economist update: So much Brexit uncertainty, so little time

BENJAMIN ONG  |  WEDNESDAY, 12 DEC 2018
When UK prime minister Theresa May declared that "Brexit is Brexit" and "no Brexit deal is better than a bad Brexit deal" when she addressed EU ambassadors in London on the 17 January 2017, she laid out 12 objectives for Brexit negotiations: 1. Clarity ...

Chief economist update: Aussie property market drop becoming self-fulfilling

BENJAMIN ONG  |  TUESDAY, 11 DEC 2018
We got chills, they're multiplying... How could something so good turn out to be so bad? It was all very good just as 2017 was turning into 2018... so good, that financial markets were pencilling in exit strategies from the world's major economies ...

And so this is Christmas, another year (almost) over

BENJAMIN ONG  |  MONDAY, 10 DEC 2018
The "mother of all eco stats" - the US employment report - has been released. But it was neither here nor there and by the looks of it, it didn't make an iota of a difference that the Fed will raise the fed funds rate by another 25 basis points ...

Chief economist update: A prelude to a rate cut?

BENJAMIN ONG  |  FRIDAY, 7 DEC 2018
Could it be? Could it be that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is now pondering the likelihood that the next move in interest rates is down rather than up? In early June this year, I put forth a thesis that long stretches of steady interest rates ...

Chief economist update: Tariff man takes Wall Street down

BENJAMIN ONG  |  WEDNESDAY, 5 DEC 2018
With one tweet, US President Donald Trump reversed all of Wall Street's gains... and then some. "....I am a Tariff Man. When people or countries come in to raid the great wealth of our Nation, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so. It ...

Chief economist update: Bottom line slows down

BENJAMIN ONG  |  TUESDAY, 4 DEC 2018
The Australian Bureau of Statistics' (ABS) latest update on its Business Indicators, Australia report for the third quarter of this year makes for sober reading for investors dabbling in the country's share market (that makes all Australians ...

Chief economist update: RBA more likely to cut

BENJAMIN ONG  |  MONDAY, 3 DEC 2018
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) painted an optimistic picture of the global and domestic economies when it held its policy meeting last month (6 November) before concluding that "...the stance of monetary policy unchanged at this meeting would be ...

Chief economist update: The angel in the capex details

BENJAMIN ONG  |  FRIDAY, 30 NOV 2018
Australian actual total capital expenditure was down 0.5% in the third quarter following a 0.9% decline in the second and lower than market expectations for a 1% pick up. That's the headline splattered on our screens when the Australian Bureau of ...

Chief economist update: Powell Power

BENJAMIN ONG  |  THURSDAY, 29 NOV 2018
We may have a Santa Claus rally this year after all! US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell spooked us all - in the Halloween month of October - when, in an interview with PBS, he declared that: "The really extremely accommodative low interest rates ...