All the news you need in one place. Updated throughout the day.
August 6
Good evening everyone. With the “National Team” in hibernation and the CSRC rumored to be approving placements as soon as tomorrow, Chinese stocks continued trading down the whole day with the Shanghai Index slipping 0.9% to 3,661.54 while the Shenzhen Composite fell 0.7% to 2,113.65. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index also tracked the mainland markets, ending the day down 0.6%. Over in Japan, strong earnings and a weak yen led the Nikkei Average up 0.2% while the Topix – after surging as much as 1.5% earlier in the day – ended the session up 0.5%. Here’s what else you need to know:
Bad loans in China surge to RMB 1.8 trillion. Chinese banks saw their bad loans jump almost 36% in the first half of the year, while their non-performing loans ratio climbed to 1.82% at the end of June. Reuters
Balding: China spent RMB 1.8 Trillion to support the market. Apparently Goldman missed a spot in their RMB 900 billion calculation. Balding’s World
Mainland power generator shares tank. Chinese power generator companies dropped at least 1.5% today as reports spread that power sector reforms in the region might get delayed. SCMP (paywall)
Russian ruble slips even further. While oil prices regain their balance, the Russian ruble continued to tank against the dollar today, slipping another 0.9%. Other commodity currencies meanwhile are trading steady, with the loonie gaining 0.03% and the Krona slipping 0.07%. Financial Times (paywall)
Standard Chartered Bank slashes dividends. With pre-tax profits falling 44% from the previous year and operating income dropping to $8.5 billion, new Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters has his work cut out for him. SCMP (paywall)
GS: China spent $145 billion to shore up market. That’s already over 2% of the country’s entire market cap. Don’t worry though, they still have $161 billion on tap and raring to go. The Business Times
ANZ to raise $2.2 billion in capital. In an effort to bring its capital in-line with new requirements, the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group will be raising cash through a $1.8 billion institutional placement, and a $370 million shareholder purchase plan. Financial Times (paywall)
China’s finance ministry opens up the region’s distressed asset market. In an effort to inject liquidity in the distressed asset arena, the Ministry of Finance has granted “bad bank” licenses to three asset management companies, namely Huarong, China Orient and China Great Wall. SCMP (paywall)
Currency markets shrug off yuan-SDR delay. Despite all the fracas surrounding the IMF’s proposal to delay the yuan’s inclusion to the SDR basket, currency analysts are brushing aside any pessimism regarding the move, with one of them saying: “the current yuan rate has not priced in enough of the scenario of a rejection, or a delay of the review, or the IMF setting a number of conditions for yuan to join the basket.” SCMP (paywall)
Frackers are winning the oil wars. After ramping up production to drive out rivals, Saudi Arabia is learning the hard way that it’ll way more than that to outwit U.S. oilmen. In fact, it might even go broke trying to. The Telegraph
Tsipras optimistic on Greek bailout. Greece Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras recently said that they’re “in the final stretch” of the multi-billion euro bailout talks, adding “despite the difficulties we are facing we hope this agreement can end uncertainty on the future of Greece.” Debt relief – arguably the biggest issue here – seems to have not been mentioned though. Reuters
Varoufakis tried to cut salaries at the Hellenic Financial Stability Facility. Tried, but the Troika wouldn’t have any of it. Yanis Varoufakis
Kim Jong-un to receive peace prize. Yes, you read that correctly. Kim Jong-un, Supreme Leader of North Korea, is set to receive the statesmanship award from The Sukarno Education Foundation, an award that celebrates “peace, justice and humanity.” He can now count himself among previous awardees such as Mahatma Gandhi and Aung San Suu Kyi. Huffington Post
Photo: Moyan Brenn