China’s stressed developers face nearly $1.3 billion of bond payments in December, after a month in which investor sentiment toward the property sector showed signs of stabilizing despite fresh signs of liquidity pressure, Bloomberg News reported. The total was $2 billion in November, and there have been no defaults reported according to Bloomberg-compiled data as of Friday, after multiple instances in October. Still, investor scrutiny persists regarding principal and interest payments as a cash crunch engulfs the real estate industry.

Japan's retail sales rose for the first time in three months in October, though less than expected, and the underlying private consumption trend pointed to persistent strains on a fragile economic recovery despite an easing of COVID-19 curbs, Reuters reported. Following a larger-than-expected contraction in July-September, analysts expect the world's third-largest economy to rebound this quarter thanks to an upturn in household spending, while supply-side concerns still loom for export-reliant businesses.

Ant Group Co. has started making it clear to customers if they are borrowing from outside lenders or from the company itself, as Jack Ma’s financial-technology giant continues to fall in line with Chinese regulations, the Wall Street Journal reported. Before its wings were clipped by Beijing, Ant, via its payment and lifestyle app Alipay, offered consumer-credit services that were widely popular among Chinese consumers and small businesses.

A resurgence of COVID-19 infections in northern China have forced two small cities to suspend public transport and tighten control over residents' movement, as the country has showed no willingness to go easy on local outbreaks, Reuters reported. China reported 21 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases with confirmed symptoms on Sunday, official data showed on Monday, marking the highest daily count since mid-November. Almost all of the new local cases were detected in the northern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia.

Australia’s central bank will closely monitor risk premiums to judge whether asset prices appear “sensibly valued,” especially at a time of record low interest rates, said Marion Kohler, head of the domestic markets department, Bloomberg News reported. “Asset prices increase when risk-free rates are low, and this is part of the monetary transmission mechanism,” Kohler said in the text of a speech Tuesday.

China’s marked economic slowdown in the second half of the year is testing the central bank’s policy mettle and dividing economists over whether more aggressive action is needed to avoid a deeper downturn, Bloomberg News reported. The People’s Bank of China is having to juggle multiple economic risks, pulling policy in different directions. Growth is heading for lows not seen since 1990 -- if last year’s pandemic year is excluded -- factory-gate inflation is soaring, while the currency is rallying on the back of record trade surpluses. On top of that, the U.S.

The Turkish lira’s freefall shattered records Tuesday as Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s intensifying campaign for lower interest rates plunges the country deeper into crisis, triggering an unscheduled meeting between the president and his central bank chief, Reuters reported. The lira, which dropped by more than 15% earlier in the day, was trading 8.2% lower at 12.4062 per dollar as of 5:30 p.m. in Istanbul. The currency’s 11-day losing streak is now the longest in 20 years, and in November alone, it’s lost almost a third of its value.

India is looking to bar most private cryptocurrencies when it introduces a new bill to regulate virtual currencies in the winter session of Parliament, the government said late on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The government will allow only certain cryptocurrencies to promote the underlying technology and its uses, according to a legislative agenda for the winter session that is set to start later this month.

Some Chinese banks have been told by financial regulators to issue more loans to property firms for project development, two banking sources with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters on Monday, in efforts to marginally ease liquidity strains across the industry. Chinese authorities have yet to publicly give any signal that they will relax the "three red lines" - financial requirements introduced by the central bank last year that developers must meet to get new bank loans.

China’s central bank signaled possible easing measures to aid the economy’s recovery after a sharp downturn in recent months fueled by a property slump, Bloomberg News reported. In its latest quarterly monetary policy report published Friday, the People’s Bank of China removed from its policy outlook a few key phrases cited in previous reports, including sticking with “normal monetary policy.” That suggests a shift in stance toward more supportive measures, several major banks like Citigroup Inc., Nomura Holdings Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said.