Headlines

Argentina’s central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate Friday for the first time in nearly six months as President Javier Milei continues to oversee a slowdown in inflation in the crisis-prone economy, Bloomberg News reported. The monetary authority cut borrowing costs to 35% from 40%, according to a press release sent via text message. The decision is based on the country’s liquidity context, the lowering of consumer price expectations and the government’s fiscal anchor, the bank said. Argentina also reduced rates for notes known locally as pases to 40% from 45%.

Colombia’s central bank ignored pressure to accelerate the pace of interest rate cuts as policymakers weigh fiscal risks that sent the peso to its weakest level in more than a year, Bloomberg News reported. The seven-member board voted 4-3 to lower the benchmark rate by half a percentage point to 9.75%, Governor Leonardo Villar told reporters in Bogota on Thursday. The minority voted for a bigger reduction, to 9.5%.

Swiss Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter said efforts to revamp banking regulation are designed to ensure trust in the nation’s financial center and help it remain a world leader in the aftermath of Credit Suisse’s demise, Bloomberg News reported. “We have to find a balance between competitiveness on the one and the protection of the economy on the other side,” said Keller-Sutter, 60.

The economic outlook for the Asia-Pacific region seems a touch brighter but as risks to growth mount, cautious policymaking will be needed, the International Monetary Fund said, the Wall Street Journal reported. Asia’s economic growth is expected to moderate this year and the next as the postpandemic boost fades and demographic factors like population aging increasingly put a brake on activity, the IMF said in its latest regional outlook on Friday.

A private gauge of China’s manufacturing activity signaled that the sector returned to growth in October, in a potential sign that Beijing’s more aggressive efforts to boost the economy are having an effect, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Caixin manufacturing purchasing managers index rose to 50.3 in October from 49.3 in September, according to data released by Caixin Media Co. and S&P Global on Friday. A reading below 50 suggests that activity is shrinking and one above indicates that it is expanding.

China's push to shift its food import sources since 2018 has put it in a better position to impose tit-for-tat tariffs on U.S. farm goods with less harm to its food security if trade friction with Washington flares after the U.S. presidential election, Reuters reported. The threat of a trade war looms for China, the world's top importer of farm products such as soybeans and corn, with Republican candidate Donald Trump floating blanket 60% tariffs on Chinese goods in a bid to boost U.S. manufacturing. His opponent Kamala Harris, a Democrat, is also expected to confront China on trade.

Germans are eager to sell hundreds of billions of euros’ worth of goods in Italy, while drinking its wines, skiing its Alps and sunning on its beaches. But in the weeks since UniCredit, a multinational bank based in Milan, swooped in to take a 21 percent stake in Commerzbank, one of Germany’s largest lenders, that fondness has been shown to have its limits, the New York Times reported.

Austria’s top court ruled that a restructuring plan put forward by Signa Prime Selection AG and its creditors was unlawful, pushing the luxury landlord into bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported. The Supreme Court verdict follows a months-long court battle over the restructuring agreement adopted in March by creditors of the flagship unit in tycoon Rene Benko’s erstwhile conglomerate. The plan aimed to pay creditors 30% of their claims by appointing a trustee to manage a protracted sale of assets, benefiting from an anticipated recovery in market valuations.

The Bank of Japan’s governor struck a less cautious tone about the outlook as the central bank delivered a widely expected rate hold and reaffirmed that it’s on track for stable inflation and economic growth, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Japanese central bank maintained its target for the overnight call rate at 0.25%, the level reached after the last hike in July. Thursday’s decision came as no surprise to most BOJ watchers as Gov. Kazuo Ueda had flagged concerns about the uncertain global economic outlook and said that the bank needed to spend time analyzing risk factors.

China’s residential property sales rose in October, the first on-year increase of 2024, as the government’s latest stimulus blitz brought back buyers, Bloomberg News reported. The value of new-home sales from the 100 biggest real estate companies rose 7.1% from a year earlier to 435.5 billion yuan ($61.2 billion), reversing from a 37.7% slump in September, according to preliminary data from China Real Estate Information Corp. Sales surged 73% from a month earlier.