Headlines

Cryptocurrency exchange Huobi dismissed the ongoing rumors against its insolvency, which was fueled by total value locked (TVL) data that briefly showed $64 million in outflows between Aug. 5-6 amid ongoing investigations from Chinese authorities, CoinTelegraph.com reported. Outflows from Huobi over the weekend, based on data collected by decentralized finance (DeFi) TVL aggregator DefiLlama, showed the exchange’s TVL falling to $2.5 billion at the time of writing, down from $3.09 on July 6. Moreover, rumors that the exchange’s leadership had been arrested in China first surfaced on Aug.

China’s local government financing vehicles are showing more signs of stress, with a record number missing payments on a popular type of short-term debt last month, Bloomberg News reported. A total of 48 LGFVs were overdue on commercial paper, which typically carries a maturity of less than a year, up from 29 in June, according to a Huaan Securities Co. report citing data from the Shanghai Commercial Paper Exchange. Their missed payments amounted to 1.86 billion yuan ($259 million), versus 780 million yuan in June.

One measure of new foreign investment in China fell to the lowest level in 25 years in the second quarter, fueling concerns about how much geopolitical tensions and the economy’s slowing recovery can hurt business confidence, Bloomberg News reported. Direct investment liabilities — a gauge of foreign direct investment in China — slumped to just $4.9 billion in the April-June period, according to figures released by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange on Friday. That was down 87% from the same period last year and was the smallest amount in any quarter in data back to 1998.

Monetary policy transmission to the real economy in Sri Lanka is still incomplete, the governor of the country's central bank, Nandalal Weerasinghe, said at a LSEG FX Community Event on Monday, Reuters reported. Weerasinghe said he would like to see private sector interest rates come down further and at a faster pace, adding that the domestic debt restructuring is the most important focus for the debt-laden country in the near-term. "We would firstly like to see yields drop in line with policy rates and, from there, decline further. We are waiting to see this reaction from markets," he said.

The Philippine central bank will exercise caution against “too much” monetary tightening to avoid crimping economic growth, according to Governor Eli Remolona, Bloomberg News reported. “If we are going to hike, we have to be very careful not to hike too much,” Remolona said at a briefing in Manila Friday, when asked if the economy can handle more tightening on top of the 425-basis points of increases since last year.

Brazil analysts cut their interest rate forecasts for this year and next after central bankers launched a monetary easing cycle with a bold half-a-percentage point cut last week, Bloomberg News reported. The benchmark Selic will fall to 11.75% by December, down from the prior estimate of 12%, according to a weekly central bank survey of economists published Monday. Analysts cut their key rate forecast for next year to 9%. Consumer price estimates for this year were left unchanged at 4.84%. Annual inflation will slow down to 3.88% in 2024 and 3.5% in 2025.

Venezuela’s opposition is finalizing an agreement with international creditors to extend a legal deadline on $60 billion of defaulted bonds, according to people with knowledge of the plan, Bloomberg News reported. The agreement being drafted by the opposition-led National Assembly — which is recognized in the US as the country’s legal representative — would suspend an upcoming statute of limitations on the debt. The offer could be approved by the National Assembly to present to bondholders as soon as this week, according to two of the people.

The Mexican government is no longer planning on moving up the timeline to pay off some $4.2 billion in outstanding bonds issued to finance a partly built airport on the outskirts of Mexico City that was later canceled, a senior transport official said on Friday, Reuters reported. The canceled Texcoco project was meant to alleviate pressure at the capital's decades-old airport, but shortly after he was elected in 2018, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ordered construction on the new facility halted, blasting it as too expensive and stained by corruption.

Banks have written off bad loans worth Rs 14.56 lakh crore in the last nine financial years starting 2014-15, Parliament was informed on Monday, the Economic Times of India reported. Out of the total Rs 14,56,226 crore, written off loans of large industries and services stood at Rs 7,40,968 crore. Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) have recovered an aggregate amount of Rs 2,04,668 crore in written-off loans, including corporate loans, since April, 2014 and up to March, 2023, Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.

Distressed state construction company PT Waskita Karya of Indonesia said it won’t be able to deposit funds for the payment of interest and the repayment of principal for its rupiah bonds due Aug. 6, according to a filing on Friday, Bloomberg News reported. The rupiah-denominated notes of the heavily indebted builder has total outstanding of 135.5 billion rupiah ($8.9 million), according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The failure to make payments came after the company also missed a coupon payment due May 30, Waskita said in a statement.