Headlines

Brazil’s annual inflation rate ticked up roughly in line with forecasts as investors expect the central bank will keep its current pace of borrowing-cost cuts at next week’s policy meeting, Bloomberg News reported. Official data released Thursday showed consumer prices rose 5.05% in mid-October from a year earlier, just above the 5.04% median estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Monthly inflation hit 0.21%. Policymakers are holding firm to their plans and are expected to follow through with a third straight half-point cut at their Nov.

The risk premium on Italian government debt fell on Thursday after the European Central Bank (ECB) kept interest rates on hold and said it would keep reinvesting the proceeds of its pandemic-era bond purchases until the end of next year, Reuters reported. The ECB held interest rates at the record high level of 4%, ending an unprecedented streak of 10 consecutive hikes. The euro and European stocks pared earlier losses as investors also digested strong U.S. growth data.

Mexico's economy, the second biggest in Latin America, could expand by 3.5% or more this year, a senior finance ministry official said on Wednesday, as one central banker flagged a "long battle ahead" to better corral creeping consumer prices, Reuters reported. In testimony before lawmakers, Deputy Finance Minister Gabriel Yorio talked up the expected expansion of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), and largely dismissed concerns that the gaining value of the local currency was bad for shipments to foreign markets.

Russia’s reimposition of capital controls achieved in one go what three interest-rate increases by the central bank couldn’t do for the ruble, Bloomberg News reported. It doesn’t mean policymakers are done hiking. Despite the world’s biggest currency rally over the past month, the Bank of Russia is set on Friday to extend a cycle of monetary tightening that began in July when the pace of the ruble’s depreciation was just picking up. The exchange rate later weakened to levels unseen since the aftermath of last year’s invasion of Ukraine.

Canada's central bank on Wednesday highlighted stress building in customers with auto loans, while saying mortgage owners largely coped from a record pace in interest rate increases which has squeezed household budgets, Reuters reported. In its quarterly Monetary Policy Report released on Wednesday, the Bank of Canada said indicators of financial stress point mainly to non-mortgage holders, without giving details.

The Bank of Canada (BoC) may not have to raise its key overnight rate further if inflation cools in line with the central bank's expectations, Governor Tiff Macklem said, Reuters reported. "The economy is not overheated anymore and ... we do think there's more inflation relief in the pipeline, and if that comes through, we won't have to raise rates further," Macklem said. The BoC on Wednesday held its key overnight rate at a 22-year high of 5.0% but left the door open to more hikes, saying price risks were on the rise and inflation could exceed its target for another two years.

It might never be possible to know precisely how an economy is performing in any given moment. But recently it has gotten harder to get a clear picture of Britain’s economy, particularly the labor market, the New York Times reported. This month, Britain’s Office for National Statistics delayed the release of its flagship report on jobs to give itself more time “to produce the best possible estimates” of how many people are working or not.

Chinese developer Country Garden Holdings Co. was deemed to be in default on a dollar bond for the first time ever, underscoring its fall into distress amid a broader property debt crisis that’s shaken the world’s second-biggest economy, Bloomberg News reported. Country Garden’s failure to pay interest on the note within a grace period that ended last week “constitutes an event of default,” according to a notice to holders from trustee Citicorp International Ltd. seen by Bloomberg News.

China's new sovereign bonds will help bolster the economic recovery, China's vice finance minister Zhu Zhongming said on Wednesday, as the government's stepped-up fiscal stimulus sharply raises its budget deficit, Reuters reported. China's top parliament body has approved a 1 trillion yuan ($137 billion) in sovereign bond issuance to help rebuild areas hit by this year's floods and improve urban infrastructure to cope with future disasters, state media said on Tuesday.

Hui Ka Yan has already lost his freedom. Now, China Evergrande Group’s founder is no longer a billionaire. Hui’s net worth has fallen to $979 million, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with shares of his debt-laden real estate firm trading at just HK$0.24 (3 cents) each. Shares of China Evergrande have dropped 86% since its trading resumption in late August.