KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Thursday February 19 Housing and Economic stories

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Thursday February 19 Housing and Economic stories

Shipping Index Matches Record Low as Coal Slump Heightens Glut - (www.bloomberg.com) Commodity shipping costs matched a record low set 28 years ago as China’s slowing demand for coal and weaker bookings before the Asian country’s New Year holidays compounded a fleet glut. The Baltic Dry Index slid 0.9 percent to 554 points, the same level it fell to in July and August of 1986, according to data on Monday from the Baltic Exchange in London. Day rates declined for most ship types monitored. China’s seaborne coal imports slid 10 percent in 2014, reversing growth of 16 percent the year before, according to Clarkson Plc, the world’s largest shipbroker. The Chinese economy, which buys almost half the world’s coal and ore cargoes, will grow in 2015 at the slowest pace in 25 years, economists’ forecasts compiled by Bloomberg show. “Demand is growing at a sluggish rate,” Erik Folkeson, an Oslo-based analyst at Swedbank AB, said by phone, adding that demand is being further eroded before New Year holidays in China that start later this month. “Coal first of all, and the data that we’ve seen on Chinese iron ore imports has suggested a slowdown in January.”

Obama criticizes Staples for threatening to fire employees who work more than 25 hours - (www.businessinsider.com) President Barack Obama said "shame on them" after being asked about reports that, to dodge paying benefits under Obamacare, the office-supply retailer Staples was barring part-time workers from putting in more than 25 hours a week. In an interview with BuzzFeed News published Wednesday, Obama said Staples should be more than able to afford to provide affordable healthcare for its workers. "I haven't looked at Staples stock lately or what the compensation of the CEO is, but I suspect that they could well afford to treat their workers favorably and give them some basic financial security, and if they can't, then they should be willing to allow those workers to get the Affordable Care Act without cutting wages," he said.

Egypt’s Currency War: The Devaluation Eclipsed by Russia, Brazil - (www.bloomberg.com) As investors focus on weakening exchange rates from Russia’s ruble to the Brazilian real, Egypt has fired its own shot in the global currency war. Egypt cheapened the pound more than any other Middle East currency this year by abandoning its fixed peg against the dollar. The devaluation shows how economic priorities have shifted. For decades, Egypt managed its currency to prevent a depreciating pound from boosting the cost of imported goods, such as bread and fuel. The currency held at 7.15 per dollar for seven months after Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi became president in June. The bigger goal now is staying competitive on exports to the euro region, Egypt’s largest market, where the currency is tumbling.

Speculation Against Denmark’s Euro Peg Proving Relentless - (www.bloomberg.com) Less than a week after Denmark resorted to its deepest rate cut ever amid historic currency interventions, forward rates suggest some traders and investors still aren’t convinced the central bank can save its euro peg. SEB AB, the largest Nordic currency trader, says capital flows into AAA-rated Denmark forced the central bank to dump about $4.6 billion in kroner in the first three days of February alone, almost a third the record amount it sold in all of January. Nordea Bank AB, Scandinavia’s biggest lender, says Denmark will need to deliver another 25 basis-point cut to fight back demand for kroner, bringing the benchmark deposit rate to minus 1 percent. “The pressure on the krone hasn’t eased yet,” Jens Naervig Pedersen, an economist at Danske Bank A/S in Copenhagen, said by phone. “We can see from the forward rates that the market views the current upward pressure on the krone as the greatest ever.”

Pension plans, once inviolable promises to employees, are getting cut - (www.washingtonpost.com) Tax revenue is up, home foreclosures are down, and, after a long absence, robust economic growth has returned to this sprawling city. But as far as municipal workers here are concerned, it feels as if the bad times never left. Police and firefighters are on the verge of seeing their retirement benefits cut. Other city employees are certain to be next. “The city is the one who put us in this position,” said Art Doring, who has been a city firefighter for 10 years. “When the market was great before the crash, they did not make payments into the pension. The chickens have come home to roost, and we are the ones who have to pay.” The stock market has soared more than 75 percent in the past five years, yet many pension funds, where many middle-class workers should benefit from the market’s rise, continue to struggle, jeopardizing benefits for the workers who were counting on them in retirement.

OTHER STORIES: