Global Shorts

 U.S. job openings fell slightly in January, while hiring also declined as labor market conditions continued to gradually ease. Job openings, a measure of labor demand, fell by 26,000 to 8.863 million on the last day of January, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report.December’s data was revised downward to show 8.889 million job openings, instead of the 9.026 million previously reported. Economists predict there will be 8.9 million job openings in January. In March 2022, job vacancies peaked at a record 12 million. Recruitment fell by 100,000 jobs to 5,687,000. The number of resignations in January was 3.385 million, a decrease of 54,000.In prepared remarks to lawmakers on Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the Fed expected to begin cutting interest rates this year, but warned that there was uncertainty about the economic outlook and that continued progress toward the 2% inflation target was unlikely. uncertain. Since March 2022, the Federal Reserve has raised its policy interest rate by 525 basis points to the current range of 5.25%-5.50%. The Labor Department is expected to report Friday that nonfarm payrolls rose by 200,000 in February, according to a survey of economists. The economy added 353,000 jobs in January. Job growth has slowed from the strong pace in 2022, but wage gains are well above the roughly 100,000 jobs needed each month to keep up with growth in the working-age population. The unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 3.7%, with annual wage growth slowing to 4.4% from 4.5% in January.

According to state media reports, China’s cabinet has approved a plan to promote the upgrading of large-scale equipment and sales of consumer goods. This plan is part of a broader effort by China to stimulate its economy, which has been experiencing weak recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic.The government intends to launch a new initiative to encourage the replacement of old consumer goods with new ones, with the aim of increasing the proportion of advanced production capacity. The cabinet meeting, chaired by Premier Li Qiang, emphasized the need to promptly improve and implement the plan to ensure the continuous introduction of high-quality and durable consumer goods into the lives of residents.During a previous similar scheme between 2009 and 2011, the Chinese government provided subsidies of around 40 billion yuan ($5.6 billion) to buyers of home appliances. Analysts at Societe Generale estimate that to match the significance of the previous round of subsidies, subsidies in 2024 would need to reach at least 60 billion yuan, considering the larger size of China’s GDP.China’s parliament is expected to unveil moderate stimulus plans during its annual meeting, which begins on Tuesday. However, there may be some disappointment among those expecting a detailed roadmap of bold measures to address the country’s deep structural imbalances.

India’s fiscal deficit for the period of April to January in the 2023/24 financial year stood at 11.03 trillion rupees ($133.1 billion), which is approximately 63.6% of the estimated deficit for the entire year, according to government data released on Thursday. During the same period, net tax revenues reached 18.80 trillion rupees, which accounts for around 81% of the yearly estimate, showing an increase from 16.89 trillion rupees in the corresponding period of the previous year. Total expenditure during this period amounted to 33.55 trillion rupees, or roughly 75% of the annual target, compared to 31.68 trillion rupees in the same period last year. Additionally, the government’s capital expenditure for the first ten months of the financial year reached 7.21 trillion rupees, or 76% of the annual target, surpassing the 5.70 trillion rupees spent in the same period the previous year.To address the fiscal deficit, India has revised its target for the current financial year, ending on March 31, to 5.8% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), reducing it by 10 basis points. Furthermore, the government aims to bring down the deficit to 5.1% in the following financial year.

 China’s new home prices slowed their month-on-month declines in January with the biggest cities seeing some stabilisation, but the nationwide downward trend persisted despite Beijing’s efforts to revive demand.New home prices fell 0.3% month-on-month in January after dipping 0.4% in December, according to  calculations based on National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data on Friday.China has been ramping up measures to arrest a property downturn, including ordering state banks to boost lending to residential projects under a “whitelist” mechanism. More big cities including Shanghai have also eased purchase curbs to lure homebuyers.Last month, home prices in tier-one cities fell 0.3% on month, smaller than their 0.4% decline in December, partly due to additional support measures including a reduction in down-payments.Among 70 cities surveyed by NBS, Shanghai saw the biggest month-on-month increase with a rise of 0.4%, while the remaining three tier-one cities – Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen – posted smaller home prices declines than most tier-two and tier-three centres.The number of cities that saw monthly price falls in January also decreased, but the overall market remained on a clear downtrend with buyer sentiment still very weak.From a year earlier, home prices fell 0.7%, marking the sharpest drop in 10 months. That was despite a low statistical base in January 2023 when prices dropped 1.5% year-on-year due to COVID-19 disruptions.Nie Wen, an economist at Hwabao Trust, said home price declines could persist.”It may take more than a year for the entire property market to fully recover and rebound,” Nie said.Central bank data released on Feb. 9 showed household loans, mostly mortgages, climbed to 980.1 billion yuan in January, far more than 222.1 billion yuan in December.However, Nie said people are not using such loans to buy homes, but rather for personal consumption.Residents will invest in the medium to long term, including buying property, only when their income expectations improve, he added.The property market has struggled to stabilise having languished since 2021 due to a series of defaults among overleveraged developers.As a result, policymakers have continued to roll out measures to boost market confidence.The country’s central bank on Tuesday announced its biggest ever reduction in the benchmark mortgage rate, although analysts believe its impact on home price will be limited given existing mortgage holders will not benefit until next year.”It will take some time for homebuyers’ incomes and confidence, and overall demand to recover in the property sector, which is still in the process of gradually bottoming out,” said Zhang Dawei, an analyst at property agency Centaline.