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June 19 (Reuters) – A look at the day ahead in Asian markets from Jamie McGeever, financial markets columnist.
Asian market trading will be lighter than usual on Monday with no major regional economic data scheduled and U.S. markets closed, leaving investors to gear up for the first major event of the week on Tuesday – China’s interest rate decision.
The People’s Bank of China is likely to cut its one- and five-year loan prime rate (LPR) lending rates by 10 basis points to 3.55% and 4.20%, respectively, its latest attempt to bolster China’s creaking economy and steer it away from deflation.
The PBOC earlier this month cut its medium-term policy loan rate for the first time in 10 months, paving the way for cuts in the benchmark LPR rates and bucking the global trend of raising rates to get inflation back down to policymakers’ targets.
It’s little surprise that the yuan is under heavy selling pressure – down 4% in the last couple of months and hovering at seven-month lows. Looser monetary policy will do little to reverse these dynamics.
Investors on Monday may also keep an eye on headlines from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing, the first top American diplomat to visit China in five years amid frosty bilateral ties and dim prospects for progress on the long list of disputes between the world’s two largest economies.
Looking ahead and beyond China, investors have two other Asian monetary policy decisions this week to digest – Indonesia’s Bank Indonesia (BI) and the Philippines Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Thursday.
Both are likely to leave policy unchanged, with BI maintaining its benchmark lending rate at 5.75% and the BSP keeping its key policy rate at 6.25%.
The broader market tone across Asia on Monday could be one of caution, with investors tempted to take some profits from the recent rally. Japanese stocks have surged 20% in two months and are at a 33-year high, while the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index last week jumped 3%, its best week since January.
Other potential market-moving events from the region later in the week include data on Japanese consumer price inflation for May on Friday. The annual core CPI rate is expected to ease to 3.1% from 3.4% in April.
The Bank of Japan last week left its ultra-loose policy unchanged and signaled it is in no rush to change its dovish stance even though inflation has exceeded the BOJ’s 2% target for over a year.
Contrast that with the more hawkish posture of other major central banks around the world and it is little surprise that the yen is on the defensive – on Friday it hit a 15-year low against the euro.
Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Monday:
– Bank of Korea Governor Rhee Chang-yong speaks
– U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in China
– Hong Kong unemployment (May)
By Jamie McGeever; Editing by Leslie Adler
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.
A recent discovery in Israel may corroborate an epic biblical account of an angel of the Lord wiping out 185,000 Assyrian soldiers, an independent scholar claims.
Stephen Compton, an independent scholar specializing in Near Eastern archaeology, utilized a modern mapping technique to find the discovery of, what he believes, are ancient Assyrian military camps, from circa 700 B.C.
The discovery, which is also detailed in Assyrian texts, Greek histories and the Hebrew Bible, could verify the biblical account of 2 Kings 19:35; Isaiah 37: 36-38 and 2 Chronicles, 32:21.
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And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred fourscore and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.
Stone panels from the walls of the Assyrian Emperor Sennacherib’s palace show his military camp. The 24 guard towers along the camp’s perimeter wall, each with three windows visible, indicate a substantial fortification. (Steve Compton)
The scholar detailed his finds in the journal Near Eastern Archaeology and shared with Fox News Digital the historical significance.
“One of the important cities that he conquered, which is mentioned in the Bible as well as in Assyrian documents, is Lachish,” he said. “And on the wall of Sennacherib’s palace he had a relief depicting, in stone carving, the conquest of the city of Lachish, and then after one side his military camp. And his military camp was a large oval. This image from the wall of his palace is now on the wall of the British Museum. But it’s never been found.”
Matching the landscape to the relief in Assyrian King Sennacherib’s palace and using early aerial photographs of Lachish prior to modern development, Compton created a virtual map to pinpoint the site of the military camp.
Bottom: The entire scene from Sennacherib’s palace wall as drawn by its excavator, Austen Henry Layard, in 1849. Top: The same landscape as photographed from a plane in 1945, prior to modern alterations to the landscape. Correlating the two indicated a likely location for the ruins of Sennacherib’s camp. (Steve Compton)
The earliest aerial photograph of Jerusalem, lower left, with an oval fortification visible on a hill in the upper right. From the collection of the Library of Congress. (Steve Compton)
The oval shape of Assyrian King Sennacherib’s military camp helped narrow down Compton’s research.
“We knew it was an oval. What I did was I took the image of the relief and match it up with recognizable features in the landscape with the actual landscape and overlayed the two,” he said. “I used earlier photographs of the landscape from World War II, right before major changes were made.”
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“And it was a match,” he said.
Compton said the military camp’s location, position, dates and name fit into the historical context of Sennacherib’s invasion camp.
The site of Sennacherib’s Jerusalem camp, now known as Ammunition Hill. (Steve Compton)
Ruined walls are visible today at the site of Sennacherib’s Lachish camp. (Steve Compton)
Compton shared that he hopes an archaeological excavation team will investigate the site to provide additional information.
“I think it’s exciting to have found the spot, and I hope that we’ll soon see archaeological excavations there that can give us more information about the site,” he said.
Last weekend a parade in Warsaw drew over 20,000 people, including two government ministers for the first time.
Parades have been taking place in Poland during Pride month as organisers call for LGBTQ rights to be expanded in the largely conservative and mostly Catholic country.
Pride parades in Poland have traditionally been more of a protest event than an opportunity to party, as they are in some of Europe’s more LGBTQ-friendly cities.
But last week, a march in Warsaw drew over 20,000 people including two government ministers for the first time – deputy prime minister Krzysztof Gawkowski and Equality minister Katarzyna Kotula, who are both from The Left party.
According to Brussels-based NGO ran Rainbow Map, Poland this year was ranked as the worst country in the European Union for the LGBTQ community for the fifth consecutive year. The index takes into account the legal, political and social environment for LGBTQ people in each country in Europe.
Under the slogan “Equality is Now” the parade organisers say that Poland should recognise same-sex marriage, introduce an anti-hate speech law to protect the LGBTQ community from discrimination and exclusion.
Currently, Poland doesn’t recognise same-sex marriage and same-sex couples are banned from adopting children as many other European countries do.
Equality minister Katarzyna Kotula from the Left party of the government’s current coalition has said that progress towards introducing same-sex civil partnerships for the first time in Poland had been made, however it has to be approved by other members of the coalition, including the centre-right Polish People’s Party.
The nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party was adamantly against what it called “LGBTQ ideology” when it was the ruling party and before it was voted out of power last year. But Poland’s new government led by Donald Tusk has promised to improve LGBTQ rights, although it has yet to pass any legislation.
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