UST department said foreign demand fell for US Treasuries in Dec09 as China purged holdings of government debt ($34.2bn selloff in the month). This leaves Japan as the largest holder of US government debt at $768bn. Countries are abandoning the "flight to safety" strategy adopted during the economic crisis, this could mean the US will have to pay more to service its debt. The overall monthly sell-off of $53bn was the largest on record. Biggest foreign holders of Treasuries are Japan, China, UK and oil-exporting countries. Japan, China and UK hold more than 50% of the foreign holdings of US Treasuries.
The US trade deficit is projected to be $1.56 trillion in 2010 (10.6% of GDP). Foreign purchases of US equities rose to $20.1bn in December09 from $9.7bn in Nov09. There is large difference between the reported budget deficit and change in debt because of 1) Social Security Surplus, which reduces the "off budget" deficit in the media, 2) Non-budgeted spending e.g. wars.
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Monday, 8 February 2010
Fire-breathing Growth for Sq Enix with Dragon Quest Sales Final Quarter '09
Pretax profit was 8.2 billion yen on sales of 44.8 billion yen due to the release of Final Fantasy 13 (sold 1.9m copies) and Dragon Quest 9 (sold 4.1m copies). Awesome sales!
The Final Fantasy series started in 1987.
Square Enix is part of a holding company that's HQ'ed in Shibuya-ku in Japan. Shibuya station is one of Tokyo's busiest stations (Tokyo prefecture is one of the 47 subnational jurisdictions of Japan). Shibuya is the HQ of Casio and Google Japan. Apart from games software, Square is also involved in the sale and rental of arcade game machines and operation of mobile phone portals.
The Final Fantasy series started in 1987.
Square Enix is part of a holding company that's HQ'ed in Shibuya-ku in Japan. Shibuya station is one of Tokyo's busiest stations (Tokyo prefecture is one of the 47 subnational jurisdictions of Japan). Shibuya is the HQ of Casio and Google Japan. Apart from games software, Square is also involved in the sale and rental of arcade game machines and operation of mobile phone portals.
Saturday, 6 February 2010
"Jobless Recovery" in the US
Feb2010: US output has grown at an annual rate of 5.7%, but without improving the jobless situation. 20,000 jobs were lost in January, mainly in the construction sector. Unemployment rate dropped from 10% to 9.7%. Larry Summers former Secretary of the Treasury stated America is experiencing a "statistical recovery and human recession". Cautious optimism may be in the air as employment for temporary workers increased.
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