Indonesia Follows Brazil in Move to Change Capital City

Indonesia is planning a move of its capital from Jakarta to East Kalimantan on the island of Borneo. Kalimantan is one of the original homes of the orangutan. $32bn is the estimated cost of the move.

China Retorts US Tariffs As Yield Curve Inverts

China will place additional tariffs of between 5% to 10% on US goods starting September 1, 2019, according to the Finance Ministry. US automobiles and parts will also be specifically targeted. Soybeans, seafood and whisky will be similarly targeted. This has led to US farmers storing soybean instead of selling them as prices are hurt by tariffs.  In the US bond market, the yield curve has inverted. This means 10 year Treasuries are now below the 2 year Treasury rate (a historic predictor of a coming recession). The US Chamber of Commerce is urging parties to get "back to the table". The S&P 500 has dropped around 2.6%.

Goldman's Bond Sale Fees of $600m from Questionable 1MDB Transaction Raises Questions

Goldman Sachs, having raised three large bond offerings for 1Malaysia Development Berhad. the country's sovereign wealth fund, is now facing the prosecution of 17 current and former employees, who were directors of three Goldman's subsidiaries at the time.

The bank bagged $600m in fees. The scandal also hit Malaysia's former Prime Minister Najib Razak  who has been hit with corruption charges. Mubadala Investment Company has suspended dealings with Goldman as a result of the investigations.

1MDB is now insolvent. It started out as a fund to spur development in Malaysia's Terengganu State, whose main economic centre is Kuala Terengganu.

AMD Second Generation Epyc Attacks Intel Xeon

AMD unleashed its new second generation Epyc chip, aimed at Intel Xeon's data center processing market share (for cloud service providers) under the tagline "New Leader. New Rules". AMD are claiming 1.8x-2x performance advantage over Xeon. "Big Data Analytics" is another application area that Epyc is looking to grab. Epyc uses the AMD Infinity Architecture under the hood.

Who were the Best Fund Promoters in H1 2019 according to Lipper?

According to Lipper (an investment data firm founded in 1973 now owned by Thomson Reuters/Refintiv), the "best" fund promoter in H1 2019 was AXA.

AXA boasted net sales of 28.6 billion euro.

Blackrock came in second place with 23.1 billion euro, with PIMCO third at 23 billion euro.

Vanguard, who espouse the "four principles", came in at 9.9bn euros, less than 50% of PIMCOs sales.