Evergrande and China markets dominate the news

Evergrande crisis continues to weigh on investors as seen on the China markets falling more than 1% on opening before bouncing back slightly after a two-day holiday.

With global markets selling off earlier this week, investors keep a close watch on the China markets for any fallout surrounding the embattled developer Evergrande.

The People’s Bank of China injects substantially more liquidity into the markets through “reverse repurchase agreements,” or buying short-term bonds from some commercial lenders so banks have more cash on hand, data from the central bank showed.

Today, China also kept its benchmark lending rate unchanged, with the one-year loan prime rate (LPR) held steady at 3.85%. The five-year LPR remained at 4.65%. That was largely in line with expectations of traders and analysts , according to Reuters.

The Bank of Japan today held steady on monetary policy, keeping its short-term interest rate target at -0.1% while that for 10-year Japanese government bond yields was kept at around 0%.

The Japanese central bank warned in its monetary policy statement that the employment and income situation “remained weak” due to the Covid impact, while private consumption “remained stagnant” due to sustained strong downward pressure on services consumption.