Markets Overview
- ASX SPI 200 futures down 1.1% to 7,156.00
- Dow Average down 1.6% to 34,299.99
- Aussie down 0.6% to 0.7241 per US$
- U.S. 10-year yield rose 5.9bps to 1.5461%
- Australia 3-year bond yield rose 2bps to 0.31%
- Australia 10-year bond yield rose 7bps to 1.48%
- Gold spot down 0.9% to $1,733.54
- Brent futures down 1.3% to $78.48/bbl
Economic Events
- 11am: (AU) Australia to Sell A$1 Billion 1% 2031 Bonds
A global equity selloff looked set to spill into Asia Wednesday after U.S. stocks saw their worst day since May and bond yields spiked on concerns about inflation. The dollar rallied.
Futures declined about 1% in Japan and Australia, and were also lower in Hong Kong. Mounting concern over the debt-ceiling impasse in Washington added to investor angst. The S&P 500 dropped the most since May, with technology shares faring worse than economically sensitive stocks as Treasury yields climbed. The Nasdaq 100 tumbled the most since March.
The yield on 30-year Treasuries jumped almost 10 basis points. Brent crude pulled back from a three-year high above $80 a barrel. Gold also fell.
During a Senate hearing, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen both warned that a U.S. default due to a failure to raise the debt ceiling would have catastrophic consequences. Republicans blocked a Democratic move in the Senate to raise the debt limit. Meanwhile, China Evergrande Group is facing another bond interest payment after giving no sign that it had paid a separate one last week, as its deepening debt crisis looms over global markets.
Other News
It was once the only way to declare your love, pour out your thoughts or, simply, jot down a to-do list.
But these days the phone is far mightier than the pen as more of us turn our hands away from writing to typing.
One in ten Britons say they haven’t handwritten anything at all over the past year, according to a survey.
And the young are so glued to their gadgets that 11 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds say they have never even written a shopping list.
Yet, despite the move to digital, handwriting still hasn’t lost its charm as two thirds admit it is more ’emotional’ than tapping something out on a gadget.
The survey, by family history site Ancestry, asked 2,000 Britons about their writing habits. It found that half prefer to write on a computer, tablet or phone – citing communication speed and efficiency among the main reasons why.
One in five also prefer to go digital for spelling features like auto-correct and predictive text.
Emails, texts and social media messages have also found favour over traditional letters – with a quarter of 18 to 24-year-olds admitting they have never penned one.
Forty per cent of that age group have also never written a love note and a quarter said they have never kept any kind of diary or journal.
Many added that they have never handwritten a postcard, memo or card – and 13 per cent admitted they have never even written a to-do list.
Half of Britons aged between 18 and 34 claim it is not possible to properly express themselves on paper and feel their social media profiles better reflect them. In spite of this, nearly half of Britons surveyed said they would like to receive more handwritten letters from loved ones and four in ten wished they sent more.
Over the past year, cards and shopping lists were the most common items people wrote by hand.
Graphologist Tracey Trussell said that someone’s handwriting ‘can tell you so much about [their] identity’.
She added: ‘There is so much to be uncovered through a simple signature or pen stroke.’
Simon Pearce, of Ancestry, said: ‘Handwritten documents and signatures form such a huge part of the historical records at Ancestry.
‘Through looking at examples of our ancestors putting pen to paper, we can make shape of who they were and the way they left their mark on the world.’
