BLOOMBERG

Don't Worry About China Slowdown, Premier Li Tells Davos

China will avoid a hard landing and is focused on ensuring long-term medium-to-fast growth, Premier Li Keqiang told global leaders in Davos.

While the economy will still face large downward pressures in 2015, China won't have systemic financial risks and will seek to improve the quality of growth to ensure an "appropriate" pace of expansion, Li said Wednesday in a speech at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski town.

A few hours earlier, the central bank governor said on a panel that a slower expansion is "good news" if it's more sustainable. The comments and the first reverse-repurchase agreements in a year on Thursday follow data this week showing 7.4 economic percent growth for 2014, the slowest in 24 years and the first failure to meet government targets this century.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-21/don-t-worry-about-china-growth-slowdown-premier-li-tells-davos.html

REUTERS

D-Day for euro as market awaits ECB quantitative easing

(Reuters) - The euro held fast more than a cent above 11-year lows ahead of a European Central Bank policy meeting on Thursday widely expected to embark on the outright money-printing the bank has steadfastly avoided, in contrast to its peers.

Traders and strategists at the major banks say an extended monthly bond-buying program, outlined by Reuters and other news services on Wednesday, is fully priced-in to the euro.

That argues for a clearing out of many of the bets on the euro weakening against the dollar that have made money for investors over the past six months and the single currency rose almost a cent on Wednesday.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/22/us-markets-forex-idUSKBN0KT2KA20150122

BLOOMBERG

IMF Says Gulf States Set to Swing Into Deficit as Oil Falls

The oil-rich nations of the Persian Gulf are set to post budget deficits this year after a plunge in crude prices, the International Monetary Fund said.

The six nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council will have a collective fiscal gap of 6.3 percent of gross domestic product, a swing of about 11 percentage points from last year's surplus, the IMF said in a report published in Washington on Wednesday. While many nations have enough savings to avoid steep cuts and "limit the drag on growth," they will need to adjust spending plans in the longer term, it said.

The IMF cut its 2015 growth forecast for the Middle East's oil exporters to 3 percent from the 3.9 percent it projected in October. It kept the prediction for the region's oil importers at 3.9 percent, saying that worse-than-expected demand in export markets in the Gulf and Europe will offset any benefits from cheaper energy.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-21/imf-says-gulf-states-set-to-swing-into-deficit-as-oil-plunges.html