Maersk raised its full-year profit and market demand forecasts on Aug. 1, partly due to disruptions to Red Sea trade routes, but also said the outlook for the fourth quarter was uncertain. The Danish group, considered a barometer of global trade, said it now expects global container market volumes to grow by 4% to 6% this year, up from its previous forecast for growth in the upper 2.5% to 4% range.
At the end of July, the Bank of Japan's interest rate hike and balance sheet reduction policy became a "butterfly flapping its wings", triggering a huge shock in the global financial market.
But the main reason why the Bank of Japan's monetary policy can have such a huge impact on the international financial market is that the Bank of Japan's long-term zero and negative interest
rate policies have made the yen a source of low-cost arbitrage funds in the international financial market.
On August 6th, the Bank of Japan announced that it would not raise interest rates due to market instability, thus temporarily calming the international financial market.
The impact of the Bank of Japan's interest rate hike on the global financial market is not only due to changes in the marginal liquidity of the financial market, but also due to the detachment of the international financial market from the real economy and the slower than expected development of the real economy, said Ming Xu Head of China Container Division at AsstrA.
Further attacks against vessels in Red Sea and Gulf of Aden likely through at least late August
A missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck a Liberian-flagged container ship traveling through the Gulf of Aden, the first assault by the group since Israeli airstrikes targeted them.
Author: Aneta Kowalczyk.