1 America's interest rates are unlikely to fall this year 11
Why US Interest Rates Are Unlikely to Cut This Year
2 Could America and its allies club together to 39
weaken the dollar?
Can the US and its allies join forces to weaken the dollar?
3 Japan is wrong to try to prop up the yen 67
Japan's attempt to support the yen is wrong.
4 Japan ends the world's greatest monetary-policy experiment 91
Japan Ends World's Largest Monetary Policy Experiment
5 Three reasons why oil prices are remarkably stable 119
Three Reasons Why Oil Prices Remain Surprisingly Stable
6 Western rms are quaking as China's electric-car industry 145
speeds up
Western companies are trembling as China's electric vehicle industry gains momentum.
7 Why global GDP might be $7trn bigger than 193
everyone thought
Why global GDP could be $7 trillion larger than everyone thinks
8 To understand America's job market, look beyond 219
unemployed workers
Understanding the U.S. job market requires more than just looking at unemployment numbers.
9 Economists and investors should pay less attention to 247
consumers
Economists and investors can afford to pay less attention to consumers.
10 Why America can't escape ination worries 277
Why America Can't Escape Inflation Concerns
11 America may soon be in recession, according to 303
a famous rule
Sham's Law predicts that the United States will soon fall into a recession
12 Is the bull market about to turn into a bubble? 323
Will the bull market soon turn into a bubble?
13 Why the stockmarket is disappearing? 361
Why the Stock Market Is Disappearing
14 Nvidia is not the only rm cashing in on the AI ​​gold rush 387
Nvidia Isn't the Only One Profiting from the AI ​​Gold Rush
15 High bond yields imperil America's nancial stability 425
High bond yields threaten US financial stability
16 Copper is the missing ingredient of the energy transition 449
Copper: The Hidden Key to Energy Transition
17 Bitcoin ETFs are off to a bad start.
Will things improve? 475
Bitcoin ETFs Have a Bad Start, Will They Get Better Over Time?
18 The mystery of gold prices 507
The mysterious movement of gold prices
19 The anti-ESG industry is taking investors for a ride 529
Anti-ESG industries that deceive investors
20 How scared is China of Donald Trump's return? 555
China fears Donald Trump's return
Editor's Note 598

★ Author's Note ★

But despite these slightly awkward reading and comprehension issues, The Economist is well worth the time invested.
Above all, economic, political, technological and social issues
Because expert journalists cover global issues in depth, providing insights that go beyond simple news.
...

(syncopation)

Above all, I wanted to provide commentary that would be helpful in understanding the article even when reading other articles on related topics, rather than just commentary that applies only to the selected article.
The commentary often includes the article
Explanations of key terms that appear are also included.
For example, in the case of an article on the U.S. stock market, it provides a detailed introduction to the trends and outlook of the U.S. stock market over the past few years, as well as explanations of the major indices of the U.S. stock market and even terms frequently used in foreign news articles covering the stock market.
(From the author's preface)

- Nothing has as much influence on the global financial market as the U.S. monetary policy.
As the United States is the world's largest economy, it is only natural that the financial markets of numerous countries are affected by how the Federal Reserve, the country's central bank, manages interest rates/benchmark fed funds rate.

There's a saying in the financial markets: Don't Fight the Fed.
This means that when the Fed raises or cuts interest rates, investors should not ignore or act against it.
This means that the Fed's policies have a significant impact on the market.

The central bank adjusts monetary policy through its benchmark interest rate.
By raising or lowering the base interest rate, it controls the money supply in the market, interest rate levels, economic growth, inflation, employment status, etc.

The Federal Reserve meets eight times a year, usually every six weeks, with the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) to decide whether to raise, lower, or keep interest rates steady.

FOMC decisions have a significant impact on the entire financial market, including the domestic stock, bond, and foreign exchange markets. As a reporter covering international news, I vividly remember the struggle of covering FOMC-related stories before 6 a.m., three hours before the domestic financial markets opened.
Sometimes I would wake up at dawn and watch the Fed Chairman's press conference live. Even then, just like now, I often saw financial markets fluctuate in real time, rising and falling sharply at the Fed Chairman's every word.

The FOMC releases its results at 3 a.m. local time during U.S. Daylight Savings Time from March through early November, and at 4 a.m. local time the rest of the time when Daylight Savings Time is lifted.
Thirty minutes later, the Federal Reserve Chairman holds a press conference. Following the FOMC meeting, a one-page statement outlining the rationale for its monetary policy decisions is released. Experts and journalists spend the immediate aftermath of the statement busy analyzing and identifying any changes in wording or expression from previous statements.

- Bond interest rates and prices move in opposite directions.
Most bonds promise to pay a fixed interest rate (the coupon rate).
For example, a bond with a face value of $1,000 and a 5% annual coupon rate would pay $50 in interest annually.
However, if market interest rates rise due to the Fed's rate hike, issuers will have to offer higher interest rates when issuing new bonds.
Investors will only be interested if they are offered more than the fixed interest payment of existing bonds ($50).
As a result, rising interest rates lead to an increase in the service burden on bond issuers.

Here, the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds is used as an example of rising bond interest rates, as 10-year bonds are the benchmark for U.S. bonds.

The 10-year Treasury note is regularly issued by the U.S. Treasury and is the most actively traded bond on the market.
This ensures high liquidity and allows investors to buy and sell easily.
Because liquidity is high, prices are reflected more accurately.
Therefore, if you look at bond articles in foreign media, you will see that almost all of them are written based on 10-year government bonds.

- From a corporate perspective, listing is a good opportunity to raise capital necessary for R&D, marketing, and facility investment, reduce corporate debt, and enjoy the effect of increasing the company's stock valuation.
As the corporate value increases, the funding capacity required for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) will also be strengthened.

However, despite these various advantages, some companies that believe that remaining a private company provides greater benefits do not necessarily go public.
This is true when a company believes it can raise funds more flexibly through private equity funds or venture capital funds than when it was listed, or when it judges that it can avoid burdensome disclosure regulations and thus does not have to shoulder high compliance costs (a private equity fund is a fund that is operated privately by recruiting a limited number of investors and is also called a high-yield corporate investment fund).
In particular, venture capital funds are private equity funds that discover and invest in competitive venture companies.

The listing process is also incredibly cumbersome.
It takes a lot of time.
Companies planning to go public must not only prepare for exponentially increasing public scrutiny, but also submit numerous documents and financial disclosures to meet the requirements of the securities regulators who oversee listed companies.
In the United States, this securities regulatory authority would be the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Because of this complex process, companies planning to go public typically hire an underwriter, such as an investment bank, to provide consulting on the IPO and help determine the offering price.
The underwriter helps management prepare for the IPO, including drafting key documents for investors and scheduling meetings with potential investors called roadshows.

- Here we explain why government bond yields are unlikely to fall any time soon, as they are likely to remain high for the time being.
First, the economy remains in a strong buoyant state, second, the government has been running high fiscal deficits for a long time, and third, the Fed has allowed Treasury bonds to mature and not be repurchased.
If the economy is growing strongly, interest rates are less likely to fall.

Additionally, a large fiscal deficit means that the government is borrowing a lot of money through issuing government bonds to fund its spending, which keeps interest rates high.
To attract buyers for government bonds issued in large quantities, the price must be low and the interest rate must be high to attract buyers.

And the fact that the Fed has been letting the $765 billion in bonds it has held on its balance sheet mature since last summer, without replacing them, means that it is taking them off its books rather than buying them back when they mature.
Repurchasing maturing government bonds would provide liquidity to the market, but since this means they will not do so, this is a contractionary policy measure that absorbs liquidity from the market.