Venezuela apparently is going to invest in Argentina’s restructured debt. Not quite your classic reserve asset.On the other hand, Malaysia lent Lebanon some money to bolster its reserve during Leban…

The most profitable sector of the Chinese economy, according to data from UBS. Mining. It is not even close. I presume that includes mining for oil. Remember that. I will return to it in a bit.A…

Oil closed above $58 a barrel on Friday. That’s kind of high. Kevin Drum nicely summarizes the range of explanations that have been put forward to explain oil’s recent rise. I tend to agree with h…

The CNOOC bid presumably is motivated by two things. One, Beijing has plenty of cash, and already holds more Treasuries than it wants, so it wants to diversify its portfolio. As I argued earlier, C…

Both Brazil and Argentina now want to repay the IMF before the end of the year.  Call it contagion of a different sort.  Turkey may not be far behind, given how much private money is now flooding int…