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Barclays sounds out clients on trading cryptocurrencies

BARCLAYS PLC has been gauging clients’ interest in the British bank starting a cryptocurrency trading desk, potentially joining Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in pioneering a new business on Wall Street, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Barclays has so far only done a preliminary assessment of demand and feasibility, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. The bank said Monday it currently has no concrete plans to start such an operation.
“We constantly monitor developments in the digital currency space and will continue to have a dialog with our clients on their needs and intentions in this market,” spokesman Andrew Smith said in an e-mailed statement.
A crypto trading desk would require approval from investment bank boss Tim Throsby, and potentially Chief Executive Officer Jes Staley, given the novelty of the asset class, risk and compliance requirements, according to one of the people. No other big European investment bank is known to be building such a desk.
Demand for such services is plentiful. Hedge funds that deal with Bitcoin and other virtual currencies have been eager to find banks to handle transactions — much like prime brokers do with securities — and potentially serve as custodians of digital assets. Some money managers have struggled to expand into crypto, in part because of rules that prevent them from using unregulated exchanges to trade and hold investments.
The number of hedge funds focused on crypto reached 226 in mid-February, according to Autonomous Research, up from 37 at the start of 2017. Many were formed or piled into the market as Bitcoin’s price skyrocketed last year.
Last week, a team of Barclays analysts led by Joseph Abate laid out a pricing model for Bitcoin that wasn’t exactly bullish, treating it like a disease and predicting it’s probably on the decline.
The model divided the pool of potential investors into three groups: susceptible, infected and immune. The analysts assumed that when prices rise, “infections” spread by word-of-mouth.
But at some point, the number of potential hosts would be used up, causing prices to plateau before eventually falling.
“The most recent peak may have been the ultimate top,” they wrote. “The speculative froth phase of crypto currency investment, and perhaps peak prices, may have passed.” — Bloomberg

Art & Culture (04/18/18)

Musical theater workshops

EXPLORE THE world of musical theater with musical director Rony Fortich. There will be audition workshops for all ages; workshops on song interpretation for kids, teens, and adults; and musical direction of musical theater for all ages. Sessions start in May. Limited slots available. For details, visit www.bgcartscenter.org.

International Book Day

ON SATURDAY, April 21, celebrate Día del Libro at the Ayala Triangle Gardens in Makati. It will be a day of books and roses and a slew of cultural treats including a book-market, recitals, meetings with writers, book presentations, street art, a silent disco, and a tribute-concert to Filipino and Spanish music by the Manila Symphony Orchestra. It will run from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Free entrance.

Air Supply the musical

ALL OUT OF LOVE: The Musical, a universal story of love, family, and overcoming obstacles set to the music of Air Supply, will premiere in Manila in October. Tickets are on early-bird presale now on TicketWorld.

Traditional oil painting workshops

BASIC AND Intermediate Traditional Oil Painting Workshops are available every Saturday and Monday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and 2-5 p.m. at the Artalyer Workshops and Studio at Galeria Alvero, 77-B Rosa Alvero St., Loyola Heights, Quezon City. The teacher is Grandier Gil Bella who is also a faculty at the UP College of Fine Arts, Diliman. Call 0917-558-1274 or 0916-558-8093 for queries.

Nemiranda for Marawi

ONE of the works in the exhibit Marawi in the Eyes of an Artist: Tribute to Filipino Soldiers.

ARTIST Nemi “Nemiranda” Miranda brings his artworks to Robinsons Place Jaro for an exhibit running from April 16 to 20 dubbed as Marawi in the Eyes of an Artist: Tribute to Filipino Soldiers, Part of the proceeds from the sale of the exhibit will be forwarded to the Army Fund for the benefit of those who fought in Marawi. The traveling exhibit first opened at Robinsons Galleria last February.

Outlook on select Asian economies

Emerging markets have had a good run; things may get bumpier

Emerging markets have weathered this year’s market volatility just fine so far. But some investors are using this as an opportunity to get a lot more selective, with challenges looming from trade tensions to the winding down of central-bank stimulus.
“Now we can rule out the ‘global synchronized growth’ theme, which dominated early this year,” said Jinha Kim, head of global fixed income in Seoul with Mirae Asset Global Investments Co., one of South Korea’s biggest money managers. The firm has reduced its position in emerging-market currencies and bonds to neutral, and shifted to underweight for Turkey and Mexico specifically, Kim said.
Kim cited trade tensions in the wake of protectionist moves by U.S. President Donald Trump as a concern for emerging-market growth prospects. Nomura Holdings Inc. analysts led by Rob Subbaraman in Singapore listed trade tensions as one of four potential triggers for “a major market repricing of EM risk premia, sparking a painful EM snapback” in a recent research note.
“It is notoriously difficult to pinpoint the timing of an EM snapback, let alone the trigger,” the Nomura analysts wrote, offering a best-guess of the third quarter of 2018 as being high risk. Chile, Hungary, Poland and Thailand are among the less vulnerable, while Turkey, Hong Kong, Mexico and Malaysia are among the more exposed, they wrote.
The Chinese economy has continued to hold up. Gross domestic product expanded 6.8 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, its government said Tuesday. Still, the tiff with the U.S. showed no signs of abating, with President Donald Trump accusing China of devaluing its currency.
Not everyone sees emerging markets as particularly vulnerable. Hideo Shimomura, chief fund manager of Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management in Tokyo, says that decoupling between the developed world’s credit cycle and that of developing nations could help. Rather than emerging nations with solid growth prospects such as in Southeast Asia and eastern Europe, investors may choose to exit developed-world credit markets, he said.
Countries with large current-account deficits — making them reliant on inflows of foreign funds — and those offering little by way of premium may face the biggest tests if global strains develop.
“We are less constructive on select Asian currencies where we are concerned about valuations — such as in Taiwan and Thailand — and where we see less of a rates cushion in terms of spreads to compensate for higher yields,” says Jens Nystedt, a senior portfolio manager in New York at Emso Asset Management, which oversees $6.2 billion. “We continue to see value in Brazilian, Mexican, South African and Colombian local-currency bonds, including often the FX exposure.” — Bloomberg

Netflix surges as users stay loyal despite higher prices

Netflix Inc. used to worry it would alienate customers by raising prices for its streaming service. Not any more.
The company posted its strongest subscriber growth since going public 16 years ago, despite raising prices for most of its customers over the past several months. Los Gatos, California-based Netflix added 7.41 million users in the first quarter of the year, according to a statement Monday, easily topping analysts’ projections.
The results, including higher earnings and an upbeat forecast, were welcome news to investors. Netflix rose as much as 7.5 percent to $331 in early trading Tuesday. The stock was up 60 percent this year at Monday’s close in New York.
Raising prices enabled Netflix to boost sales 40 percent last quarter and quiet investors who fret about all the money the company spends on original series and movies. Netflix will spend $7.5 billion to $8 billion on programming this year to lure more customers to its online TV network, which now boasts 125 million subscribers worldwide.
“You have to earn it by doing spectacular content,” Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings said on a call with investors. “If you do that, you can get people to pay more because then we can invest.”
Hastings hasn’t forgotten when a price increase almost took down the company. The stock stock price fell precipitously and subscribers canceled over a few months in 2011 after the company split its streaming service from its DVD-by-mail service, a move that amounted to a 60 percent price increase for customers who wanted to keep both.
Forgive, Forget
Yet a growing segment of the population forgave and forgot, replacing live TV services with Netflix’s on-demand library, even as the company’s average U.S. subscription price rose 12 percent in the past year. The popularity of the service surged in the U.S. once Netflix began funding original series, such as “House of Cards” and “Orange Is the New Black.”
The production pipeline has since increased to levels that rival the world’s largest media companies. Netflix will release about 700 original pieces of programming this year, including about 80 movies (more than any studio), more than one stand-up special a week and as many unscripted series as any U.S. cable network.
Worth just $20 billion at the end of 2014, when it had only released a handful of original shows, Netflix will likely surpass $140 billion in market value when trading opens Tuesday. Chief content officer Ted Sarandos has used the company’s rise to lure some of the top creative minds from rival studios.
In February, producer Ryan Murphy agreed to leave 21st Century Fox Inc., where he made “American Horror Story,” for a deal at Netflix worth a reported $300 million. Earlier, the company signed “Scandal” producer Shonda Rhimes, who left her long-time home at Walt Disney Co.’s ABC to make shows exclusively for Netflix.
More In-House
Netflix has told investors it will save money by bringing development and production in-house and avoiding the markups imposed by rival studios. But spending is still growing as the company expands production in areas like film, unscripted series and kids programming. In the last quarter, the company released the documentary miniseries “Wild, Wild Country,” the second season of the Marvel comic series “Jessica Jones” and the horror film “The Cloverfield Paradox.”
Total streaming content obligations grew to $17.9 billion in the first quarter, from $17.7 billion three months earlier, and that doesn’t account for the ballooning budget to market shows. While Netflix reports a profit, its cash flow last quarter was a negative $287 million, and investors will be paying close attention to whether the company plans to take on more debt, as it has every year since it started releasing original programming several years ago.
Netflix has allayed concerns about its cash burn by continuing to add subscribers. On Monday, the company said it aims to add another 6.2 million subscribers in the second quarter. The company is also forecasting a further 41 percent increase in revenue this quarter, to $3.93 billion, and said profit would rise to 79 cents a share, both topping Wall Street estimates.
This growing output justifies price increases, Netflix says. While $9.99 a month made sense when Netflix was making about as many shows as HBO, which costs more than that, the company can now offer customers as many new shows as several cable networks put together. — Bloomberg

Russia sanctions throw global aluminum supply chain into chaos

The U.S. sanctions on United Co. Rusal that have sent aluminum prices surging should be great news for rival producers like Rio Tinto Group.
Spoiler alert: they’re not.
While Rio is the top miner of bauxite, the raw material that becomes aluminum, it’s dependent on Rusal for a key intermediate step in the process — the conversion of bauxite into alumina. Rusal’s refining operations, which stretch from its Aughinish plant in Ireland to operations in Jamaica, are a vital cog in a global interlocking supply chain that’s now been thrown into chaos.
As producers like Rio hunt for new buyers for their bauxite and sources of alumina to feed smelters, the global chokepoint created by the sanctions means that many of the miners, refiners and smelters that should be benefiting from surging prices are actually facing challenges just to keep their operations running. For aluminum smelters, suspending operations is a worst-case scenario and restarting is very expensive.
Rio, the world’s second-largest aluminum producer outside China after Rusal itself, is evaluating what shipments or supplies it can reroute and assessing its stockpiles, according to a person familiar with the situation. The company may even have to mothball some plants if supplies can’t be found, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private.
“The market will remain very tight while long-term buyers of Aughinish look for potential solutions,” said Anthony Everiss, a senior consultant at CRU Group. “It’s a pretty nightmarish scenario for them. There’s not that much on offer in the Atlantic to fill that gap.”
Alumina prices have already rocketed, jumping by more than a quarter in the last week and heading for a record high. Prices have been driven higher by a combination of the sanctions on Rusal, which was said to have declared force majeure on some shipments of the commodity Thursday, and production cuts at Norsk Hydro ASA’s giant Alunorte alumina refinery in Brazil, the world’s biggest. Force majeure allows contracts to be left unfulfilled.
Alunorte has been running at 50 percent since a late-February court order amid accusations that a rainstorm led to contamination of an Amazonian river, and any change in its output levels will be key for the global market.
India’s state-owned National Aluminium Co. is already seeing the benefit. The producer said it sold a 30,000-metric-ton cargo of alumina in a tender last week at $601 a ton, the most it’s sold a shipment for in 12 years. That’s enough to make 15,000 tons of aluminum.
Rio said Friday it was declaring force majeure on some contracts, essentially warning that it would no longer be able to sell bauxite to Rusal or buy alumina from it. Rio also alerted some customers that it would no longer be able to fill some aluminum commitments. The company said the supply contracts the force majeure applies to are not financially material.
At the center of Europe’s supply problems is the Aughinish alumina refinery on the banks of the Shannon Estuary, a short drive from the western Ireland city of Limerick. The Rusal plant buys bauxite that Rio mines in Guinea and sells to smelters across Europe. Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar met management of the plant over the weekend, according to local media reports.
Rio is not the only aluminum maker that’s been thrown into chaos. Producers around the world are now scrambling to find enough feedstocks. Liberty House, which bought a plant from Rio in Scotland in 2016, gets some supply from Rusal’s Irish plant. It’s also in the process of buying Rio’s Dunkerque plant in France, Europe’s biggest.
Contingency Plans
Liberty House is currently working on its own contingency plans to supply alumina for its Scotland plant, according to a person familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified.
“In common with other producers we are reviewing the situation in the international aluminum supply chain but have no comment to make at this point,” Liberty House said. “We will update as and when appropriate. In the meantime it is business as usual.”
While Rusal makes most of its aluminum in Russia, its alumina plants are more internationally spread, making them more vulnerable to the sanctions. The company refines almost two-thirds of its alumina outside of Russia and can refine 1.2 million tons of alumina at its Jamaica refinery and 2 million tons in Ireland. Other operations are in Ukraine and Australia.
“Rusal’s international operations are of significant importance to the aluminum supply chain,” said Mark Hansen, chief executive of metals trader Concord Resources Ltd. “With the alumina market already running tight, the situation has now become acute in the short term.” — Bloomberg

BI detains, releases Australian nun amid furor

THE Bureau of Immigration (BI) on Tuesday released Australian nun Patricia Fox a day after she was ordered detained by BI Commissioner Jaime H. Morente for “violat(ing) the conditions of her stay by engaging in political activities and anti-government demonstrations,” according to a statement by the agency.
Mr. Morente acted upon the recommendation of the BI legal division and released Ms. Fox “for further investigation after it was established that the Australian nun holds a valid missionary visa and, thus, she is a properly documented alien,” the statement said.
Opposition groups Gabriela Women’s Party and Makabayan Bloc condemned the detention, with Gabriela Representative Emmi de Jesus saying in a press statement, “Sister Patricia was arrested and detained for merely participating in a recent international fact-finding and solidarity mission on the rights abuses in Mindanao. This can be a very loose pretext by the Duterte regime for nabbing anyone who stands up for human rights and against the attacks on civil liberties.”
Senator Nancy Binay-Angeles on Tuesday said the BI should focus on going after terrorists and drug syndicates entering the country, instead of exerting “excessive use of authority” over the 71-year-old Australian missionary.
“How can a 71-year-old nun be a threat to society? Sister Patricia has been helping farmers, lumad (indigenous peoples), and those in the marginalized sector of society,” said the senator, who heads the Senate committee on social justice, welfare, and rural development.
For his part, Senator Francis N. Pangilinan pointed out the arrest came after European Union Socialist Party official Giacomo Filibeck was barred from attending a local conference and later deported for being in BI’s black list.
“The emerging trend on crackdown against foreign activists in the country is alarming as exhibited by the harassment and casual arrests of the two human rights advocates, who were not even in protest activities or rallies when taken into custody,” he said in a statement.
“These incidents will trigger more questions on what the government is trying to conceal,” he added.
The BI pointed out in their two-page recommendation that “while Fox was alleged to have taken part in protest actions by farmers in the past, she was not doing so at the time when BI operatives served her the mission order Tuesday, Apr. 17.”
Ms. Fox is to “undergo preliminary investigation to determine if deportation charges should be filed against her before the bureau’s board of commissioners,” the recommendation read.
When sought for comment on Ms. Fox’s detention, Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra told reporters, “sister Patricia’s case has nothing to do with her being a nun, nor with her personal advocacies but like any other foreigner enjoying the privilege of staying in our country, she has to obey and comply with our laws.” — Dane Angelo M. Enerio and Camille A. Aguinaldo

Boracay stakeholders still in the dark as closure nears

STAKEHOLDERS gathered in a Department of Tourism (DoT)–organized Save Boracay Workshop, nine days before the country’s premier tourist destination will be shut down by the national government on orders of President Rodrigo Duterte, remain in a quandary as to exactly what will happen to their businesses and their employees.
“The only thing that we’re dead certain about is that we will shut down our businesses for half a year, and we don’t know exactly how to take care of our workers,” said Nenet Graf, president of Boracay Foundation Inc. (BFI).
“We’re wracking our brains trying to figure out where to get the money to pay them for six months because DoLE (Department of Labor and Employment), we understand, does not want us to close our businesses, and we’re being asked to pay regular wages for the duration of the island shutdown,” said Ms. Graf, sounding exasperated.
Ms. Graf — a native of Boracay and an internationally recognized windsurfer, along with a handful of stakeholders who include resort and restaurant owners, representatives of indigenous peoples living on the island, tour operators and the like came to the workshop meeting at the Savoy Hotel at Megaworld’s Newcoast development at the northernmost tip of Boracay, thinking they would be able to get shutdown guidelines more clear-cut than what had partially been released earlier by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).
As it turns out, of the nine agencies and two local government units (LGUs) represented in Tuesday, Apr. 17 meeting, only one — the Metro Boracay Task Force led by Police Regional Office 6 (PRO 6) director, Chief Superintendent Cesar Hawthorne Binag — gave a pretty clear idea about how secure Boracay will be for the duration of the island’s six-month period of rehabilitation.
Armed security forces on the island have been beefed up to a total 630 personnel, including those with the Coast Guard, and those deployed at the jetty port terminal in Caticlan, gateway to Boracay Island, and the Cagban ferry terminal in Boracay to ensure that the Department of Interior and Local Government’s no-ID, no-entry policy is effected. The existing local island police force has also been augmented by 138 more uniformed personnel to make sure, according to Mr. Binag, that “we would be able to undertake crowd dispersal management action, if need be.”
The Task Force comprises 126 personnel from Aklan Police Provincial Office; 300 from Metro Boracay Task Force/Boracay Sub-Station; 4 from the Regional Civil Security Unit 6 (RCSU6); 13 from Aklan Provincial Highway Patrol Unit (HPU); 1 from Aklan Provincial Criminal Investigation and Detective Team (CIDT) and 166 augmentation personnel who will compose the provisionary company.
Basically, the only other guidelines presented to stakeholders during Tuesday, Apr. 17 meeting were those that had already earlier been issued by the DILG: no tourists allowed on Boracay, with those attempting to get in stopped at the Caticlan Jetty Port; no ID, no entry with only those residents who could present an ID card indicating residential address in Boracay allowed in. Government-issued ID bearers will be allowed, as well as those with non-government IDs, for as long as these are accompanied by Boracay barangay certification.
Only residents are allowed to swim, and only in the Angol area which locals here refer to as Station 3, and only between 6 a.m. until 5 p.m.
No visitors of Boracay residents will be allowed entry unless in an emergency and only if they are cleared by the Boracay Security Committee comprised of a DILG representative, the police, and local government officials. Journalists wanting to cover activities on Boracay during the shutdown period must get prior approval from the Department of Tourism and they must specify a definite duration and will be limited only to certain areas.
There will be no floating structures — ships, bancas, jetskis, and the like — allowed up to 15 kilometers from the shoreline.
Foreign residents of Boracay will have their immigration papers revalidated by the Bureau of Immigration. Also there will only be one entry, one exit point to and from the island, and where these points are have yet to be decided by ‘”authorities.”
Elena Bruegger, president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry–Boracay (PCCI-Boracay), thought that she and other stakeholders remain virtually in the dark about many things. She recalled that the Malay local government unit had presented a six–month plan to rehabilitate the island since the President had expressed his dismay about Boracay being a “cesspool.”
“I believe that plan can be implemented and we in the private sector here would like to see how we can help in the rehab plan for the island. However, I think everyone in this room is looking for a long-term sustainable solution. What happens after the six months is over? And will six months be enough to really fix up the island’s drainage, sewage, road widening, clean up and other problems?” she said.
Ms. Bruegger, who has for years been involved in the luxe house rental business in Boracay, said, “resorts and hotels have received many cancelled reservations and bookings; we have yet to have a clearer picture as to how much income will be lost in the six months shutdown.”
At the start of the meeting Tuesday, Apr. 17, DOT Region 6 Director Helen Catalbas said the main purpose of the gathering was to secure the commitment of both pertinent agencies, the local government units and the stakeholders to fully cooperate with and support the national government’s efforts in rehabilitating Boracay.
“For as long as we’re told clearly how we could help, how the national government intends to assist us with our employees who will be out of work, for as long as we are clearly guided properly, there is no question, we will help. But tell us how exactly,” Ms. Bruegger said. — Teodoro Y. Montelibano

Filipino journalist, others win Pulitzer for drug-war coverage

FOR THEIR COVERAGE on the Philippines’ drug war, Filipino journalist Manuel Mogato and his Reuters colleagues Clare Baldwin and Andrew R.C. Marshall are among this year’s Pulitzer Prize winners, as announced by the esteemed awarding body on its Web site.
The Reuters journalists won for international reporting while its photography staff won in their category for documenting the Rohingya refugee crisis in Myanmar and Bangladesh. It was the first time Reuters has won two prizes in one year.
Mr. Mogato and his colleagues were recognized for exposing the methods of police killing squads in Philippine President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s war on drugs. The said journalists “demonstrated how police in the President’s ‘drug war’ have killed with impunity and consistently been shielded from prosecution,” Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen J. Adler said.
The coverage included a report that revealed how a police anti-drug squad on the outskirts of Manila had recorded an unusually high number of killings. Many members of the squad came from a distant place that was also Mr. Duterte’s hometown, where the campaign’s brutal methods originated during his time as mayor there.
The Pulitzers are not a new distinction in Philippine journalism. In 1941, journalist Carlos P. Romulo, who thereafter became distinguished in diplomacy, won a Pulitzer for distinguished newspaper correspondence, according to an entry on Mr. Romulo in the Encyclopedia International.
Malacañang congratulated Mr. Mogato for his citation but also defended the drug war as a “legitimate” operation.
The Reuters photography staff was honored for images of the violence endured by the Rohingya, a Muslim minority, as they fled Myanmar for Bangladesh. “The extraordinary photography of the mass exodus of the Rohingya people to Bangladesh demonstrates not only the human cost of conflict but also the essential role photojournalism can play in revealing it,” Mr. Adler said.
Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo have been jailed in Myanmar since Dec. 12, charged under the colonial-era Official Secrets Act, while investigating the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men in Rakhine state.
In the United States, major media took other Pulitzers for reporting that shaped the political and cultural agenda. The New York Times and the New Yorker magazine shared the honor for public service for their reporting on sexual harassment allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
The Washington Post won the investigative reporting prize for breaking the story that the Alabama US Senate candidate Roy Moore had a history of courting teenage girls. The Moore report came as stories of men abusing their power over women abounded, contributing to changing public attitudes. Moore, a Republican backed by President Donald Trump, had been favored to win the special election but lost to Democrat Doug Jones.
The Times and the Washington Post shared the honor for national reporting for their coverage of the investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 US presidential election.
The Pulitzers have been awarded since 1917, after being established in the will of newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer. The 17-member Pulitzer board is made up of past winners and other distinguished journalists and academics. It chose the winners in 14 journalism categories plus seven that recognize fiction, drama, history, biography, poetry, general nonfiction and music.
Kendrick Lamar became the first rapper to win a Pulitzer Prize, taking the music award for his album DAMN. — main report by Reuters

SWS: Net satisfaction drops for top officials

TOP OFFICIALS of the government had an overall decline in net satisfaction in the first quarter of 2018, with House Speaker Pantaleon D. Alvarez and Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes P.A. Sereno posting a personal record low in their ratings, according to the Social Weather Stations.
Vice-President Ma. Leonor G. Robredo had a net satisfaction of +34 in the First Quarter 2018 Social Weather Survey — a decline of eight percentage points from her +42 last December but still within the “good” range.
Senate President Aquilino Martin L. Pimentel III also had an eight-point decline to +41, also still within the “good” range.
(SWS terminology for Net Satisfaction Ratings is as follows: +70 and above, “excellent”; +50 to +69, “very good”; +30 to +49, “good”; +10 to +29, “moderate”, +9 to -9, “neutral”; -10 to -29, “poor”; -30 to -49, “bad”; -50 to -69, “very bad”; -70 and below, “execrable.”)
On the other hand, Mr. Alvarez’s net satisfaction dropped 13 points from “moderate” to “neutral” at +1, while Ms. Sereno dropped from +6 last December to -7 in March, if still staying in “neutral” territory.
Ms. Robredo’s eight-point decline was due to decreases of 21 points in Mindanao, 8 points in the Visayas, and 4 points in Balance Luzon, combined with a 1-point increase in Metro Manila, SWS said.
Pimentel’s eight-point decline was due to decreases of 24 points in Mindanao, 10 points in the Visayas, and 2 points in Balance Luzon, combined with a 2- point increase in Metro Manila.
Mr. Alvarez’s drop was due to decreases of 28 points in Mindanao, 12 points in the Visayas, and 10 points in Balance Luzon, combined with a 3-point increase in Metro Manila.
And Ms. Sereno’s drop, also by 13 points, was due to decreases of 27 points in Mindanao, 13 points in the Visayas, 11 points in Balance Luzon, and 3 points in Metro Manila.
The noncommissioned survey was conducted from March 23-27, using face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults (18 years old and above) nationwide: 300 each in Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, with sampling error margins of ±3% for national percentages and ±6% each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

China economic growth shored up by consumption as industry eases

China’s economic expansion held up amid robust consumer spending, underpinning global growth and giving authorities room to purge excessive borrowing, while the industrial sector showed signs of modest slowdown.
Gross domestic product grew 6.8% in the first quarter from year earlier, matching both the previous quarter’s pace and projections in a Bloomberg survey Retail sales increased 10.1% in March from a year earlier, vs a forecast of 9.7% Industrial production rose 6.0% last month; forecast 6.3% Fixed-asset investment climbed 7.5% in the quarter A new urban surveyed-jobless rate stood at 5.1% at end-March
Steady growth offers support for President Xi Jinping’s mission to shore up financial stability, one of Beijing’s top goals along with reducing poverty and curbing pollution. The robust pace of expansion is a tailwind for the global economy which is seen maintaining its solid performance this year, providing needed support in the form of strong demand for China’s exports.
“The picture is pretty robust,” Cui Li, head of macro research at CCB International Holdings Ltd. in Hong Kong, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “Consumption is very strong, so that’s in line with the rebalancing story.”
What our economists say The steady expansion in GDP shows the economy shaking off threats from deleveraging and protectionism, according to a note from Bloomberg economists Tom Orlik and Fielding Chen. “Even so, a lower reading for nominal growth is a warning sign that the industrial reflation cycle that drove profits higher and made debt repayment more manageable in 2017 is turning down.”
Retail is getting a lift from online sales, which rose 35.4 percent in the first quarter. Another driver of activity was investment in environmental protection and cleanup, which surged 34.2 percent on year in the first quarter, according to the statistics bureau.
People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gang last week said economic indicators performed better than expected in the first quarter amid continued improvement in the global outlook.
Industrial output by the mining sector decreased 1.1 percent in March, compared with a 0.9 percent drop in December, while output for power supply increased 5.8 percent, less than the 8.2 percent increase in December.
“March data point to nascent signs of a growth slowdown underway, led by old economy sectors,” said Rob Subbaraman, chief economist for Asia ex-Japan at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Singapore. “We don’t expect growth in new economy sectors to fully offset the slowdown in the old, heavily-indebted sectors of the economy in the quarters ahead. This is a necessary adjustment to improve the quality of China’s growth.”
Headwinds may strengthen in coming months should Xi’s so-called critical battles against financial risk and pollution bite deeper or if trade tensions with the U.S. intensify. Property and infrastructure activity will weaken in the second half of this year, though manufacturing investment, solid consumption and strong external demand will cushion the impact, says UBS Group AG.
“This shows us that China can attain the growth target easily in 2018 even with slightly slower expansion in the second half,” said Raymond Yeung, chief greater China economist for Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Hong Kong. “It provides a good window to address some structural issues, especially deleveraging.” — Bloomberg

Nationwide Round-Up

Gov’t exploring “creative” ways to deal with communist groups

THE GOVERNMENT is looking at more “creative” ways to deal with the country’s communist groups, according to Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus G. Dureza, as it prepares to resume peace talks alongside the signing of a ceasefire deal. “The key is to find an ‘alternative route’… You can’t kill an idea. You have to address the root cause why they are rebelling,” Mr. Dureza said during the Annual Plenary Session of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines held in Davao City on Monday. He pointed out that “proposals for capitulation or surrender should not be brought up during the negotiations” with the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF), despite the President’s specific order to “forge a ceasefire agreement” alongside the resumption of peace talks. “We must work peace by piece,” he said, citing the example of the government-Moro Islamic Liberation Front peace process in which the Bangsamoro Development Agency was established even while the peace negotiations was ongoing. Mr. Dureza said they are working to find a “convergence point” in which both groups “can meet halfway.” — Mindanao Bureau

Changing of the AFP guard set today

GENERAL REY Leonardo B. Guerrero steps down today, April 18, as chief-of-staff of the 125,000-strong Armed Forces of the Philippines after 34 years in military service. Mr. Guerrero is set to turn over the leadership to newly-appointed Lieutenant General Carlito G. Galvez, former commander of the Western Mindanao Command, in a Change of Command Ceremony in Camp Aguinaldo. Mr. Guerrero, a member of Philippine Military Academy “Maharlika” Class of 1984, is also set to be honored with a testimonial parade and review and the prestigious award of the Philippine Legion of Honor (Rank of Commander). — Minde Nyl R. dela Cruz

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