“The Chinese are beginning to realize that property prices can go down as well as up and this is going to be a very, very troubling development for the Chinese property market,” Chanos, president and founder of $6 billion hedge fund Kynikos Associates Ltd., said in a Bloomberg Television interview from Singapore with Susan Li today. 

Perhaps by raising the ceiling of EUR/CHF once again to 1.30, albeit still a level deemed too strong for the CHF, they could trigger more broad based CHF selling, e.g. via the USD cross towards parity. 

If and when such private sector spending is successfully reinitiated, the US could be on its way towards more sustainable economic recovery. 

For the year 2011 as a whole, prices of non-landed properties increased by 4.0 per cent in CCR, 4.5 per cent in RCR and 7.7 per cent in OCR, compared with 14.2 per cent, 17.6 per cent and 15.0 per cent respectively in 2010. 

New Zealand consumer prices unexpectedly fell in the fourth quarter, according to a report on Jan. 19. Prices rose 1.8 percent in the year ended Dec. 31, less than the midpoint of the 1 percent to 3 percent range Bollard is required to target. 

Japan’s first annual trade gap since 1980, driven by an energy-import surge as nuclear plants shut down and by a shift of manufacturing overseas, threatens to undermine the nation’s status as the world’s largest creditor.