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Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day

Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day

Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day
U.S. President Donald Trump, then the 2016 Republican presidential nominee, points to the audience after speaking at a campaign rally in Selma, North Carolina, U.S. (Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) --

U.S. President Donald Trump unleashes a list of global grievances at the United Nations, and India cuts imports of Iranian oil to zero. Here are some of the things people in markets are talking about.

Trump Takes on the UN

President Donald Trump reasserted his “America First” perspective in his address to the United Nations on Tuesday, chastising regimes in Iran and Venezuela and offering a blunt rejection of the multilateral underpinnings of the very body he addressed. Nearing the two-year point in his administration, Trump’s UN speech illustrated how the U.S. president continues to grapple with his place on the world stage, and that world leaders remain largely befuddled by him. He criticized U.S. ally Germany for its energy ties to Russia, drawing puzzled looks from the German delegation, and insisted that other countries must respect U.S. sovereignty before urging them to reject socialism. The speech was largely a sedate, 34-minute bill of grievances against the world, with only a select few countries receiving Trump’s praise -- notably North Korea, the formerly “depraved regime” that was the villain of his 2017 speech to the same audience.

India Not Seeking Iranian Oil

India is not planning to buy any crude oil from Iran in November, raising the prospect that Tehran will lose another major customer as U.S. sanctions hit. Indian Oil Corp. and Bharat Petroleum Corp. haven’t asked for any Iranian cargoes for loading in November, according to officials at the companies. Nayara Energy also doesn’t plan any purchases, said an industry executive. Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. hasn’t made any nominations for that month, but may do so later, a company official said. In Trump’s speech at the United Nations, he attacked Iranian leaders and defended the U.S.’s exit from the nations’ nuclear deal.

Philippines Set Hawkish Course

The Philippine central bank will continue to tighten monetary policy and is ready to use all tools including currency interventions to contain high inflation and reduce peso volatility, its deputy governor said. While there’s little evidence of overheating in the economy, supply shocks in foodstuffs such as rice and fish as well as higher oil prices are driving price growth, Diwa Guinigundo of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said in an interview in London. A weaker peso and typhoons that damaged crop output have exacerbated the problem, he said.

Trade-Talks Stalled

China said it’s open to talking on the trade dispute, but it needs the U.S. to show sincerity and not put a knife at Beijing’s throat, according to a top official. The U.S. trade restrictions are responsible for the stalled talks and any resumption is up to them, Wang Shouwen, China’s vice commerce minister, said. The two sides had previously reached some consensus in four rounds of talks, and Beijing has no idea why the U.S. went back on what they’d agreed, he told reporters on Tuesday.

Mt. Gox Wind Down

The trustee liquidating cryptocurrencies on behalf of defunct exchange Mt. Gox has offloaded another 25.98 billion yen ($230 million) of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. The disposals were made in the period since the 10th creditors meeting was held on March 7, Nobuaki Kobayashi said in a statement on Tuesday. The total compares with 43 billion yen in the prior round of sales, which the bankruptcy attorney announced six months ago. Digital coin investors closely follow the moves of Kobayashi, who is known in crypto circles as the “Tokyo whale” because of the heap of tokens he controls.

What we’ve been reading

This is what caught our eye over the last 24 hours.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Boris Korby at bkorby1@bloomberg.net

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