Wednesday Morning Reads

Economy

As widely expected, the Bank of Japan held interest rates steady, though the move showed a long-awaited exit from loose monetary policy may be a ways off yet. It kept short-term rates at -0.1% with long-term rates closer to zero, and cut its core consumer inflation forecast to 0.9% from 1.4%. That news followed weak export data showing exports dropping by 3.8%, the most in two years; imports grew just 1.9% vs. an expected 3.7%.

Finance ministry officials said China will increase its fiscal spending in 2019 to offset last year's turbulence from the US-China trade tensions. Growth last year was the lowest in nearly three decades while fiscal spending rose 9% to 22.1T yuan. China could cut taxes and small firm fees.

EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici told Davos the risk of a no-deal Brexit has increased in recent weeks. Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29. Moscovici said the EU is ready but that no one wants a no-deal exit.

Stocks

Bloomberg reported that the U.S. Federal Reserve is probing Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB) for potential money laundering. The investigation relates to the $227B in suspicious payments Deutsche made through its Estonian branch between 2007 and 2015. Deutsche denied the Fed probe but admitted to providing information to regulators and law enforcement around the world.

Chip equipment maker ASML (NASDAQ:ASML) reported Q4 results that beat revenue estimates but forecasted a soft Q1 on delayed customer orders. The report followed warnings from Samsung (OTC:SSNLF) and TSMC (NYSE:TSM) that memory chip prices were weak due to the lower high-end smartphone demand. ASML expects revenue and margins to pick up in the second half of the year.

A year that brought new levels of regulatory scrutiny spurred Google (GOOG, GOOGL), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) to new heights of lobbying spending -- $21M, $13M and $14.2M respectively. That spending ramped up during the year's last quarter, a period that saw tech firms' representatives hauled before Congress to answer concerns about user privacy amid newsmaking scandals about data usage.

Apple could launch its new AirPods in the first half of 2019, according to Digitimes supply chain sources. The earbuds would come over two years after the last model and could include health monitoring features. The supply chain details roughly align with a previous Bloomberg report that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) was testing biometric features in the wearables.

Chinese regulators took down 733 websites in the latest round of content crackdowns. The Cyberspace Administration of China singled out Tencent's news product as "vulgar and low-brow content that was harmful and damaging to the internet ecosystem." Tencent's (OTCPK:TCEHY) sales suffered in 2018 as regulators tightened approvals for game content.