4.28am BST

A catch-up of this morning’s choppy activity, via Reuters:

Asian stocks fell on Wednesday as investors feared fresh rate cuts in China would not be enough stabilise its cooling economy or halt a collapse in its stock markets.

China’s key share indexes attempted to move higher several times in early trade only to be slapped back by waves of selling, reflecting investors’ views that much more support was needed from the government and the central bank.

In a sign of how fearful investors have become of risky assets, US stock index futures resumed their descent in early Asian trade with the US S&P 500 mini futures down 0.4%, nearing Monday’s 10-month low of 1,831.

Overnight, major US stock indexes shot up after China’s policy easing but later gave up all their gains, with the S&P 500 ending down 1.4%.

4.14am BST

Glenn Stevens, governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, has been speaking at an economic reform summit in Sydney – also attended by treasurer Joe Hockey; see here – about the country’s economic growth issues, AAP reports.

Stevens said that despite record low interest rates and business and consumer confidence staying around average, economic growth has not been able to get to 3%.

It may be that potential growth is a bit lower than we used to think, though I don’t think we can know whether that is so at present.

The fiscal policy debate, usually framed as ‘when will we get back to surplus?’ is actually about ‘how do we get more growth?’

The kind of growth we want won’t be delivered just by central bank adjustments to interest rates or short-term fiscal initiatives that bring forward demand from next year, only to have to give it back then.

A key question worth asking is ‘how do we generate more growth?’ Not temporary, flash-in-the-pan growth, but sustainable growth.

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS