After falling sharply in recent days, especially yesterday after the disappointing jobs data, the US dollar is broadly higher today, with the yen the main exception. It has strengthened by almost 1% today. Many are attributing the price action to news that the five largest Chinese banks tripled the bad loans written off in the first half of the year to CNY22.1 bln (~$3.65 bln). Yet, tellingly and importantly, the Chinese banks had already made the provisions and thus did not, reportedly, impact the record profits (~$76 bln) in H1. There is some speculation that this is a precursor to a wave of defaults, but in itself ... (full story)