China rattles the world

China's move to a new currency regime, effectively devaluing the yuan by almost 2% in a day.

"Forget Greece," says Elliot Wilson in The Spectator. China's devaluation last week and the consequent jitters in global markets "could be the biggest financial story of the year". Last week China moved to a new currency regime, effectively devaluing the yuan by almost 2% in a day. By the middle of this week, the yuan had fallen by 3%.

As the yuan's descent steadied, fears of a new currency war with countries across the region racing to weaken their currencies, driving down prices, inflation and profits worldwide have receded. The offshore yuan, which is accessible to foreigners and so a better barometer of the currency's value, has only fallen by around 3.5% since the devaluation.Yet other markets remain unsettled.

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Andrew Van Sickle
Editor, MoneyWeek

Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.