After completing their first official talks since 1999, China and Taiwan will open the first permanent offices in each other’s capitals and begin direct weekend passenger flights between their territories. The agreement is a positive step that will bring the two contentious regions closer together both politically and economically.

China is the new Germany. At the end of the Second World War, Germany was an “emerging market.” It was industrializing rapidly and producing brisk economic growth.

A stalling U.S. economy has typically been a cause for a concern among Asian exporters, which have traditionally been over-reliant on the American consumer for business.

In April 2007, the stock market of the tiny island nation of Taiwan had just about everything going for it.

It’s hard to believe that summer’s heat (and hurricane season) is almost here. As the calendar turns to another month it’s often quite interesting to take a look back at the past month to see which trends may be in for a switch. One phrase comes to mind that perfectly sums up April’s market action: A reversal of fortune!

Investors have pulled $98 billion out of equity funds in the first quarter of 2008, according to Emerging Portfolio Fund Research (EPFR).

The Financial Times  describing the outflow of cash as “a record shift that accelerates a longer-term trend away from US and western European stock markets” caused by the credit crisis and subprime mess in the US.

“The outflows also accelerate a trend for investors to put their money either in ultra-safe cash options such as money market funds, or into riskier markets and high-fee products such as hedge funds,” according to the report. “They are abandoning the middle ground of mainstream equity and fixed income funds, especially in the developed markets.”

Investors pulled $70bn from US, Japan and Western Europe funds…

A disaster waiting to happen. This is how legendary bond investor Bill Gross and the richest man in the world, Warren Buffett, have described the $516 derivatives bubble.

According to a report by Dow Jones MarketWatch: “Not only Warren Buffett, but Bond King Bill Gross, our Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the rest of America’s leaders can’t ‘figure out’ the world’s $516 trillion derivatives.”

The news from European and Asian markets is grim today.

“European shares have followed the lead from Asia and fallen in early trading, reports the BBC, “with investors troubled by signs that the US housing market is deteriorating.”

London’s FTSE 100, Frankfurt’s Dax and the Paris Cac 40 all fell by just over 1% in morning trade.