12-month rolling net sales of U.S. Treasury bonds by China
The yuan is likely to fall in 2019, moving beyond seven to the dollar and ending the year at around 7.1, according to J.P. Morgan economists and strategists, driven largely by the trade dispute with the U.S. The strategists expect China’s foreign-exchange reserves to shrink moderately, from $3.04 trillion at the end of this year to $2.89 trillion at the end of 2019.
Other analysts agree that the yuan will break past seven to the greenback; Daiwa Capital Markets, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs expect the currency to pass that level at some point in the next year.
Mr. Guo drew scrutiny from Beijing in 2017 after he launched a high-stakes social media campaign alleging wrongdoing and corruption by China’s political and business elites. Beijing declared Mr. Guo a criminal suspect and requested an Interpol arrest notice against him, while Mr. Guo applied for asylum in the U.S., making him a flashpoint in China-U.S. relations.
Mr. Guo became a target of Mr. Stone’s a few months after launching his campaign, according to the lawsuit. In an interview last month Mr. Guo claimed that Mr. Stone was paid to make the defamatory remarks about him on InfoWars. He said the payment ultimately came from a Chinese-American media tycoon named Bruno Wu, whom Mr. Guo previously accused of being a spy for the Chinese government. Mr. Wu has filed a defamation lawsuit against Mr. Guo for these and other claims.
Mr. Stone’s settlement identifies Mr. Wu as “the apparent source of the information” about Mr. Guo and says it was conveyed to him by a former member of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign.
Mr. Stone said he should not have relied on the former staffer, Sam Nunberg, for the information. Both Mr. Nunberg and Mr. Wu declined to comment.
