CHINA CUTS RATES

The People's Bank of China just cut interest rates to combat the country's slowing economic growth and sluggish inflation.

The reserve requirement ratio (RRR) was cut by 0.5 points.

That brings the requirement, which is an important measure of how much money Chinese banks are able to lend, to 17.5%. Cuts to the RRR are designed to free up the banking system to lend more.

There's a good explainer on that here, from FT Alphaville.

The benchmark interest rate was cut by 0.25%, bringing it down from 4.6% to 4.35%.

More on this as the story develops.