World markets kicked off November in an upbeat mood, riffing off buoyant company earnings and calmer trade relations while batting away OPEC's planned end to output hikes and this week's Supreme Court hearing on President Donald Trump's tariffs. Following last week's meeting between Trump and China's President Xi Jinping in South Korea, the White House announced Saturday that China would lift export controls on rare earths and end probes into U.S. chip firms. But Trump said AI giant Nvidia's most advanced chips would be reserved for U.S. companies and kept out of China and other...
British retail sales volumes recorded their sharpest drop since December 2023 last month, as demand fell after shoppers splurged on food, summer clothes and home improvements the month before, official figures showed on Friday. Retail sales volumes dropped by 2.7% in May, the Office for National Statistics said, a much sharper decline than the median forecast of 0.5% in a Reuters poll. Sales volumes were also 1.3% lower than a year earlier, the biggest annual drop since April 2024 and well below a Reuters poll forecast for 1.7% annual sales growth. The monthly decline was mainly due to...
Japan's National Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 3.5% YoY in May, compared to the previous reading of 3.6%, according to the latest data released by the Statistics Bureau of Japan on Friday. Further details revealed that the National CPI ex Fresh Food came in at 3.7% YoY in May compared to 3.5% previously. The reading was above market consensus of 3.6%. CPI ex Fresh Food, Energy rose 3.3% YoY in May, compared to the previous reading of 3.0%.(alg) Source: FXstreet
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that the change or fall of Iran's leadership was not a goal of Israel's attacks but could be a result. "The matter of changing the regime or the fall of this regime is first and foremost a matter for the Iranian people. There is no substitute for this. "And that's why I didn't present it as a goal. It could be a result, but it's not a stated or formal goal that we have," Netanyahu said in an interview with Israel's Kan public television. He said Israel had the power to remove all of Iran's nuclear facilities, whether U.S. President Donald...
President Donald Trump will decide in the next two weeks whether the U.S. will get involved in the Israel-Iran air war, the White House said on Thursday, raising pressure on Tehran to come to the negotiating table. Citing a message from Trump, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters: "Based on the fact that there's a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks." The Republican president has kept the world guessing on his plans, veering from...
Iran has been weighing its options in responding to its biggest security challenge since the 1979 revolution. A member of the Iranian Parliament's National Security Committee Presidium, Behnam Saeedi, told the semi-official Mehr news agency Iran could consider closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of daily global oil consumption passes. Tehran has in the past threatened to close the strait. Shipping sources said on Wednesday that commercial ships were avoiding Iran's waters nearby. Oil prices rose after Israel and Iran continued to exchange missile attacks overnight and Trump's...
Asia-Pacific markets traded higher, tracking Wall Street gains overnight.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 0.41% after hitting a fresh record high on Thursday, while the Topix added 0.61%. South...
Both the STOXX 50 and STOXX 600 hovered around the flatline on Friday, as investors adopted a cautious stance ahead of further developments in trade talks between US President Trump and Chinese...
As the U.S. government shutdown disrupts federal employee paychecks across the country, it also exacerbates the financial hardship of attorneys who represent the poorest members of society when they...