The Hang Seng Index reversed its downward trend in Hong Kong on Thursday (February 12th), weakening by around 0.9% to around 27,000 after a strong session earlier. This decline halted the momentum of the short term rally, as investors began to reduce risk in large cap stocks. Among the index's contributors, Tencent was a major drag, with its shares falling by around 2.3%, putting pressure on the technology sector, which has recently been a driving force behind market gains. Weakness in large cap companies like this typically quickly impacts sentiment due to their significant weighting in...
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he was returning to Washington after wrapping up his Gulf tour. "Let's see what happens with Russia and Ukraine," he said, referring to Russia-Ukraine talks taking place in Turkey. Trump said he will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin "as soon as we can set it up". Russian and Ukrainian negotiators will meet in Istanbul on Friday for their first peace talks in more than three years as both sides come under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to end Europe's deadliest conflict since World War Two. The encounter at the Dolmabahce Palace...
Barclays no longer expects the U.S. economy to slip into a recession later this year and has revised up its growth forecasts, given signs of a de-escalation in U.S.-China trade tensions, the bank said in a note released late Thursday. Barclays said it now expects the U.S. economy to grow 0.5% this year and 1.6% next year, up from previous forecasts of -0.3% and 1.5%, respectively. Reduced uncertainty and an improved economic backdrop also led Barclays to lift its euro area growth expectations. It now forecasts flat economic growth this year, compared to a 0.2% contraction...
Donald Trump's tariffs on China are likely to remain at levels that are expected to severely restrict Chinese exports to the U.S. after a 90-day truce, analysts and investors say, suggesting Beijing may have to endure further economic pain despite active talks. U.S. levies on Chinese goods imposed this year are likely to remain at 30% through the end of 2025, according to a Bloomberg survey. While much lower than before this week's thaw, the current tariffs are high enough to wipe out 70% of China's shipments to the world's largest economy in the medium term, according to Bloomberg...
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Thursday that longer-term interest rates are likely to be higher as the economy changes and policy is in flux. In remarks that focused on the central bank's policy framework review, last done in the summer of 2020, Powell noted that conditions have changed significantly over the past five years. During the period, the Fed witnessed a period of surging inflation, pushing it to historically aggressive interest rate hikes. Powell said that even with longer-term inflation expectations largely in line with the Fed's 2% target, the era of near-zero rates...
Staff from the Trump administration have been hard at work on Thursday, pushing a raft of announcements on a wide range of investment projects with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that President Trump has been pursuing hard since taking office in January. As is usual for announcements from several faces of the White House team, specific details remain thin, and it remains unclear what kind of timeline these announced projects are expected to take, or how they'll even be accomplished. According to the US Commerce Department, the United Arab Emirates and the US government have agreed on an "AI...