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. Federal Reserve officials feel they need to reconsider the key elements around both jobs and inflation in their current approach to monetary policy, given the inflation experience of the last few years and the possibility that supply shocks and the associated price increases may become more frequent in the years ahead, Fed chair Jerome Powell said Thursday. "We may be entering a period of more frequent, and potentially more persistent, supply shocks—a difficult challenge for the economy and for central banks," Powell said in opening remarks at a two-day conference reconsidering the...
US producer prices fell by 0.5% in April 2025, following a revised flat reading in March and defying market expectations of a 0.2% increase. This was the first decline in the PPI since October 2023 and the sharpest drop since April 2020, during the early aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak. The decline was largely driven by a 0.7% fall in service costs, the largest since data collection began in December 2009, primarily due to a 1.6% decrease in margins for trade services, suggesting businesses may be absorbing some of the impact from higher tariffs. Prices for final demand services...
US retail sales rose by 0.1% mom in April 2025, following an upwardly revised 1.7% surge in March. The modest gain suggests consumers scaled back spending in response to a wave of tariff announcements in early April, yet the result still exceeded market expectations for no change. Biggest increases were seen in sales at food services and drinking places (1.2%), building material and garden equipment supplies dealers (0.8%), furniture (0.3%) and electronics and appliances stores (0.3%). On the other hand, the largest decreases were recorded at sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument,...
Initial jobless claims in the United States were unchanged from the previous week at 229,000 on the period ending May 10th, aligned with market expectations, to hold the decline form the two-month-high of 241,000 from the last week of April. In the meantime, outstanding claims edged slightly higher to 1,881,000 in the first week of May, slightly below market expectations of 1,990,000. The result continued to reflect a resilient labor market when compared to historical levels, aligned with the assessment by Federal Reserve Chairman Powell in the central bank's latest decision. In the...
U.S President Donald Trump said on Thursday that India had offered the U.S a trade deal that proposed "no tariffs". New Delhi is seeking to clinch a trade deal with the U.S. within the 90-day pause announced by Trump on April 9 on tariff hikes for major trading partners, which had included a 26% tariff on India. "It is very hard to sell in India, and they are offering us a deal where basically they are willing to literally charge us no tariffs," Trump said in a meeting with executives in Doha. The United States is India's largest trading partner, with bilateral trade totalling some $129...