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...
Syria's Ahmed al-Sharaa has transformed himself from al Qaeda militant to Syrian president in a dramatic political rise capped on Wednesday by a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. The encounter in Saudi Arabia is a milestone for a man who joined al Qaeda in Iraq around the time of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and spent years in U.S. prison there before returning to Syria to join the insurgency against Bashar al-Assad. The meeting - following Trump's announcement of an end to U.S. sanctions on Syria - is a huge boost for Sharaa as he tries to bring the fractured country under his...
President Donald Trump kicked off his Gulf trip on Tuesday with a surprise announcement that the United States would lift long-standing sanctions on Syria, and a $600 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest in the United States. The United States has agreed to sell Saudi Arabia a nearly $142 billion package of arms, the White House said, calling it Washington's largest ever "defense cooperation agreement." The end of sanctions on Syria would be a major boost for a country devastated by more than a decade of civil war. Rebels led by current President Ahmed al-Sharaa toppled President...
Republicans who control the U.S. House of Representatives kicked off public debate on major pillars of President Donald Trump's budget legislation on Tuesday, weighing choices about tax policies and spending on popular social safety-net programs that may strain their narrow majority. The plan, which would extend tax cuts passed during Trump's first term, could add to the nation's $36.2 trillion in debt over the next decade. Congress' bipartisan Joint Tax Committee estimates the tax cuts would cost $3.72 trillion. "Together with a one big, beautiful bill, we can ignite a second Trump...
European Central Bank (ECB) policymaker Francois Villeroy de Galhau indicated in a recent interview that there may be room for another rate cut by the ECB by the summer. The discussion took place with the EBRA newspaper group on Tuesday. Villeroy, who also holds the position of head of the Bank of France, shared his insights on potential inflation trends in the United States and Europe. He suggested that the U.S. might experience a surge in inflation due to the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump's administration. However, he expressed confidence that Europe would remain unaffected by...
President Donald Trump cited a softer-than-expected inflation report to again pressure Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to lower interest rates. "No Inflation, and Prices of Gasoline, Energy, Groceries, and practically everything else, are DOWN!!!" Trump wrote in a social media post. "THE FED must lower the RATE, like Europe and China have done. What is wrong with Too Late Powell?" Trump added that the Fed's strategy was "not fair to America, which is ready to blossom." "Just let it all happen, it will be a beautiful thing!" he continued. The consumer price index...