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...
Initial jobless claims in the United States rose by 4,000 from the previous week to 223,000 on the first week of April, in line with market expectations, to remain at the historically low levels that were steadily shown since March. In the meantime, continuing claims fell by 43,000 from downwardly revised levels to 1,850,000 in the last week of March, well below market expectations of 1,880,000, to reflect slight traction in individuals finding suitable employment after a period of joblessness. In the meantime, unemployment claims filed under programs for Federal government employees, which...
The United States (US) Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is set to publish the high-impact Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation report for March on Thursday at 12:30 GMT. The CPI figures could notably impact the US Dollar (USD) and the Federal Reserve's (Fed) monetary policy outlook. What to expect in the next CPI data report?As measured by the CPI, inflation in the US is set to rise at an annual pace of 2.6% in March, down slightly from the 2.8% reported in February. Core CPI inflation, which excludes the volatile food and energy categories, is expected to ease to 3% in the same period...
Federal Reserve officials flagged the risk of more sustained inflationary pressures from tariffs when they agreed to keep interest rates steady at their meeting last month. "A majority of participants noted the potential for inflationary impacts arising from a variety of factors to be more sustained than they had projected," said the minutes of the March 18-19 policy meeting, released Wednesday. Since that meeting, President Trump has imposed broad and abrupt tariff increases that initially exceeded the high end estimates of most private-sector economists and Fed officials. Trump said...
Many companies had been steadily reducing their reliance on China as a manufacturing hub since President Donald Trump's first term, hoping to blunt the impact of punitive levies from the United States. Then his latest "reciprocal" tariffs came along. Trump's move to impose tariffs on goods on a broader swathe of countries is now putting those diversification plans in disarray and leaving companies scrambling to decide where and how their goods are produced. Steve Greenspon, CEO of Illinois-based houseware company Honey-Can-Do International, started moving more of his production from China...
The Indonesian rupiah touched an all-time low of around 16,950 per USD in April as the U.S. readied 104% tariffs on Chinese goods, escalating tensions between the world's two largest economies. Meanwhile, Indonesia faces a 32% tariff from the U.S. President Prabowo Subianto has instructed his cabinet to simplify trade rules and ease non-tariff barriers while assessing the impact on key exports such as textiles, electronics, footwear, and palm oil. Adding to the pressure, Indonesia's current account remained in deficit for the seventh quarter in Q4 of 2024, underscoring structural trade...