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...
The number of job openings on the last business day of December stood at 7.6 million, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported in the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) on Tuesday. This reading followed the 8.15 million openings announced in November and came in below the market expectation of 8 million. "Over the month, hires and total separations were little changed at 5.5 million and 5.3 million, respectively. Within separations, quits (3.2 million) and layoffs and discharges (1.8 million) changed little," the BLS noted in its press release. Market reaction to JOLTS...
China is the world's top energy importer but its purchases from the United States are relatively modest, lessening the impact of Beijing's move Tuesday to impose retaliatory tariffs on U.S. crude oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and coal. Shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs on China took effect Tuesday, China's Finance Ministry said it would impose levies of 15% on U.S. coal and LNG imports and 10% on crude oil as well as farm equipment and some cars, starting Feb. 10. China's U.S. crude oil imports fell 52% to about 230,540 barrels per day (bpd) in the first 11 months of...
United States (US) President Donald Trump hit the newswires with a wide swath of off-hand statements on Monday, ranging from the war in Ukraine, where President Trump expects 'rare earth metals' in exchange for obtaining a ceasefire with Russia. Donald Trump also noted that he remains "not happy" with the Panama situation, and reiterated that his work on tariffs is not over yet.We'll be doing something perhaps with TikTok if we can make the right deal, TikTok could go into the sovereign wealth fund.Nobody is out of tariffs.I had good talk with Trudeau.We haven't agreed on tariffs yet with...
According to the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), the Manufacturing PMI rose to 50.9 in January from 49.3 in the previous month, beating market expectations of 49.8. Additionally, the Prices Paid Index—a measure of inflation—rose to 54.9 from 52.5, while the Employment Index increased to 50.3 from 45.4, and the New Orders Index improved to 55.1. The US dollar maintained its upbeat performance so far on Monday, motivating the US Dollar Index (DXY) to maintain its marked gains above the 109.00 mark for now. Excitement is building as the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) prepares...
Inflation in the US, as measured by the change in the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index, edged higher to 2.6% on a yearly basis in December from 2.4% in November, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported on Friday. The core PCE Price Index, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 2.8% in the same period, matching November's reading and the market expectation. The core PCE Price Index rose 0.2% on a monthly basis. Source: Fxstreet