DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Japan's yield control faces biggest test to date as BOJ debates policy
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Leika Kihara | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

But with inflation exceeding its 2% target, the BOJ is facing its biggest test so far for its stimulatory policy, which is called yield curve control (YCC). The cap for the 10-year bond therefore became 0.5%. Market expectations of an early rate hike have boosted yields broadly, with the eight-year moving higher than the 10-year yield. In considering the BOJ's options, some analysts bet it will further widen the band and allow the 10-year yield to rise as far as 0.75%. Others expect the central bank to raise the 10-year yield target above 0%, change it to one targeting a shorter-dated maturity, or abandon it altogether.

☆ Premarket stocks: The world has a major debt problem. Is a reset coming?
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

That number is about 349% of global gross domestic product, and the equivalent of $37,500 of debt for every single person in the world. “Rising interest rates and slowing economies are making the debt burden heavier,” they write. What it means: Higher interest rates are already hurting governments and corporations with low-credit ratings. Rising interest rates also impact stock prices — the Federal Reserve’s hikes in 2022 contributed to a nearly 20% decline in the S&P 500. What comes next: There is no easy way out of a global debt crisis, write Chan and Dimitrijevic.

☆ The Davos party returns, with the shakes
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Lauren Silva Laughlin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 16 (Reuters Breakingviews) - There’s a hangover happening in Davos even though the party hasn’t yet started. The World Economic Forum’s annual winter shindig in the Swiss mountain resort, which kicks off on Monday, marks a return for glitzy parties and high-minded debates following a three-year hiatus. A record number of business leaders are set to make the trip, and the passage of commercial, private and government aircraft through Zurich’s airport suggests overall attendees are at pre-Covid-19 levels. The global pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have added more friction to the already creaking globalised world that Davos epitomised. Follow @thereallsl on TwitterloadingCONTEXT NEWSThe World Economic Forum will take place in Davos, Switzerland from Jan. 16 through Jan. 20.

☆ Explainer: What is happening in Japan's bond market?
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Junko Fujita | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

TOKYO, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Market forces have pushed Japanese government bond yields above policy targets. Here is what is happening and what it means:WHAT IS JAPAN'S BOND MARKET? To stimulate lending, growth and inflation, the Bank of Japan has pinned short-term interest rates at -0.1% and 10-year yields around zero since 2016. That swap yield may indicate where the 10-year bond could be if the BOJ left the market alone. "Unless the BOJ reduces its presence in the market and changes its stance that it is controlling the yield level, market liquidity won't improve."

☆ Bank of Japan could announce major policy shift this week as bond yields top limit again
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Jihye Lee | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

This picture taken on October 27, 2022 shows pedestrians walking in front of the Bank of Japan (BoJ) headquarters in Tokyo. The move would come less than a month after the Bank of Japan caught markets off guard by widening its tolerance range for 10-year Japanese government bond yields. Indeed, Nikkei reported Monday that the Bank of Japan purchased JGBs worth more than 2 trillion yen ($15.6 billion) after the nation's 10-year bond yield curve topped 0.5% for two consecutive sessions. While the central bank leaving interest rates unchanged would be positive for Japanese stocks, BofA said a removal of its yield curve control policy could lead to sharp declines. HSBC, meanwhile, expects the central bank to announce further widening of the yield curve control tolerance band instead of abolishing the policy altogether.

☆ China Says 60,000 Have Died of Covid Since Controls Were Lifted
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-14 | by ( Keith Zhai | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Chinese officials say that 90% of the Covid-19 deaths recorded by hospitals involved patients with underlying conditions. SINGAPORE—Hospitals in China recorded roughly 60,000 Covid-related deaths since the government scrapped most of its zero-tolerance pandemic controls in early December, Chinese health authorities said in the first major accounting of the toll exacted by the Omicron wave currently sweeping the country. China had been criticized by public health experts and epidemiologists, including some at the World Health Organization, for publishing data that routinely showed deaths in the single digits in recent week—figures they said grossly underestimated the impact the virus had on the Chinese population.

☆ Indian shares set to open higher; inflation slows
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BENGALURU, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Indian shares are set to open higher on Friday after data showed domestic and U.S. inflation eased last month, boosting expectations that central banks could slow the pace of interest rate hikes. In other Asian equities, the MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) was up 0.8% at a seven-month high. STOCKS TO WATCH** Wipro Ltd (WIPR.NS): Co set to report quarterly results later in the day. ** Infosys (INFY.NS): Co raises annual revenue outlook after reporting better-than-expected quarterly profit in third quarter. ($1 = 81.1100 Indian rupees)Reporting by Rama Venkat and Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru;Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Republican state lawmakers and members of Congress are attempting to stifle the growth of sustainable investing and to punish corporate efforts at climate-related financial risk management. This is a closely coordinated political effort driven by a network of dark money organizations fronting for climate denial groups and fossil fuel interests. This is usually anonymous dark money, and it is often traceable back to the fossil fuel industry. They are attempting to bully financial institutions and regulators into ignoring market demand and market risk. Imagine elected officials telling investment firms they cannot offer large-cap or small-cap funds, or emerging market funds, or value funds — or, for that matter, sector funds with exposure to energy companies.

☆ China Inflation Picks Up as Covid-19 Restrictions Fall
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Jason Douglas | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

SINGAPORE—Inflation in China picked up in December and is expected to accelerate further in the months ahead as the economy revs up following Beijing’s abrupt dismantling of its zero-tolerance measures to contain Covid-19. Consumer prices rose 1.8% in December compared with a year earlier, faster than the 1.6% annual rate recorded in November, China’s national statistics bureau said Thursday.

Twitter on Saturday blocked searches for a series of hashtags and keywords used to promote the sale of child sex abuse material (CSAM) following an investigation by NBC News posted the day before. NBC News observed the hashtags over a period of several weeks, and counted dozens of users who collectively published hundreds of tweets daily. Irwin said in the last six weeks Twitter had been analyzing thousands of hashtags for a project that was scheduled for completion in the next few weeks. In a review of hashtags and tweets last week, NBC News confirmed that searches related to the file-sharing site Mega had been blocked. A former employee who asked to remain anonymous because they had signed a nondisclosure agreement said that many of the employees specifically tasked with child safety issues had departed the company.

☆ Brazil's 2022 inflation slows sharply, misses government target
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Marcela Ayres | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Central bank chief Roberto Campos Neto is legally required to publish a letter justifying the inflation target miss. It will be released on Tuesday, according to the central bank. That will give the central bank "more cause to delay the start of its easing cycle," Jackson said. According to IBGE, inflation last year was mainly impacted by the increased costs of food and beverages (+11.64%) and health and personal care items (+11.43%). State-run oil giant Petrobras (PETR4.SA) contributed to the disinflationary trend, adopting a series of price cuts when international oil prices settled.

☆ 2023 is 'a generational buying opportunity' for real estate investing, says the CEO of a private equity firm. He shares which sectors offer the best returns and the REITs to buy.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Laila Maidan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

For real estate, he recommends investing in REITs that are managed by major financial firms. The real estate market last year took a massive hit as interest rates increased at an unprecedented velocity due to the Federal Reserve's aggressive tightening. Ari Rastegar, the founder and CEO of Rastegar Property Company, says just looking at macroeconomic trends won't give investors the full picture. Real estate investment trusts, which are entities that own and operate income-producing properties, are on clearance, he said. He recommends looking at the Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT) and the Starwood Real Estate Income Trust (SREIT).

For most of the past two years, foreign officials and business executives grappled with paramount leader Xi Jinping ’s unflinching insistence on a zero-tolerance approach to Covid-19. Now they are struggling to make sense of Beijing’s decision to scrap those pandemic controls virtually without warning. The whiplash from China’s about-face on its zero-Covid strategy exemplifies the uncertainties that businesses, foreign governments and academics face in dealing with a black-box political system that has become increasingly impenetrable as Mr. Xi has accumulated more power.

[1/18] U.S. President Joe Biden speaks with border patrol officers as he walks along the border fence during his visit to the U.S.-Mexico border to assess border enforcement operations, in El Paso, Texas, U.S., January 8, 2023. Biden on Thursday said his administration would tighten immigration enforcement by blocking Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants at the border, expanding the nationalities of those who can be expelled back to Mexico. But that has not impressed Republicans like Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who accused him of failing to enforce immigration laws. Biden told reporters he had not yet read the letter. On the ground in El Paso, migrants greeted the new policy with trepidation.

☆ Chip stocks tumbled in 2022. How to play the sector in the new year
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-08 | by ( Samantha Subin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Semiconductor stocks suffered a series of blows in 2022 as demand for consumer discretionary items fell off a cliff and supply chain disruptions continued. Betting on semiconductor favorites Despite ongoing volatility, some analysts and investors are still betting on once high-flying names in 2023, even though the challenges of 2022 continue. One of those is Advanced Micro Devices, a chip stock commonly connected with PC and server chips that fell hard in 2022. Texas Instruments held up better than the rest of the semiconductor market in 2022, shedding a little more than 12%. Bailey is mostly shying away from former, rapid growth names, with small bets on ASML and Marvell for clients looking for possible higher growth.

Share this -Link copiedMcCarthy elected speaker in 15th round McCarthy was elected House speaker Saturday shortly after midnight on the 15th ballot. Share this -Link copiedHouse reconvenes to hold 14th round of speaker votes The House has reconvened to begin the 14th round of speaker votes. Read the rest of the story, The House speaker election, in three charts. Share this -Link copiedHouse begins 13th round The House is beginning the 13th round of speaker votes. At least 14 House GOP flip to support McCarthy in twelfth speaker vote Jan. 6, 2023 01:52 Share this -Link copied

“It’s critically important that the Rules Committee reflect the body and reflect the will of the people. “What we’re seeing is the incredibly shrinking speakership,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in an interview Friday. “The reason these people want to be on the Rules Committee is they want to screw things up for McCarthy. The message the leader received from his deal-making centrists: We can live with giving Freedom Caucus members committee slots but committee gavels are a “nonstarter.”“Nobody should get a chairmanship without earning it,” Bacon said. That pisses us off.”Díaz-Balart said he had received assurances that “there are no deals cut about chairmanships” to committees as part of swaying votes to make McCarthy speaker.

☆ FA to investigate homophobic chanting at Man Utd v Everton game
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Jan 7 (Reuters) - England's Football Association (FA) will investigate alleged homophobic chanting during Everton's 3-1 FA Cup third round loss at Manchester United on Friday. Some supporters were heard using homophobic language against Everton manager Frank Lampard, who previously played for and managed Chelsea, British media reports said. In a statement to British media, United said, "homophobia, like all forms of discrimination, has no place in football. Manchester United is proud of our diverse fan base and the work we have done to reduce instances like we sadly heard today." "The club has a zero-tolerance policy on all forms of discrimination and welcomes the statements from The FA and Manchester United," Everton said in a statement to Reuters.

Twitter accounts that offer to trade or sell child sexual abuse material under thinly veiled terms and hashtags have remained online for months, even after CEO Elon Musk said he would combat child exploitation on the platform. The tweets reviewed by NBC News offer to sell or trade content that is commonly known as child pornography or child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The tweets do not show CSAM, and NBC News did not view any CSAM in the course of reporting this article. The problem has been pervasive enough to catch the attention of some Twitter users. In 25 tweets, users tagged Musk using at least one of the major hashtags to alert him to the content.

☆ Take Five: Welcome to 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

LONDON, Jan 6 (Reuters) - A potential shift by the world's most dovish major central bank, inflation pressures abating, a turn in the economic outlook and oil markets suffering their biggest tumble in decades: Welcome to 2023! 1/ EARNINGS AND INFLATIONThe week ahead brings a critical read into two key themes for Wall Street in 2023: the health of corporate profits and inflation. With crude oil volatility soaring, 2023 might be anything but plain sailing for producers and consumers alike. Barclays expects the UK economy to keep contracting until the end of the third quarter of 2023. It takes time for declines in market prices to filter through into household bills, but signs are positive for cash-strapped consumers and businesses.

WASHINGTON — Many House Republicans are furious with a band of far-right rebels who they say are holding the party hostage by repeatedly rejecting its nominee for speaker. The unwillingness of most House Republicans to cut a deal with Democrats to pick a speaker weakens their leverage in the showdown with a group of 20 right-wing lawmakers who want to defeat Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who is backed by 90% of the GOP caucus. As Bacon and other McCarthy allies dangle the possibility of a bipartisan speaker to secure the votes to make him speaker, the anti-McCarthy faction is calling their bluff. Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., who has voted against McCarthy all six times, said he doesn’t believe any Republicans would go around the House Freedom Caucus and team up with Democrats to pick a speaker. Democrats open door to consensus speakerSome Democrats say they’re open to negotiating a consensus speaker.

☆ Two classic books on long-term investing are out in new editions
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Bob Pisani | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Two classic books on long-term investing are out in new editions. In December, the Wharton School's Jeremy Siegel published a new (6th) edition of his classic, Stocks for the Long Run: The Definitive Guide to Financial Market Returns & Long-Term Investment Strategies. Like Malkiel, Ellis urged investors to diversify into low-cost index fund investing, which was a radical idea because there were no low-cost index funds at the time! The market eventually caught up with Malkiel, Siegel, Ellis and Bogle. Investors now had not just an index fund, they had a low-cost, tax-efficient wrapper they could buy it in.

☆ Hong Kong to allow import of hamsters after year-long COVID ban
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] Pedestrians walk past a closed pet shop in Mong Kok district after a hamster cull was ordered to curb the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Hong Kong, China, January 19, 2022. The government aims to "resume commercial imports of hamsters around mid-January," it said in a statement to Reuters. In January 2022, Hong Kong ordered a hamster cull amid an outbreak of Delta variant cases in humans that was traced back to a pet shop worker in the Chinese special administrative region. Hong Kong's pet rodent clampdown had echoed the mainland's zero-tolerance approach to COVID-19. Little Boss, the operating company which owned the pet shop at the heart of Hong Kong's hamster cull last year, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

☆ How to be a better investor in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Jeanne Sahadi | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

New York CNN —If you’re planning to invest your hard-earned money in stocks, bonds and other assets this year, let humility be your guide. In response, stocks and bonds, which typically don’t move in the same direction, moved down in tandem in 2022, with both ending the year deep in the red. Ignore the noiseWhether 2023 is great or awful for stocks — or, more likely, both at different times — that shouldn’t sway your investing decisions. Given recession concerns, Wilson noted that value stocks, which represent companies with strong fundamentals but are considered underpriced, tend to perform better during economic downturns. For those with a long time horizon and a high tolerance for risk, Wilson suggests looking for buying opportunities among stocks that have been hammered.

☆ Morocco complains of European parliament 'harassment' after graft probe
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

RABAT, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Morocco's ties with the European Union must be protected against harassment at the European parliament, foreign minister Nasser Bourita said on Thursday, following a European probe into graft allegations involving European lawmakers, Qatar and Morocco. "This partnership faces attacks in European institutions, notably at the parliament," Bourita added. Belgian authorities have charged four people linked to the European Parliament over allegations that Qatar lavished them with cash and gifts to influence decision-making. The European Union maintains a position of "zero tolerance" of corruption and will wait for the results of the decision of a judicial investigation into the case, he said. He said EU aid to Morocco would increase to 1.6 billion euros during 2021-2027 from 1.4 billion in 2014-2020.

Search resuls for: "Tolerance"

25 mentions found