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LONDON/ZURICH, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Luxury retailers Richemont (CFR.S) and Burberry (BRBY.L) said they were optimistic that consumers in China would start spending again, helping offset three years of upheaval from the government's strict COVID-19 lockdowns and soaring infections. Richemont (CFR.S), whose brands include Cartier jewellery and Swiss watches IWC and Jaeger-LeCoultre, also said it expected a strong rebound in China. The European luxury sector is among the largest expected winners as China loosens COVID-19 restrictions that kept shoppers out of stores for months. Richemont missed market estimates after sales in China plunged by a quarter, as customer traffic dwindled and staff were not available, leading to a reduction of boutique hours, or temporary closures of sales points, the company said. Mainland China is currently 25% of Burberry sales, down from about 40% pre-pandemic.

☆ Oil Prices Are Likely to Stay Steady This Year—With a Couple of Big Ifs
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( Collin Eaton | Benoît Morenne | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Oil prices generally aren’t expected to change dramatically this year, but two big questions loom over that outlook: Will China have the workers needed to rev up its economy as the country loosens its Covid restrictions? And will American energy companies focused on fracking stick to their recent reluctance to bankroll another expensive oil boom? Brent, the international oil standard, peaked above $127 a barrel last year but has since tumbled, trading around $84 a barrel Thursday. Around two-thirds of energy executives surveyed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas late last year expected West Texas Intermediate oil prices—which tend to fluctuate a few dollars a barrel below Brent—to end 2023 between $70 and $90 per barrel. The forecast is based largely on the fact that analysts expect global oil supply to outpace demand this year as economic growth slows.

☆ China loosens some Covid restrictions
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Seema Mody | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailChina loosens some Covid restrictionsCNBC's Sema Moody joins 'The Exchange' to report on China dropping some of its COVID restrictions and how that's impacting the country's reopening plans.

☆ Jim Cramer's top 10 things to watch in the market Wednesday: Santa coming? Nike pops.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Jim Cramer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Multiple price target increases on Wall Street. JPMorgan acknowledges "relief rally" but cuts its price target. Deutsche Bank lowers price target on Tesla (TSLA) to $270 per share from $355; keeps buy rating. Gordon Haskett downgrades Target (TGT) to hold from buy, with a $132-per-share price target; cites "meaningfully eroded traffic." As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade.

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Dec 20 (Reuters) - The folly and futility of forecasting commodity prices was rammed home this year, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine upending markets and rendering all prior expectations largely irrelevant. The first thing to note about 2022 was that while commodity prices were shocked by Russia's Feb. 24 attack on Ukraine, many are ending the year little changed or weaker than where they concluded 2021. This dynamic is probably already on display in crude oil, the world's most important commodity, with Brent futures poised to end the year little changed from the last trading day of 2021. In contrast to LNG and coal, metals have largely struggled in 2022, notwithstanding the bump from the conflict in Ukraine. The exception is lithium, with battery-grade lithium hydroxide up 132% so far this year as demand from vehicle and battery makers surge.

☆ Treasury yields rise as Japan unexpectedly loosens its bond yield cap
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Elliot Smith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

U.S. Treasury yields rose on Tuesday after Japan unexpectedly raised its cap on 10-year Japanese government bond yields, sparking a sell-off in global long-duration bond markets. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note was up by 7 basis points at 3.7528%, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond rose by more than 9 basis points to 3.7145%. Yields move inversely to prices. The move prompted the Japanese yen and bond yields around the world to rise suddenly, while stocks in Asia-Pacific retreated. There are no major economic data releases or U.S. Treasury auctions slated for Tuesday.

☆ Wall St posts fourth straight drop, Treasury yields rise as recession fears weigh
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Stephen Culp | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/2] A trader works on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., December 14, 2022. "(Investors are) worried about recession and higher rates and there’s not a lot of news to reverse the trend." Emerging market stocks rose 0.02%. U.S. Treasury yields rose as investors considered how high the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates in its protracted battle against inflation. Gold inched lower in thin trading, as rising yields on expected future interest rate hikes helped offset weakness in the greenback.

☆ Wall Street slides, Treasury yields rise on lingering recession fears
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Stephen Culp | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/2] A trader works on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., December 14, 2022. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) closed 0.24% lower, while Japan's Nikkei (.N225) lost 1.05%. U.S. Treasury yields rose as investors considered how high the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates and how long they will remain at restrictive levels in its battle against inflation. U.S. crude rose 1.21% to settle at $75.19 per barrel, while Brent settled at $79.80, up 0.96% on the day. Gold inched lower in thin trading, as rising yields on expected future interest rate hikes helped offset weakness in the greenback.

☆ Wall Street mixed, Treasury yields rise as 2023 worries loom
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Stephen Culp | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

With just two weeks remaining in 2022, the S&P 500, the Dow and the Nasdaq are on track to notch their largest annual percentage losses since 2008, the nadir of the global financial crisis. The pan-European STOXX 600 index (.STOXX) rose 0.43% and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe (.MIWD00000PUS) shed 0.23%. U.S. Treasury yields rose as investors considered how high the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates and how long they will remain at restrictive levels in its battle against inflation. U.S. crude rose 0.48% to $74.65 per barrel and Brent was last at $79.57, up 0.67% on the day. Reporting by Stephen Culp; Additional reporting by Danilo Masoni in Milan; Editing by Susan FentonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

But the popular traditional Chinese medicine Lianhua Qingwen, used for symptoms like fever and cough, and antigen test kits remained harder to find. Online pharmacies across China have run out of drugs and test kits, prompting the government to crack down on hoarding. Heat was insufficient because of "unstable" coal supplies caused by COVID, state-run Baoding Daily reported, without giving details. "I have no fear" of COVID, said Yang, a farmer who is fully vaccinated and with no underlying diseases. China has reported no deaths since easing the COVID curbs, with fatalities to date around 5,200, versus more than 1 million in the United States.

☆ U.K. Loosens Banking Regulation in Bid to Spur Financial Sector After Brexit
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Max Colchester | Josh Mitchell | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Now outside of the European Union, the U.K. is free to create its own rules to regulate the financial sector, centered in the City of London. LONDON—The British government said Friday it would ease regulatory rules on banks, insurers and investors to bolster London’s status as a global financial hub after its allure was dented by Britain’s departure from the European Union. The U.K. presented a 30 point-plan called the “Edinburgh reforms” that the government hailed as a regulatory fine-tuning to boost the British economy, which has suffered a severe slowdown in recent years and is entering a recession. The government said the regulatory changes strike a balance between boosting competitiveness of the country’s financial sector, one of the U.K. economy’s few engines of growth, while guarding against a return to the freewheeling days that led to the 2008 financial crisis.

LONDON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - With world markets in thrall to the final big three central bank meetings of a tumultuous year next week, the parallel world of fiscal policy takes a back seat. The UK's disastrously botched giveaway budget in September set out for many the limits of what's possible in a world of double-digit inflation. Loosen the public purse strings any further and the commensurate level of interest rates needed to then get inflation back to 2% targets balloons, and risks melting the economy down in other ways. OECD chart on fiscal outlook'BRUTE FORCE'All of which begs the question of whether central banks will have to conduct the inflation fight on their own. And likely severe recessions from historically modest interest rates just force central banks to quickly return to so-called quantitative easing, undermining their own longer-term inflation battle.

SHANGHAI/HONG KONG, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Investors caught off-guard by China's dramatic COVID policy pivot are betting on both greed and fear as the economy starts to gradually reopen, snapping up shares in businesses from travel agencies and casinos to funeral companies. Providers of death care services, including Hong Kong-listed Fu Shou Yuan International Group (1448.HK), China's biggest cemetery operator and funeral service provider, have also drawn investors. The positioning for both the bright and dark side of China's COVID pivot reflects growing concerns from investors surprised by the rapid policy change, especially as COVID vaccination rates among the elderly remain relatively low. "But we still think that the way China can flatten the curve of new COVID cases without doubling down on tightening looks quite challenging." Morgan Stanley Chief China economist Robin Xing said China's economy may remain sluggish for another quarter or two, but growth will pick up after Spring.

Feeling defiant, I told him, I will let the world know what you police are doing," said Pei, 27. He asked to be identified only by part of his name for fear of repercussions. China's Ministry of Public Security did not respond to a request for comment on the laws they might use against protesters. Zhang Dongshuo, a Beijing-based lawyer who has handled rights cases in the past, said the levels of punishment for protesting in China vary widely. "They just sprang up organically because people were driven by a sense of hopelessness and desperation about the never-ending COVID restrictions," Wu said.

☆ Take Five: The grand 2022 central bank finale
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

1/TWICE THE FUNInvestors will be fed a huge helping of year-end U.S. news when Tuesday's release of November consumer inflation data is followed by the Federal Reserve's last rate decision of 2022 on Wednesday. Reuters Graphics2/ SUPER THURSDAYIt's super Thursday in Europe, where central banks in the euro area, Britain, Switzerland and Norway all meet. The pace of aggressive rate hikes from big central banks is slowing but the fight against inflation is not over yet. Surging energy and food costs propelled consumer price inflation to a 41-year high of 11.1% in the year to October. Wednesday's UK inflation data may hint at price rises having peaked, following trends in the eurozone and the U.S.

☆ Canadian dollar seen higher as analysts eye peak interest rates: Reuters poll
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Fergal Smith | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The loonie has weakened over 7% against the U.S. dollar since the start of 2022, with almost all of the decline coming since mid-August. Canada's economy grew at an annualized rate of 2.9% in the third quarter, much stronger than both analysts and the Bank of Canada were expecting. The BoC has raised its benchmark interest rate by 350 basis points since March to 3.75%, its highest level since 2008, in an attempt to cool inflation. Along with a more stable path for U.S. interest rates it "should help the loonie rally closer to fair value," Zhao-Murray said. Measures of fair value include purchasing power parity (PPP), or the exchange rate that equalizes the purchasing power of separate currencies.

That made Vietnam one of the top buyers of Russian arms, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which tracks global military expenditures. Starting Thursday, the country will host its first large-scale international arms trade fair, for which more than 170 companies from 30 countries have registered, the defence ministry said. The Defence Ministry referred questions about the country's defence industry to the Foreign Ministry, which did not respond to requests for comment. A half-dozen Russian defence firms are registered for the Hanoi fair, including Rosoboronexport, the state agency that imports and exports weapons. That year, the COVID-19 pandemic reduced Vietnam's military imports to only $32 million, of which $9 million worth were Russian arms.

☆ Deutsche Bank validates the Club case on holding Estee Lauder
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Paulina Likos | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Deutsche Bank Tuesday upgraded Club holding Estee Lauder (EL) on the back of an expected reopening of China's economy, in line with the Club strategy of buying up the cosmetics giant's stock as Beijing loosens harsh Covid-19 restrictions. Buy Estee Lauder," Jim Cramer said during the Investing Club's "Morning Meeting " on Tuesday. Analysts at Deutsche Bank predicted margins in makeup, which are a "key driver of outsized profit growth long term," will recover once revenues return to pre-pandemic levels. Estee Lauder is an iconic brand that's one of the best ways to play Asia's return to travel — and we believe we'll be rewarded for our patience. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER .

☆ China Loosens Covid Restrictions as Public Anger Simmers
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-04 | by ( Chun Han Wong | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

HONG KONG—Local authorities across China are paring back some of their strictest Covid-19 control measures, just days after public anger spilled over into rare protests against a zero-tolerance approach that has kept the country largely isolated for three years. In recent days, officials in major cities—including Beijing and other areas where protests broke out a week ago—said they were lifting some curbs on residents’ movements, such as by ending mandatory Covid testing for people who want to use public transport or enter parks and other public spaces.

☆ Factbox: How many people might die, and why, if China loosens COVID restrictions
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Thomas PeterSHANGHAI, Dec 3 (Reuters) - China has started taking steps to ease its zero-COVID policy, fuelling a mix of relief and worry as the public waits to see the health consequences, and impact on the medical system, of a full-blown exit. Researchers have analysed how many deaths the country could see if it pivots to a full reopening, with most pointing to the country's relatively low vaccination rates and lack of herd immunity as some of its most vulnerable spots. As of Friday, China reported 5,233 COVID-related deaths and 331,952 cases with symptoms. They forecasted that peak demand on intensive care would be more than 15 times capacity, causing roughly 1.5 million deaths, based on worldwide data gathered about the variant's severity. The company said it modelled its data on Hong Kong's BA.1 wave in February, which occurred after the city eased restrictions after two years.

☆ Emerging market policymakers dare to hope for brighter 2023
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Roberto Samora | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

He also said a reopening of China could propel the South Korean economy in 2023. "Actually if China loosens zero-COVID policy and reopens their borders and economy that will be a tremendous stimulus for us. Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman forecast a "very good" economy ahead of 2024 national elections, fuelled by capital spending. State finance minister Shehan Semasinghe also said the nation was intent on meeting a December deadline to present plans to help unlock an International Monetary Fund bail-out. Zambia, which defaulted on its sovereign debt in 2020, aims to complete its restructuring of nearly $15 billion of external debt in the first quarter of 2023, Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane said.

☆ EXCLUSIVE Bank of Korea ready to adjust tightening pace, hopes for peak rate near 3.5%
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Cynthia Kim | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] South Korea's new central bank governor Rhee Chang-yong speaks during his inauguration ceremony in Seoul, South Korea April 21, 2022. But he added that South Korean interest rates should not get too far below those of the United States, because of the risk of capital outflow. With the policy rate now at 3.25%, Rhee hopes it will not have to go much higher. It is the first time that the central bank governor has specified a level around which he hopes rates will peak. The Fed's policy rate is currently 3.75% to 4.00%.

The economic pain has intensified the pressure to ease pandemic restrictions to salvage the flagging economy and restore some semblance of normal life. The current Covid outbreak, the most widespread since the start of the pandemic in 2020, has painted Xi Jinping, China’s president, into a corner. He has refused to budge on the government’s strict Covid approach. If he loosens restrictions and infections skyrocket, there is the risk of mass casualties and an overwhelmed health care system. But keeping the current policies in place and limiting infections with widespread lockdowns would inflict further damage to an already slowing economy.

☆ Biden administration loosens Trump-era investing rules around environment, social and governance funds for 401(k) plans
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Greg Iacurci | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

The Biden administration on Tuesday issued a final rule that makes it easier for employers to consider climate change and other so-called environment, social and governance factors when picking investment funds for their 401(k) plans. The U.S. Department of Labor rule, which takes effect in 60 days, undoes regulations put in place during the Trump administration. Those prior rules, issued in 2020, had a "chilling" effect that effectively sidelined employers from weighing ESG factors when selecting 401(k) funds, senior Labor Department officials said during a press call Tuesday. ESG funds have grown more popular in recent years. The Inflation Reduction Act is expected to further bolster the popularity of ESG investing.

☆ Reactions to Trump announcing 2024 White House bid
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

SINGAPORE, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Donald Trump's aides filed paperwork for his 2024 White House bid on Tuesday as the former president launched a run to regain the title, aiming to pre-empt potential Republican rivals. Republicans are meanwhile closing in on the 218 seats they need to take a majority in the 435-seat House of Representatives. COMMENTS:ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FOUNDER, SKYBRIDGE CAPITAL, SINGAPORE (FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR)"You know how you have a zombie that you can’t kill, like in the Night of the Walking Dead? If any one of those other candidates can present themselves with some of the Trump messaging without the Trump drama, there might be opportunities." Neil Young said 'it's better to burn out than fade away'...feels like Trump will go down this time with little glory."

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