Author: Press Room

This article is an on-site version of our Unhedged newsletter. Sign up here to get the newsletter sent straight to your inbox every weekdayGood morning. US stocks have been flattish over the past week; is the Santa rally losing momentum? If so, the reason may be that investors are already uniformly bullish, leaving the market with nowhere to go. We discuss this notion below. As for ourselves, we can always find something to be worried about, especially during the holidays. Let us know your mood: robert.armstrong@ft.com and ethan.wu@ft.com. Bears facing extinction?From a story on Bloomberg yesterday, by Sagarika Jaisinghani and…

© Reuters. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken shakes hands with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi as they meet at the State Department in Washington, U.S., October 26, 2023. REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger/ File Photo BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Wednesday that promoting healthy, stable and sustainable China-U.S. relations is an important task, in a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Blinken also discussed his recent travel in the Middle East and U.S. diplomatic efforts in the region with Wang, according to an earlier statement from the U.S. Department of State. In the call,…

© Reuters. The logo of Rakuten is pictured in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan, Aug 2, 2023. REUTERS/Miho Uranaka/File Photo TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Rakuten Group said on Wednesday it plans to sell 25.5 million shares in Rakuten Bank in the offshore market, the latest bid to shore up its finances. The shares are equivalent to just under 15% of its stake in the bank, according to LSEG data. Rakuten said it planned to use the proceeds of the sale for the early repayment of bonds, as it had committed to reducing interest-bearing debt. The stake would be worth around 69.8 billion…

Powerbridge Technologies receives Nasdaq notice for non-compliance

Liz Cheney was widely seen as a Republican superstar in the making, perhaps even a future president, before she was elected to Congress in 2016. Ms. Cheney never discouraged the talk, but Donald J. Trump shattered her glittering future after she voted to impeach him in 2021 and became a pariah in the G.O.P.Now, while vowing to do “everything I can” to ensure that Mr. Trump never returns to the White House, Ms. Cheney, a former congresswoman from Wyoming, has suggested that she has not abandoned her own presidential ambitions. In interviews with The Washington Post and USA Today ahead…

CLNKraneShares Key News Asian equities were mostly lower in a broadly risk off session following declines on Wall Street and a downgrade of China’s credit outlook following a similar downgrade for the US from Fitch. Mainland investors bought the dip in Hong Kong in size. Southbound Stock Connect, which connects Mainland China investors with stocks listed in Hong Kong, saw net buying of over $500 million overnight. Clearly, Mainland investors believe the Hong Kong could be undervalued. Recently, the purchases through the mutual market access program have been focused on ETFs, rather than single stocks. Moody’s’ downgrade of its China…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Brazilian cosmetics company Natura has explored offloading most of its Avon brand’s international business, as the group unwinds a series of high-profile acquisitions to focus on its home region.The São Paulo-based group, which has already struck deals to sell luxury cosmetics brand Aesop and The Body Shop this year, has considered exit strategies including a divestment of Avon International, according to people familiar with the discussions.Natura, which does not own Avon in the US, is combining the brand’s operations in Latin America…

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Road signs are reflected on an electric board displaying the Nikkei stock average outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, July 28, 2023. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon By Kevin Buckland TOKYO (Reuters) -Asia-Pacific equities gained on Wednesday as bets firmed for a peak in interest rates among major central banks globally, pushing down bond yields. Benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond yields dipped to their lowest since mid-August at 0.62%, tracking an overnight slide for equivalent U.S. Treasury yields as cooling labour market data cemented views that the Federal Reserve is done raising rates. U.S. 10-years touched a three-month trough…

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters are placed on computer motherboard in this illustration taken, June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration By Foo Yun Chee, Supantha Mukherjee and Martin Coulter BRUSSELS/STOCKHOLM/LONDON (Reuters) – European Union ambitions to take a lead in landmark rules for artificial intelligence hang in the balance as member states and lawmakers meet on Wednesday to try to hammer out a deal on biometric surveillance and how to regulate systems like ChatGPT. If agreed, the EU’s first-of-a-kind AI Act, which was proposed by the European Commission two years ago, could serve as the benchmark for countries…

Greif dividend declines by 1.3% to $0.77