World

:Autonomous driving startup Pony.ai has put on hold plans to go public in New York through a merger with a blank-check firm at a US$12 billion valuation, after it failed to gain assurances from Beijing that it would not become a target of a crackdown against Chinese technology companies, people familiar with the matter said. The decision makes Pony.ai one of the biggest companies to suspend its U.S. listing plans after China banned ride-sharing giant Didi Global Inc https://www.reuters.com/business/didi-shares-slump-25-china-crackdown-2021-07-06 from signing up new users just days after its blockbuster initial public offering (IPO) in June. It followed up with crackdowns on other Chinese technology firms over concerns about the safety of user data, which led to some companies, such as Li...

NEW YORK :World stock markets closed at new highs on Wednesday as investors looked beyond weak economic data that weighed on the dollar to focus on the likely continuation of massive central bank stimulus measures. MSCI's all-country world index climbed to its fourth straight closing high, while the Nasdaq Composite hit a fresh record close. The Euro STOXX 600 came close to breaching an all-time peak set three weeks ago and the S&P 500 almost reached a new intraday high. The upbeat mood for equities came despite signs that Asia's factory activity lost momentum in August and that U.S. private employers hired far fewer workers than expected last month, likely due to a resurgence in COVID-19 infections. But the U.S. labor market continues to recover, with private payrolls increasing last m...

BENGALURU : The dollar's direction is in limbo as financial markets await a clearer path from the U.S. Federal Reserve, according to a Reuters poll of FX strategists who were split on where they expected the currency to trade over the next three months. On the back foot even before Fed Chair Jerome Powell's comments last Friday at Jackson Hole, the greenback has lost almost 1.4per cent since it hit a nine-month high about two weeks ago. But it is still up around 3per cent for the year. While analysts in the Aug. 30-Sept. 2 poll of nearly 60 FX strategists expected the greenback to give up most of those gains over the coming year, they were increasingly uncertain about both the short- and medium-term outlook. "There's two important forces when we look at the direction of the dollar. The ...

BEIJING/SYDNEY : China's aviation regulator is likely to keep the current tight caps on international flights throughout the first half of 2022, analysts cited Air China as saying this week. The move has broad implications for tourism in the Asia-Pacific region, where Chinese outbound travellers normally play an outsized role, though other countries have also been slow to open borders because of relatively low vaccination rates and rising COVID-19 cases. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) last month said that weekly international flights were at only 2per cent of 2019 levels, as more flights were suspended amid a rising number of imported COVID-19 cases. China's three biggest airlines, Air China, China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines, said in their earnings c...

PARTNERSHIP WITH SOUTHEAST ASIA Ms Harris urged nations throughout the Indo-Pacific to join the US in this effort, saying that she hopes the region will look back at this moment years from now and realise they joined together to "improve the lives of all people". "I hope that we will be able to point to our partnerships between the United States and Singapore, between the United States and Southeast Asia, and throughout the Indo-Pacific, as the partnerships that made this shared vision of the future possible," she added. Ms Harris said she believes the growth of the US economy can benefit its partners, especially as its economy "shares so much" with Southeast Asia, from supply chains to a steady flow of two-way trade. "Collectively, the nations of Southeast Asia, represent our nation's...

TOKYO: Japan's factory activity growth slowed in August, while that of the services sector shrank at the fastest pace since May last year, highlighting the increasingly heavy toll a recent wave of COVID-19 infections is taking on the economy. Manufacturers mostly withstood the impact of the coronavirus resurgence, due largely to the highly contagious Delta variant that is forcing governments in Japan and elsewhere in Asia to put in place lockdowns or other curbs. The au Jibun Bank Flash Japan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell to a seasonally adjusted 52.4 in August from a final 53.0 in the prior month. Overall orders and export orders increased, though the pace of growth was the slowest in seven months. Firms faced severe supply chain disruptions from a global semicond...

SHANGHAI : Tianyan Capital has become the latest hedge fund manager in China to limit the size of its quantitative investment business, after the main securities regulator advised bourses to pay attention to the explosive growth of "quant" funds. The regulators' remarks on Monday came amid heightened market concern over regulatory activity across a range of sectors, from technology to private tutoring. Tianyan Capital, which employs fast computers that use mathematical and statistical analyses to trade, said it had suspended fresh fundraising on Sept. 7 after prudent considerations. "Recently, the company has actively curbed growth in assets under management (AUM) using various methods, but we think we're still growing too fast," Tianyan said in a statement to clients on Tuesday. The f...

BANGKOK: Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake reached historically low water levels at the end of last month, raising further concerns about the situation of a critically important ecosystem that feeds the reaches of the lower Mekong river basin. Cambodia’s Tonle Sap, an expansive lake that can swell across a floodplain up to 20 times the size of Singapore during the monsoon season, is experiencing a third consecutive year of dire conditions. Station readings recorded a level of just 3.86m on Aug 31, nearly 1m lower than in 2020 and about half the normal average at this time of the year. “At the end of August, the Tonle Sap reached a historical low at a time when the lake should be saturated with water and fish,” said Brian Eyler, a senior fellow and director of Energy, Water, and Su...

Marital and business disputes are never pretty. When the two are combined, it can get even more complicated. On the latest episode of CNBC's new series "Money Court," O'Shares ETFs chairman Kevin O'Leary is tasked with finding a resolution for a couple who are fighting over the direction of their growing pet grooming empire. Chris and Emily Elias run The Ruff Life, a popular mobile pet grooming service in Long Island, New York, that has seen business explode during the pandemic. With their fleet of vans busier than ever, the couple feel it's time to expand. Chris wants to buy three new vans and take the business national, while Emily wants to stay on their home turf and open a brick-and-mortar pet spa. The business partners turned to O'Leary for advice, and because they signed a contract a...

TOKYO: Japan's exports marked a fifth straight month of double-digit growth in July, driven by US-bound shipments of automobiles in a positive sign for a trade-led economy, although a key gauge of capital spending fell for the first time in four months. The mixed batch of indicators underscored fragility in the world's third-largest economy, which grew 1.3 per cent in the April-June quarter due to solid exports and a surprise gain in private consumption. However, prolonged coronavirus curbs on bars, restaurants and other face-to-face service sector businesses cloud the outlook, piling pressure on Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to deploy another big stimulus package. Ministry of Finance data out on Wednesday (Aug 18) showed Japanese exports grew 37.0 per cent year-on-year in July, a tad s...