World

As an early retiree, 39-year-old Steve Adcock and his wife Courtney, 36, have the vast majority of their $1.2 million net worth sitting in investments. But even though the couple expects to live off of this money for the rest of their lives, they rarely spend any time checking on it. That's because they made the decision early on to never try to time the market, instead opting to keep their money in targeted retirement funds. While timing the market successfully — that is to say, buying individual stocks in the hopes that they will increase in price and then flip for a profit — can be lucrative, Steve says it is "a recipe for disaster." "None of us can tell the future," Adcock tells CNBC Make It. "[People] suck at timing the market." Adcock says that his status as a retiree makes him ev...

related media assets (image or videos) available. Click to see the gallery. 2 related media assets (image or videos) available. Click to see the gallery. Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani's US$10 billion entry into renewable energy could drive solar tariffs further to the ground and ignite bidding wars with fellow billionaire Gautam Adani, industry analysts say. CHENNAI: Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani's US$10 billion entry into renewable energy could drive solar tariffs further to the ground and ignite bidding wars with fellow billionaire Gautam Adani, industry analysts say. India's two richest men are vying to be at the forefront of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambition to ramp up green energy capacity in the world's second-most populous country more than four-fold to 450 gigawatts (GW) by 2...

Times are tough, especially for hawkers in the business district. The programme On The Red Dot meets two masters of the trade whose decades-old legacies might be lost if things do not change. SINGAPORE: Maxwell Food Centre hawker Ng Kok Hua started helping out at his father’s stall when he was in Primary Six. He took over when he was 16 and has been plying his trade ever since. In the beginning, he took a bus to China Street after school to help wash the plates and serve mainland Chinese cuisine to customers. At night when the stall had closed, his father took him to sample other hawker food in nearby Amoy Street, Boon Tat Street or Pickering Street. “So (it didn’t feel like) I was coming to help my father, (but rather like) I was coming for the good food,” he recalls. When he was...

SHANGHAI: China is barring tutoring for profit in core school subjects to ease financial pressures on families that have contributed to low birth rates, news that sent shockwaves through its vast private education sector and share prices plunging. The policy change, which also restricts foreign investment in a sector that had become essential to success in Chinese school exams, was contained in a government document widely circulated on Friday and verified by sources. The move threatens to decimate China's US$120 billion private tutoring industry and triggered a heavy selloff in shares of tutoring firms traded in Hong Kong and New York including New Oriental Education & Technology and Koolearn Technology Holding. All institutions offering tutoring on the school curriculum will be re...

The ruling Chinese Communist Party marked its 100th birthday last Thursday. There is a lot for the party and the Chinese people to celebrate: China’s international power and influence are at a historical high — at least for the modern era — and the country and its leadership are convinced that this trajectory has not reached its apogee. The CPC’s accomplishments are many, but the confidence feels somewhat forced. For all its successes, modern China is sometimes brittle, possessed of an anxiety, not quite a fear, that all could be lost. Sadly, this insecurity, rather than China’s very real problems, could be the greatest threat to the CPC. The party’s accomplishments are impressive, not least of which is its survival. A once outlawed organization, the CPC surmounted the Long March, war, i...

WASHINGTON: After years of waiting, Richard Branson's journey to space this month on a Virgin Galactic vessel was supposed to be a triumphant homecoming. Instead, the jaunt attracted significant criticism - about its carbon footprint. With Jeff Bezos set to launch on a Blue Origin rocket on Jul 20, and Elon Musk's SpaceX planning an all-civilian orbital mission in September, the nascent space tourism industry finds itself facing tough questions about its environmental impact. Right now, rocket launches as a whole do not happen often enough to pollute significantly. "The carbon dioxide emissions are totally negligible compared to other human activities or even commercial aviation," NASA's chief climate advisor Gavin Schmidt told AFP. But some scientists are worried about the potenti...

Stocks held near record highs on Friday as investors waited to see if U.S. payroll figures will alter their bets on when central banks row back on pandemic stimulus and whether inflation is here to stay. NEW YORK: Global stock markets rose on Friday on a better-than-expected U.S. monthly jobs report that signaled the world's largest economy ended the second quarter with strong growth momentum, while U.S. bond prices fell on investor worries over the Federal Reserve's response. Data showed U.S. job growth accelerated in June as nonfarm payrolls increased by 850,000 jobs after rising by 583,000 in May, although the unemployment rate rose to 5.9per cent from 5.8per cent the previous month. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls advancing by 700,000 jobs. The MSCI All Countr...

NEW YORK :The dollar gained against a basket of peer currencies on Tuesday following the U.S. Independence Day long weekend as traders positioned themselves ahead of the release of the minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve's pivotal June meeting. NEW YORK: The dollar retreated on Thursday from a three-month high hit late in the previous session, mainly due to strength in the euro after the European Central Bank set a new inflation target and as concerns grew over the spread of COVID variants. Softness in the dollar continued after data showed the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly last week, an indication that the labor market recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be choppy. "It's an indication that if these numbers continue ...

SINGAPORE: A man who lived with his wife and a domestic helper began filming the Myanmar national in the shower after feeling a "sudden urge to see her naked body". After the victim saw a phone under the shower door, she left her phone on video-recording mode in the kitchen to see who was the culprit, and realised it was her employer. The 67-year-old man, who cannot be named as it might identify the victim, was given four months' jail on Wednesday (Jul 14). He pleaded guilty to one count each of voyeurism and insulting a woman's modesty. Another two charges were considered in sentencing. The court heard that the victim, who is now 32, began working for the couple in March 2016. One evening in August 2019, the victim approached the accused and told him she was going to take a showe...

PLACETAS: In Cuba, where communism and religion live uneasily side by side, there is a city where it is no longer strange to see a priest walk down the street in a white cassock followed by enthusiastic greetings of "Good day, Father!" A small order of Catholic clergy have become a beloved and indispensable part of the community in Placetas, offering survival essentials to its economically devastated population of about 40,000 souls. The priests have become, in part, a surrogate for the government, which in Cuba has political control over just about every aspect of life - though in practice it cannot always deliver where it is needed most. From Placetas, four French priests have set up three day care centres, five soup kitchens, an after-school center, a boarding school and an old-a...