World

HONG KONG: HSBC's bosses will meet retail investors on Tuesday (Aug 2) in Hong Kong, the biggest market for Europe's largest lender, seeking to convince them their strategy to operate as a global bank is vital to boosting growth. The London-headquartered group is under pressure from its largest shareholder, Ping An Insurance Group Co of China Ltd, to explore options including spinning off its mainstay Asia business to increase shareholder returns. The informal meeting, which will discuss earnings and strategy, comes a day after HSBC rejected the break-up call, reported forecast-beating profit and promised chunkier dividends, sending its Hong Kong-listed shares to a one-month high. HSBC's response represented its most direct defence since news of Ping An's proposal broke in April. The l...

TOKYO :SoftBank Group Corp's decision to sell down its Alibaba Group Holding stake for a $34 billion gain may be aimed at bolstering its finances, but it also underlines how CEO Masayoshi Son has cooled on China tech. Son was formerly one of the sector's biggest cheerleaders and Alibaba is his most famous bet, immensely profitable and for his fans, symbolic of his foresight and investing acumen. Amid a sharp market downturn, however, Son will reduce his conglomerate's stake in Alibaba to 14.6 per cent from 23.7 per cent by settling prepaid forward contracts, although the Chinese firm remains SoftBank's largest asset. "It seems like they're saying 'we think the outlook for China tech is pretty poor so we're going to get in front of that'," said Redex Research analyst Kirk Boodry. A roug...

(In Aug. 18 story, corrects Chuck Self's title to chief investment strategist instead of chief investment officer, paragraph 3) By Chibuike Oguh NEW YORK :Global equity markets were choppy and U.S. Treasury yields fell on Thursday, as uncertainty over the pace of interest rate hikes prevailed among investors after the Federal Reserve's meeting minutes showed officials were determined to curb rising prices. Markets have been volatile amid concerns about a looming recession, even though Fed officials indicated in the minutes of their July meeting released on Wednesday that they would adopt a less aggressive stance if inflation starts to recede. "The markets are still trying to figure out the Fed minutes," causing volatility, said Charles Self, chief investment strategist at Tandem Wealth...

DEKALB, Illinois: The current conflict in Myanmar raised new international concern when the country’s military announced on Monday (Jul 25), that it had executed four democracy activists and political prisoners. The high-profile killings were the latest signal that the civil conflict in the Southeast Asian country is deepening, almost 18 months after the military staged a coup and overtook the democratically elected government in February 2021. The military killed two leading political leaders who opposed the junta – Kyaw Min Yu, a writer and activist known as Jimmy, and Phyo Zeya Thaw, a hip-hop musician turned lawmaker under the old political regime – citing counterterrorism charges. Two other people – Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw – were executed after they were convicted of killin...

When was 377A introduced and why? Section 377A was introduced to Singapore’s Penal Code in the middle of 1938 when it was under British rule. It reads: “Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or abets the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years.” The law was generally believed to have derived from the British government’s desire to "safeguard" public morality by prohibiting homosexual activity in the Straits Settlements. However, a legal team that sought to repeal the law in Singapore in 2019 argued that documents from the British National Archives suggest that Section 377A was originally intended ...

BANGKOK :Thailand's economy expanded at the fastest pace in a year in the second quarter as eased COVID-19 restrictions boosted activity and tourism, reinforcing views that more rate hikes will be needed to curb inflationary pressures. Southeast Asia's second-largest economy is making a steady recovery after the lifting of pandemic curbs but still faces headwinds ranging from inflation at 14-year highs to China's slowdown and weaker global demand. The government slightly revised its 2022 economic growth forecast to 2.7 per cent to 3.2 per cent from an earlier 2.5 per cent to 3.5 per cent range. Last year's 1.5 per cent growth was among the slowest in Southeast Asia. The Thai economy grew an annual 2.5 per cent in the June quarter, the fastest since the second quarter of 2021, data from ...

Traders on the floor of the NYSE, Aug. 11, 2022. Source: NYSE Here are the most important news items that investors need to start their trading day: 1. Markets looking up U.S. stock futures pointed to a rally Friday morning, a day after the three major indexes posted mixed results. On Thursday, the Dow finished slightly positive, while the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq slipped after another round of inflation data showed that price increases were slowing down somewhat. But one month of data does not make a trend, and inflation remains high even as gas prices are coming down from record highs in June. The Federal Reserve is still expected to take an aggressive tack against rising prices, and is projected to increase rates again in September. Next week, markets will get even more info...

:South Africa have made two changes to their starting line-up for the Rugby Championship clash with Australia at Adelaide Oval on Saturday as coach Jacques Nienaber also cut a member from their famous ‘Bomb Squad’ on the bench. Warrick Gelant will start on the right wing in the place of the injured Jesse Kriel, while the experienced Faf de Klerk returns to the scrumhalf position after he was concussed against New Zealand earlier this month. Gelant is the fourth right wing in as many tests for the Springboks after Cheslin Kolbe, Kurt-Lee Arendse and Kriel were all ruled out through either injury or suspension. Injuries to backline players early in their recent tests forced a change of thinking on the bench, with Nienaber moving away from the 6-2 split between forwards and backs to a more...

Between the second quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2020, the number of TikTok monthly active users experienced its biggest jump in Singapore, growing by 187 per cent from 334,000 to 961,000. Speaking to TODAY, Ms Lexi Sydow, the head of insights at data.ai, said that TikTok has grown phenomenally in Southeast Asia. Over the last five years, the number of monthly active users in Singapore has grown by more than eight times as of the second quarter of this year, in line with Malaysia and faster than Vietnam. Within the region, the rate of growth was the highest in Indonesia, where monthly active users grew 17 times between the second quarter of 2018 and the second quarter of 2022. She also noted that while TikTok ranks fourth for social media apps in Singapore by total time spen...

Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Social and Family Development Eric Chua, who co-chairs the steering committee that put together the masterplan, said that the committee had conversations with more than 300 PWDs, caregivers and professionals in the disability sector to find out what else can be done to help PWDs in Singapore achieve their potential. These insights went into the eight-year plan, which is three years longer than earlier masterplans that were five years each in duration. Mr Chua said that this allows the stakeholders to take a longer-term approach to the initiatives proposed. “It doesn't mean that the plan that we have announced today is going to be set in stone … In fact, we do see quite a bit of scope for us to evolve,” he said at the launch of the masterplan at social ...