Japanese monetary authorities made a last-minute decision to bring forward to Wednesday an emergency meeting on the weak yen that was originally scheduled for Thursday, to maximise the impact of arresting sharp yen falls, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
China will make it easier to move capital in and out of the country and promote financial market deregulation, a senior forex regulator said on Friday, as Beijing seeks to woo foreign investors amid heightened geopolitical tensions.
Vietnam's gross domestic product in the first quarter grew 5.66% from a year earlier as exports boomed, government data released on Friday showed, despite higher shipping costs due to turmoil in the Red Sea.
Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has opened an investigation into a supplier of parts for Boeing , Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc after what he said were recurring issues with certain of those parts, his office said on Thursday.
Brazilian exchange operator B3 said on Thursday it received a green light from the country's securities regulator to offer bitcoin futures, with trading to start on April 17.
Alaska Air Group said on Thursday the lost capacity from the temporary grounding of its Boeing 737 Max 9 fleet may cause the company's long-term profit growth to be below its target range of 4% to 8%.
Rite Aid, one of the largest U.S. pharmacy chains, received permission from a U.S. judge on Thursday to begin voting on a bankruptcy restructuring plan that would turn over most of the company's equity to its bondholders, while still leaving open the possibility of a sale.
A U.S. judge on Thursday dismissed seven lawsuits by investors who accused Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley of misconduct that fueled the rapid March 2021 collapse of Bill Hwang's $36 billion firm Archegos Capital Management.
A federal judge in California on Thursday appeared poised to reject Tesla's bid to toss out a U.S. agency's lawsuit accusing the electric carmaker of tolerating rampant harassment of Black workers at its Fremont, California assembly plant.
NXP Semiconductors NV, the biggest maker of computer chips for cars, on Thursday said it had introduced a new platform that will simplify and speed up software development for its customers.
Blackwells Capital upped the pressure on Walt Disney in a long-running boardroom battle, suing the entertainment giant on Thursday for information that may point to possible disclosure violations in dealings with hedge fund ValueAct Capital.
The European Central Bank (ECB) is likely to start off with a "moderate" interest rate cut this spring, which should come independently of the U.S. Federal Reserve's timeframe, ECB policymaker Francois Villeroy de Galhau said on Thursday.
Apple's overseas suppliers have increased production of the company's new iPad models and plans to launch them in early May, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday citing people with knowledge of the matter.
S&P Global raised its long-term issuer credit rating of Swedish real estate group SBB to "CCC" from selective default (SD) on Thursday and maintained its negative outlook, after cutting its rating earlier this week.
Scrub Daddy, the kitchen sponge maker that gained popularity after securing an investment on U.S. TV show "Shark Tank," is exploring options that include a sale of the company, according to people familiar with the matter.
With less than a week to go before shareholders elect Walt Disney's board the race for votes heated up on Thursday as one institutional investor sided with CEO Bob Iger and the company's directors, while another backed hedge fund manager Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management.
Some former FTX customers expressed anger and disappointment on Thursday after Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto exchange's former billionaire boss, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for stealing $8 billion from customers.
Regulated household electricity prices will fall by 19.8% for the average Italian family in the second quarter of the year, helped by lower prices for gas in the first few months of 2024, regulator ARERA said in a statement on Thursday.
CD Projekt , Poland's biggest games developer, reported a 39% rise in full-year net profit on Thursday, driven by strong sales of its flagship game Cyberpunk 2077 and the Phantom Liberty expansion.
Thames Water faces potential nationalisation after shareholders reneged on a promise to plough in new equity, putting the company's finances and future at risk.
Philip Morris International is preparing to launch its flagship heated tobacco device IQOS in Austin, Texas, indicating it will be the first testing ground for its U.S. entry, job adverts on LinkedIn show.
The British public's expectations for inflation over the next year and the longer term fell in March, U.S. bank Citi said on Thursday as it published a monthly survey by market research firm YouGov.
Superdry CEO and top shareholder Julian Dunkerton will not be making an offer for the company, both parties said on Thursday, and the struggling British fashion chain said it reached an agreement to extend a loan facility to help its turnaround plans.
Nutrien Ltd. , the world's largest producer of potash fertilizer, is mulling divestments in South America, replacing management and halting an acquisition spree in Brazil after steep losses in the region, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
White House National Economic Adviser Lael Brainard said on Thursday corporate profits remain elevated, after U.S. consumer sentiment rose unexpectedly in March to the highest in nearly three years on hopes inflation will keep softening.
China's manufacturing activity likely contracted for a sixth straight month in March but at a slower pace, a Reuters poll showed on Thursday, suggesting factory owners are still struggling for orders despite some green shoots in the economy.
A U.S. judge dismissed most of a lawsuit accusing Trader Joe's of misleading and endangering consumers by failing to disclose that its dark chocolate bars contained harmful levels of "heavy metals" such as lead and cadmium.
More than 600 UK Border Force officers at Heathrow Airport, Britain's busiest hub, will take strike action for four days from April 11 in a dispute over working conditions, the PCS trade union said on Thursday.
Russia's Finance Ministry has confirmed that it reached an agreement with sanctioned diamond producer Alrosa to regularly buy some of the company's output, the ministry said.
India's Adani Energy Solutions is looking to borrow as much as $600 million to fund smart meter projects for electricity supply, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday citing people familiar with the matter.
Almost half of the energy companies Citi lends to are lacking plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the fourth-largest U.S. bank said in a climate report released on Thursday.
Ground staff at German airline Lufthansa will get a pay rise of up to 18% in two stages, the Verdi union said on Thursday after hammering out details of a deal to avert further strikes ahead of the busy Easter travel season.
British media group The Independent will take control of BuzzFeed's editorial and commercial operations in the UK and Ireland in a multi-year licensing deal announced on Thursday.
The Swiss National Bank's vice chairman called for an in-depth review of UBS's capital requirements in an interview with Swiss newspaper Finanz und Wirtschaft on Thursday.
The Dutch government on Thursday said it would be willing to provide subsidies to Tata Steel if the company was able to accelerate plans to drastically cut pollution at its large plant in IJmuiden.
The new head of Boeing's troubled commercial airplane unit said the U.S. planemaker faces a "pivotal moment" as it works to boost quality and address significant concerns from regulators and airline customers after a panel flew off a 737 MAX 9 jet in January.
Britain's stock markets should halve the time it takes to settle a share trade to stay competitive and complete this shift by the end of 2027, a report recommended on Thursday, a step the UK government has backed to play catch up with Wall Street.
Halted shipping traffic from the Port of Baltimore, the second-largest U.S. hub for coal exports, will slow the growth in U.S. coal exports and reduce bunker fuel use, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Thursday.
Top London-focused landlords are betting on environmentally compliant office spaces at prime locations that offer higher rents as tenants become more selective in their real estate investments amid hybrid work trends in an uncertain economy.
Some Western companies have sold their Russian assets or handed them over to local managers to comply with sanctions over the war in Ukraine and respond to threats from the Kremlin that it may seize foreign-owned assets.
Britain's government has ended its push to use increases in the minimum wage to narrow the gap between the lowest earners and those on higher pay, offering some relief to employers after this year's nearly 10% jump.
Valentino has appointed former Gucci designer Alessandro Michele as creative director starting from next week, the Italian fashion house said on Thursday.
The U.S. and UK are reviewing more than $20 billion of cryptocurrency transactions that passed through a Russia-based virtual exchange Garantex, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday citing people familiar with the matter.
Surveying the stripped landscape of her farm - dotted with pools of cyanide-tainted, tea coloured waste water left by illegal gold miners - is enough to make Janet Gyamfi break down.
The European Central Bank will cut interest rates in June, according to an overwhelming number of economists in a Reuters poll, but only a tiny majority now expect cumulative cuts of 100 basis points or more in 2024.
China's commerce minister will travel to Europe in April for discussions about the European Commission's investigation into whether China's electric vehicle industry has benefited from unfair subsidies, four people briefed on the plan told Reuters.
C2A Security will supply a cybersecurity platform to Daimler Trucks , the Israeli start-up said on Thursday, marking its latest deal with automakers facing strict European regulations.
A $10 billion battle between reinsurers and aircraft leasing companies seeking payouts for more than 200 jets stuck in Russia should be heard in London rather than Moscow, London's High Court ruled on Thursday.
Liberty Steel, owned by commodities tycoon Sanjeev Gupta, has reached an agreement with major creditors after raising capital, paving the way for a restructuring of its British business, it said on Thursday.
UBS flagged on Thursday the downturn in commercial real estate markets as one of the "top and emerging risks" facing the Swiss bank, as higher borrowing costs and a post-pandemic slump in demand for office space hit the sector.
EnCap Investments is seeking to sell XCL Resources, four people familiar with the matter said, two years after the private equity firm's plan to combine the oil and gas producer with a local rival was thwarted by U.S. antitrust regulators.
Oakley Capital is weighing options, including a sale, for its Norwegian maritime training software company Ocean Technologies Group (OTG), three sources close to the matter told Reuters.
French Bordeaux wine exporters, who supply 9% of China's total wine and spirits imports, expect a rapid fall in exports after China's decision on Thursday to lift import tariffs on Australian wine.
U.S. private equity firm L Catterton said on Thursday it will form a joint venture in India with former Hindustan Unilever (HUL) CEO Sanjiv Mehta to develop a new investment vehicle targeting the country's consumer market.
Global smartphone shipments are expected to rebound 3% this year as easing inflation aids a demand recovery in emerging markets and the integration of generative AI attracts buyers to premium devices, a report by Counterpoint Research said on Thursday.
Walgreen Boots Alliance cut the higher end of its profit forecast for fiscal-year 2024 on Thursday, citing economic challenges for its retail operations, and took a $5.8-billion impairment related to its VillageMD business.
Oil prices will gain some momentum this year as demand picks up and output curbs by the OPEC+ producer group continue to squeeze supply that is already being pressured by military conflicts, a Reuters poll showed on Thursday.
The Dutch government is expected to lay out initial plans on Thursday to keep the country's largest company ASML , from moving operations outside the Netherlands over concerns ranging from anti-immigration policies to infrastructure problems.
India's blue-chip Nifty 50 index surged nearly 29% this financial year, ending March 31, powered by a booming economy and strong fund inflows that helped mark the best year for domestic stocks since a post-COVID bounce in fiscal 2021.
The Bank of England allotted 5.150 billion pounds ($6.50 billion) of one-week funds in its short-term repo operation on Thursday, the largest usage of the facility since it launched in October 2022.
France's government is looking to shorten the period people can claim unemployment benefits to strengthen incentives to work as it struggles to keep its deficit reduction plans on track.
Indian mutual funds are likely to continue swapping the central government debt on their books with high-yielding state government bonds after active purchases over the last few days, four fund managers said on Thursday.
The outgoing head of Europe's aviation regulator has issued a warning over resources and called for a bigger role as it grapples with "systemic risks" in the aviation ecosystem.
The U.S. stock market is off to a soaring start in 2024, as optimism over the economy and interest rate cuts has combined with exuberance about the business opportunity in artificial intelligence to stir up a potent cocktail for equities.
Inflows into the nine recently launched exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tied to bitcoin have resumed their upward trajectory this week after the cryptocurrency's price bounced back from its dip last week.
Zambia's deal with bondholders this week suggests it will finally emerge from more than three years in default -- and become the first successful restructuring under the debt-rework architecture designed by the G20.
The S&P 500 closed out the week with slight gains on Thursday, with the benchmark index notching its strongest first quarter in five years, as investors digested the latest batch of economic data while looking towards the next inflation reading.
Hungary's central bank expects the 2024 budget deficit to be between 4.5% to 5% of gross domestic product, possibly exceeding the government's recently increased 4.5% target, it said in its quarterly inflation report on Thursday.
Chinese companies are staring at the prospects of a drought of new equity capital as tougher domestic IPO rules and challenges in listing overseas severely curb their fundraisings, putting at risk the floundering economy's recovery.
Bank lending to euro zone companies and households continued to stagnate last month, with high interest rates likely to have discouraged borrowers as well as lenders, European Central Bank data showed on Thursday.
Russia's Kuibyshev mid-sized oil refinery near the city of Samara on the Volga river has halted all production following damage from a Ukrainian drone attack last week, two industry sources told Reuters on Thursday.
The pound eased on Thursday after data confirmed the UK economy entered recession in the second half of last year and as the dollar put on a display of broad-based strength as the month and the quarter end.
The risks to price stability in the euro zone are diminishing, creating the conditions for the European Central Bank to ease its monetary policy, governing council member Fabio Panetta reiterated on Thursday.
The White House said Thursday it is requiring federal agencies using artificial intelligence to adopt "concrete safeguards" by Dec. 1 to protect Americans’ rights and ensure safety as the government expands AI use in a wide range of applications.
Dutch energy company Eneco has reversed its decision to participate in the tender to build a large offshore wind farm in the Dutch part of the North Sea, citing rising costs and risks of delays.
India will send two delegations next month to Chile to scout for lithium and copper resources, a government source said, as rapid economic expansion and New Delhi's efforts to speed up the energy transition stoke demand for critical minerals.
The collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge is likely to lead to a multi-billion dollar insurance loss, the chairperson of commercial insurance market Lloyd's of London (SOLYD.UL) said on Thursday.
AO World said on Thursday it expects annual adjusted pretax profit to be at the top-end of its previous forecast as the British online consumer electricals retailer returned to revenue growth in the fourth quarter.
U.S.-based Keysight Technologies will buy Spirent Communications in an all-cash deal, valuing the British telecommunications testing firm at 1.16 billion pounds ($1.46 billion), both companies said in a joint statement on Thursday.
Britain's competition regulator said on Thursday that it has decided not to open an in-depth 'phase 2' investigation into Aviva's acquisition of AIG Life UK.
Britain's economy entered a shallow recession last year, official figures confirmed on Thursday, leaving Prime Minister Rishi Sunak with a challenge to reassure voters that the economy is safe with him before an election expected later this year.
British sportswear retailer JD Sports said on Thursday that trading conditions remained challenging and reported like-for-like sales in the fourth quarter rose 0.1%.
UBS said it is still reviewing potential misstatements in Credit Suisse's financial reports and talks with regulators to address the issue are ongoing.
Airbus , Chief Financial Officer Thomas Toepfer stressed the importance of a stable relationship with supplier Spirit AeroSystems , in a newspaper interview published on Thursday, as rival Boeing mulls plans to buy the firm.
Thames Water, Britain's biggest water utility, said shareholders had refused to stump up a promised 500 million pounds of equity, heightening concerns about its survival, after it failed to agree future bills and conditions with the regulator.
Lloyd's of London (SOLYD.UL) swung to a pre-tax profit of 10.7 billion pounds ($13.51 billion) in 2023, the commercial insurance market said on Thursday, boosted by strong underwriting and investment performance.
Japanese authorities are facing renewed pressure to combat a sustained depreciation in the yen, as traders drive down the currency on expectations that any further interest rate hikes by the central bank will be slow in forthcoming.
Food retailer Casino said on Thursday it had completed its financial restructuring and a new leadership team formed around Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky was taking control, ending the 30-year reign of Casino's owner Jean-Charles Naouri.
UBS will look to increase lending to the shipping sector and run off some loans to fossil fuel clients inherited from Credit Suisse, executives told Reuters, in the biggest test yet of the impact of a mega-merger on banks' sustainability commitments.
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) bounced back in the first quarter after a downbeat 2023, thanks to the return of mega deals, cheering investment bankers and lawyers waiting for a pick-up.
Global bond and equity markets are ending the first quarter on a high note, with investors poised for more wild swings ahead after months of the mood lurching between optimism and pessimism about prospective rate cuts from major central banks.
India's bulging pipeline of large block trades and listings such as the $3 billion IPO of Hyundai Motor's unit will draw more funds to a market whose share of global equity capital market deals hit a quarterly record this year, bankers said.
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On Thursday Joe Biden will host a fundraiser at Radio City Music Hall in New York, along with Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Mr Biden hopes that posing with his younger predecessors will put a spring in the step of his campaign, which is still dogged by concerns about the incumbent president’s age. Donors who want to pose with them will have to cough up at least $100,000. Donald Trump will also be in the Big Apple, attending the wake of a New York City police officer who was killed during a traffic stop this week.
Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, vowed to re-open Baltimore’s port after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed on Tuesday, but warned it will not be “quick or easy or cheap”. Recovery efforts were paused on Wednesday: authorities found the bodies of two of the six workers presumed dead, but debris prevented divers from continuing to search for the remaining four.
Joe Lieberman, former Democratic senator from Connecticut, died aged 82. Mr Lieberman, Al Gore’s vice-presidential pick in 2000, was the first Jew to be nominated on a major party ticket. A moderate Democrat, he won re-election as an independent in 2006; supported John McCain, a Republican, for president in 2008, almost becoming his running-mate; and helped lead the centrist group No Labels.
Disney settled a long legal fight with a board appointed by Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor. In 2023 Ron DeSantis replaced the Disney-controlled board of a special district encompassing Disney World with his allies, after Disney criticised a law passed by his administration. Under the settlement Disney will drop or pause some litigation and negotiate a development plan with the new board.
Marilyn Lands, a Democrat, won a special election for an Alabama state House seat on a platform of ensuring access to in-vitro fertilisation. She lost the seat in 2022 by seven percentage points; this time she won by 25. Alabama has been engulfed in a row about the legality of IVF since the state Supreme Court ruled that unfertilised embryos are people.
A federal appeals court upheld a block on Senate Bill 4, a law that would criminalise crossing into a state anywhere other than a port of entry. The law would allow Texas to determine its own immigration policy, traditionally the remit of the federal government. It briefly went into effect last week following a Supreme Court decision, before being halted by the appeals court.
🌎 A view from elsewhere
Joe Biden failed to appreciate the extremism within Israel’s government, wrote Le Monde in an editorial on March 23rd. Now he is paying the price for his “unreserved alignment” at the beginning of the Gaza war. His hardening stance has had no effect. Such humiliation is detrimental to America’s image—and in an election year may prove detrimental to Mr Biden, too.
What do you think about our new feature, A view from elsewhere, which takes in views on American politics from around the world? Send us feedback on [email protected].
Today’s polls
The race between the two candidates remains stubbornly stable. Judging from our poll tracker, which is updated daily and shows an average of the latest polls, the race between Mr Biden and Mr Trump is shaping up to be a dead heat.
Figure of the day
20%, the share of Republicans who consider Ukraine an “ally”, according to a recent YouGov survey for The Economist. Read our briefing about what Donald Trump’s foreign policy would look like in a second term.
Daily quiz
Thursday: What is the largest state, by population, without a professional big-four team? Wednesday: How many states lack a professional sports team in one of the big four sports (American football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey)?
From Monday to Thursday we’ll quiz you on American politics. Email all your answers with your name and where you are from to [email protected] before 5pm New York time (9pm London time) on a Thursday. The weekly winner, chosen at random from those who give all the right answers, will be announced here on Fridays.
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The corporate exodus from Russia since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine has cost foreign companies more than $107 billion in writedowns and lost revenue, a Reuters analysis of company filings and statements showed.
U.S. intelligence officials in late February told senators working on a biotech security bill that Chinese pharmaceutical firm WuXi AppTec had transferred U.S. intellectual property to Beijing without consent, according to two sources.
The Fed is close to delivering a rare soft landing for the U.S. economy but it faces yet another fraught challenge: reducing cash in the financial system without disrupting markets.
Toyota Motor's global sales dropped 7% in February from a year earlier, hurt by a heavy decline in China due to Lunar Year holidays and a slump in Japan after a safety test scandal at its small car unit.
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China said on Thursday it will support moves underway in the world's second-largest economy to stabilise its property market.
U.S. video game publisher Take-Two Interactive Software said on Wednesday it would acquire Gearbox Entertainment, best known for the first-person shooter game Borderlands, from Sweden's Embracer for $460 million.
In recent weeks, American lawmakers have moved to ban the Chinese-owned app TikTok. President Biden reinforced his commitment to overcome China’s rise in tech. And the Chinese government added chips from Intel and AMD to a blacklist of imports.
Now, as the tech and economic cold war between the United States and China accelerates, Silicon Valley’s leaders are capitalizing on the strife with a lobbying push for their interests in another promising field of technology: artificial intelligence.
On May 1, more than 100 tech chiefs and investors, including Alex Karp, the head of the defense contractor Palantir, and Roelof Botha, the managing partner of the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, will come to Washington for a daylong conference and private dinner focused on drumming up more hawkishness toward China’s progress in A.I.
Dozens of lawmakers, including Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, will also attend the event, the Hill & Valley Forum, which will include fireside chats and keynote discussions with members of a new House A.I. task force.
Tech executives plan to use the event to directly lobby against A.I. regulations that they consider onerous, as well as ask for more government spending on the technology and research to support its development. They also plan to ask to relax immigration restrictions to bring more A.I. experts to the United States.
The event highlights an unusual area of agreement between Washington and Silicon Valley, which have long clashed on topics like data privacy, children’s online protections and even China.
“At the end of the day, whether you are in industry or government, or whatever side of the aisle you are on, we play for team America,” said Representative Jay Obernolte of California, the Republican chair of the House A.I. Task Force, who will give opening remarks at the conference.
After the rise over the past year of generative A.I. — technology that has the potential to fundamentally shift productivity, innovation and employment trends — lobbying on the topic has exploded. Last year, more than 450 companies, nonprofits, universities and trade groups reported lobbying on A.I., more than double the number of organizations in the previous year, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit research group. Palantir more than doubled its spending on lobbying last year to $5 million, its highest level on record.
As tech leaders capitalize on anti-China fervor in Washington, civil society groups and academics warn that debates over competition for tech leadership could hurt efforts to regulate potential harms, such as the risks that some A.I. tools could kill jobs, spread disinformation, and disrupt elections.
“The dynamics of this U.S. v. China race has profound implications because on the other side of slowing down China is minimal friction and regulation for U.S. companies,” said Amba Kak, who is the executive director of the AI Now Institute, a research firm, and a former senior adviser on A.I. to the Federal Trade Commission.
“这场中美竞争的动态具有深远的影响,因为让中国放慢速度的另一方面是美国公司的摩擦和监管最小化,”研究公司AI Now Institute执行董事、前联邦贸易委员会人工智能高级顾问安巴·卡克说。
May’s event is being organized by Jacob Helberg, a senior adviser to Palantir and a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which reports to Congress on national security threats posed by China. He expanded this year’s forum from the first gathering he organized last year, which was a private dinner focused largely on the threat of TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance.
In addition to A.I., lawmakers speaking at the event in the Capitol will push for the Senate to pass legislation to ban TikTok, and Tom Mueller, a founding employee of SpaceX, will speak about the space race between the United States and China. Attendees will include Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota and the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, and Representative Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
“Tech companies can’t be neutral any more,” Mr. Helberg said, adding that he recuses himself from any work involving contracts on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission that could give Palantir an advantage.
Venture capitalists attending the event have dozens of A.I. investments. Sequoia has invested in more than 70 A.I. startups. Khosla Ventures, a $15 billion venture firm, has several investments, including in OpenAI, the company behind the ChatGPT chatbot.
“It’s become even more obvious, even more critical, that we treat China as an adversary,” said Vinod Khosla, the head of Khosla Ventures who will speak at the forum. “What I’m worrying about is Western values versus a different set of values in China.”
India's ICICI Securities has secured shareholders' nod to delist its stock, the brokerage said in the early hours of Thursday, paving the way to merge with parent and majority shareholder ICICI Bank .
Global index provider FTSE Russell will defer India's inclusion in its government bond index due to taxation, registration and settlement issues, even as two other major index providers have announced their inclusions, it said on Thursday.
Japan's top-performing stocks are at risk of a sell-off because of overcrowded long positions in liquid and large companies, strategists from U.S. banks Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan say.
The Indian rupee is likely to open marginally higher on Thursday after the currency slipped to a record low in the previous session, prompting the central bank to intervene.
Indian shares opened higher on the final trading day of financial year 2024 led by financials and a rebound in information technology stocks, while high volatility is expected ahead of monthly derivatives expiry.
Japan continued its jawboning on Thursday to stave off further yen declines, with the government's top spokesperson renewing a warning that Tokyo would not rule out any options to counter excessive currency moves.
The yen languished near its weakest in decades on Thursday though the threat of intervention from Japanese authorities prevented traders from pushing the currency to a new low, while Asian stocks rose ahead of a key U.S. inflation report.
China's central bank set the yuan fixing at the widest gap against Reuters' estimate in nearly five months, as authorities step up efforts to prevent sharp declines in the currency.
When Elon Musk first set up Tesla’s factory in China, he appeared to have the upper hand.
埃隆·马斯克最初在中国设立特斯拉工厂的时候,他似乎处于有利地位。
He gained access to top leaders and secured policy changes that benefited Tesla. He also got workers accustomed to long hours and fewer protections, after clashing with U.S. regulators over labor conditions at his California plant. The Shanghai factory helped make Tesla the most valuable car company in the world and Mr. Musk ultrarich.
But Tesla is now struggling. Mr. Musk helped create his competition, Chinese E.V. makers that are taking market share and becoming a security concern for the United States and Europe.
Tesla benefited from a Chinese policy it helped shape.
特斯拉曾受益于一项它帮助塑造的中国的政策。
In California, where Tesla launched its first car in 2008, the company has profited from an emissions mandate that allows it to sell credits — billions of dollars worth of them — to automakers that cannot meet pollution targets.
As Mr. Musk turned to China, his lobbyists encouraged leaders there to adopt a similar policy. Emails and other documents we obtained show they worked through California environmentalists intent on cleaning up China’s air.
Beijing adopted the policy, which was also being promoted by groups unconnected to Tesla, in 2017. After Tesla opened its Shanghai factory in 2020, the company earned hundreds of millions of dollars in credits through the policy, according to the market analysis company CRU Group.
Mr. Musk’s fortune is tied to Tesla’s Shanghai factory.
马斯克的财富与特斯拉上海工厂密切相关。
The Shanghai factory has replaced Tesla’s plant in Fremont, Calif., as its largest and most productive, accounting for over half of the company’s global deliveries and the bulk of its profits.
As the plant took shape in just under a year, Mr. Musk worked closely with a city official who is now China’s premier, Li Qiang. Under Mr. Li’s watch, state-run banks offered Tesla low-interest loans, a deal so generous that a senior auto official recalled a minister balking at it.
Mr. Musk saves on production and labor costs in Shanghai and cannot easily extricate himself, should he ever want to. Because the billionaire's wealth is tied up in Tesla stock, his personal fortune now hinges on what happens in China.
Tesla’s growth in China has bound Mr. Musk to Beijing.
特斯拉在中国的发展把马斯克与中国政府绑在了一起。
Mr. Musk’s reliance on the Shanghai factory may give Beijing leverage over him.
马斯克对上海工厂的依赖可能让北京有机会对他施加影响。
That’s a concern because a second company of Mr. Musk’s, SpaceX, has sensitive Pentagon contracts and controls much of the world’s satellite internet through its Starlink network.
Mr. Musk has said that his companies should not be conflated. But he has also praised Chinese leaders and taken China’s side in geopolitical disputes, even as he rails against politicians in the United States.
In an online conversation with two members of Congress in July, he called himself “kind of pro-China.”
去年7月与两名美国国会议员进行在线对话时,他称自己“有点亲中”。
China offered an escape from labor issues.
中国为他提供了一个避开劳工问题的途径。
Mr. Musk, who has insinuated that American workers are lazy, demanded intensity at Tesla’s Fremont factory, sometimes even sleeping on the factory floor himself.
马斯克曾暗示美国工人懒惰,他要求特斯拉的弗里蒙特工厂加大工作强度,他本人有时甚至睡在工厂的地板上。
In Shanghai, Mr. Musk could escape American regulators and labor organizers.
在上海,马斯克能避开美国的监管机构和劳工组织。
We talked to Chinese factory workers who described being asked to work six consecutive twelve-hour shifts during the city’s 2022 coronavirus lockdown.
我们采访的中国工厂工人描述称,2022年上海封城期间,他们被要求连续上六天12个小时的班。
Some slept on the floor of the factory, as Mr. Musk had in Fremont. They could choose not to work, but for a pay cut, they said.
When a worker was crushed to death by machinery last year, a government report citing safety gaps was taken offline.
一名工人去年被机器压死后,政府部门指出存在安全漏洞的报告已从网上撤下。
Tesla spurred E.V. development in China.
特斯拉刺激了电动汽车在中国的发展。
Chinese leaders wanted a Tesla plant to jump-start China’s E.V. sector. That’s exactly what happened.
中国领导人想用特斯拉工厂来启动中国的电动汽车行业。事情后来的发展正是如此。
In Shanghai, Tesla switched to using locally made batteries and parts, in some cases helping suppliers develop technologies that they then sold to Chinese E.V. makers. Tesla also trained a generation of talent.
Now Europe and the United States are trying to catch up. The French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, says China has a five- to seven-year head start on Europe.
现在,欧洲和美国正在努力追赶。法国财政部长布鲁诺·勒梅尔说,中国已领先欧洲五到七年。
And Tesla itself is increasingly vulnerable. Its Chinese rival BYD overtook it in worldwide sales late last year. Without trade barriers, Mr. Musk warned in January, BYD and others will “pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world.”
The Biden administration is growing increasingly concerned that a glut of heavily subsidized green technology exports from China is distorting global markets and plans to confront Chinese officials about the problem during an upcoming round of economic talks in Beijing.
The tension over industrial policy is flaring as the United States invests heavily in production of solar technology and electric vehicle batteries with funding from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, while China pumps money into its factory sector to help stimulate its sluggish economy. President Biden and Xi Jinping, China’s leader, have sought to stabilize the relationship between the world’s two largest economies, but differences over trade policy, investment restrictions and cyberespionage continue to strain ties.
In a speech on Wednesday afternoon, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen laid out her plans to raise the issue of overcapacity with her Chinese counterparts. At the Suniva solar cell factory in Norcross, Ga., she warned that China’s export strategy threatened to destabilize global supply chains that were developing around industries such as solar, electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries.
“China’s overcapacity distorts global prices and production patterns and hurts American firms and workers, as well as firms and workers around the world,” Ms. Yellen said. “Challenges for individual firms can lead to concentrated supply chains, negatively impacting global economic resilience.”
The Treasury secretary is expected to make her second trip to China in the coming weeks. The South China Morning Post reported that she will visit Guangzhou and Beijing in early April. The Treasury Department declined to comment on her travel plans.
In her speech in Georgia, Ms. Yellen compared China’s investments in green energy technology production to what she described as its previous overinvestment in steel and aluminum, saying it created “global spillovers.”
“It is important to the president and me that American firms and workers can compete on a level playing field,” Ms. Yellen said. “We have raised overcapacity in previous discussions with China, and I plan to make it a key issue in discussions during my next trip there.”
She added: “I will press my Chinese counterparts to take necessary steps to address this issue.”
她还说:“我会向中国官员施压,让他们采取必要措施解决这个问题。”
Ms. Yellen visited Suniva because it is a prime example of how the Biden administration’s industrial investments are reviving struggling companies. The solar panel company closed its Norcross plant in 2017 in part because cheap imports were flooding the U.S. market; it plans to reopen the factory this spring thanks to the Biden administration’s green energy investments.
The Treasury Department estimates that the private sector has announced more than $200 billion of clean power investments since the Inflation Reduction Act, which included nearly $400 billion in tax credits and subsidies for low-emission forms of energy production, was passed.
China, which invested more than $130 billion in its solar sector last year, has voiced its own frustration about America’s manufacturing investments. Buyers of electric vehicles that contain components made in China, Russia, North Korea or Iran are not eligible for generous U.S. tax credits.
China filed a complaint Tuesday with the World Trade Organization arguing that the Biden administration’s electric vehicle subsidy policies are discriminatory.
On Wednesday, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, struck a rosy tone in a meeting with American business leaders and academics in Beijing. He told the executives that China was “building a first-class business environment that is market oriented.” He added that in traditional areas like trade and new ones such as climate change and artificial intelligence, “China and the United States should become boosters for each other’s development, not obstructions on each other.”
Among the executives with Mr. Xi were Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chairman of Blackstone; Craig Allen, the president of the U.S.-China Business Council; and Cristiano Amon, the president of Qualcomm.
参与会面的高管包括黑石集团董事长苏世民(Stephen A. Schwarzman)、美中贸易全国委员会主席克雷格·艾伦,以及高通公司总裁克里斯蒂亚诺·阿蒙。
The U.S. dollar received a boost against major currency peers on Thursday, as a Federal Reserve official said he wasn't in a hurry to cut rates amid sticky inflation, and as traders braced for key economic data.
Global oil prices edged up on Thursday, recovering from two consecutive sessions of decline, as investors reassessed the latest U.S. crude oil and gasoline inventories data and returned to buying mode.
U.S. oilfield services provider SLB said on Wednesday it will combine its carbon capture business with Norway's Aker Carbon Capture to speed up the deployment of carbon capture technologies.
Many Bank of Japan policymakers saw the need to go slow in phasing out ultra-loose monetary policy with one board member saying the economy's health did not warrant rapid interest rate hikes, a summary of opinions at the bank's March meeting showed.
U.S. insurer UnitedHealth Group on Wednesday said it has advanced more than $3.3 billion so far to care providers impacted by a cyberattack last month on insurance claims system Change Healthcare.
Spanish company Atento's call centers, which serve clients of bank BBVA
, may have violated employees' labor rights, Mexican authorities said on Wednesday.
Automakers face "daunting" government regulations to sell half of new vehicles by 2030 as electric or plug-in hybrids despite a U.S. decision to soften the final rules over its initial, tougher proposal, a top industry official said on Wednesday.
Electric-vehicle startup Fisker said on Wednesday it was cutting the prices of its 2023 electric Ocean SUV model, signaling an attempt by the cash-strapped firm to drum up demand and ease concerns regarding its uncertain future.
China's Xiaomi will launch its highly anticipated electric vehicle (EV) on Thursday when it will reveal its pricing and start taking orders, marking the electronics company's entry into the world of automobiles.
Fox Corp on Wednesday announced its entertainment studio will be restructured across three key business segments - entertainment, television and streaming platforms, and worldwide sales and licensing.
Global ratings agency S&P affirmed its "AA+" long-term and "A-1+" short-term unsolicited sovereign credit ratings on the U.S. on Thursday, and kept the outlook on the long-term rating as 'stable'.
Amazon.com Inc said on Wednesday its senior employees, whose compensation includes more stock-related awards than cash, may not receive a cash pay raise this year.
Recent disappointing inflation data affirms the case for the U.S. Federal Reserve to hold off on cutting its short-term interest rate target, Fed Governor Christopher Waller said on Wednesday, but he did not rule out trimming rates later in the year.
FTSE Russell said it would add Portugal to its FTSE World Government Bond Index (WGBI) effective on November and removed Switzerland from an upgrade watch list, while retaining India and South Korea on watch for upgrades.
Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines entered into a timing agreement with the Department of Justice (DOJ) under which they agreed not to consummate their merger before 90 days post the date on which both parties have certified substantial compliance with a second request for antitrust-related information.
Ratings agency S&P lowered Paramount Global's credit rating to 'BB+' from 'BBB-' on Wednesday as stiff competition in the streaming landscape pressures the media giant's free operating cash flow (FOCF) generation.
Walmart has notified two U.S. antitrust agencies it will withdraw and refile a certain review application for its planned acquisition of Vizio , to give the regulators more time to review the deal.
When Elon Musk unveiled the first Chinese-made Teslas in Shanghai in 2020, he went off script and started dancing. Peeling off his jacket, he flung it across the stage in a partial striptease.
Mr. Musk had reason to celebrate. A few years earlier, with Tesla on the brink of failure, he had bet on China, which offered cheap parts and capable workers — and which needed Tesla as an anchor to jump-start its fledgling electric vehicle industry.
For Chinese leaders, the prize was a Tesla factory on domestic soil. Mr. Musk would build one in Shanghai that would become a flagship, accounting for over half of Tesla’s global deliveries and the bulk of its profits.
Mr. Musk initially seemed to have the upper hand in the relationship, securing concessions from China that were rarely offered to foreign businesspeople. But in a stark shift, Tesla is now increasingly in trouble and losing its edge over Chinese competitors in the very market he helped create. Tesla’s China pivot has also tethered Mr. Musk to Beijing in a way that is drawing scrutiny from U.S. policymakers.
Interviews with former Tesla employees, diplomats and policymakers reveal how Mr. Musk built an unusually symbiotic relationship with Beijing, profiting from the Chinese government’s largess even as he reaped subsidies in the United States.
As Mr. Musk explored building the factory in Shanghai, Chinese leaders agreed to a crucial policy change on national emissions regulations, following lobbying by Tesla that was not previously reported. That change directly benefited Tesla, bringing in an estimated hundreds of millions of dollars in profits as China production took off, The New York Times found.
Mr. Musk also gained unusual access to senior leaders. He worked closely with a top Shanghai official who is now the premier, Li Qiang. The Shanghai factory went up at lightning speed and without a local partner, a first for a foreign auto company in China.
Mr. Musk, who has insinuated that American workers are lazy, got employees accustomed to long hours, without the strong protections that have led U.S. and European regulators to scrutinize Tesla and unions to target it for organizing. After a Tesla worker in Shanghai was crushed to death last year, a report citing safety gaps was taken offline.
And he got the emissions policy. Modeled after a California program that has been a boon for Tesla, the policy awards automakers credits for making clean cars. To lobby for the regulatory change, Tesla teamed up with California environmentalists, who were trying to clean up China’s soupy skies.
China helped make Tesla the most valuable car company in the world. But Tesla’s success there also forced homegrown brands to innovate. China is now churning out cheap but well-made electric cars, as the Chinese leader Xi Jinping aims to transform the country into an “automotive power.” Chinese automakers like BYD and SAIC are pushing into Europe, threatening established carmakers like Volkswagen, Renault and Stellantis. Detroit is also scrambling to keep pace.
“There’s Before Tesla and After Tesla,” said Michael Dunne, an auto consultant and a former General Motors executive in Asia, about the company’s effect on Chinese industry. “Tesla was the rainmaker.”
Mr. Musk is now treading a fine line. He has sounded the alarm about Chinese rivals, even as he remains reliant on the Chinese market and supply chain and repeats Beijing’s geopolitical talking points.
He warned in January that unless the Chinese auto brands were blocked by trade barriers, they would “pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world.” Earlier this month, Tesla’s share price plunged following lagging China sales, causing him to lose the title of richest man in the world.
The company is so ensconced in China that Mr. Musk cannot easily extricate himself, should he ever want to. Teslas cost significantly less to make in Shanghai than elsewhere, a key saving when the company is in a price war with its competitors.
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are studying his ties to China and how he balances Tesla with his other endeavors. SpaceX, another company he owns, has lucrative Pentagon contracts and boasts near total control of the world’s satellite internet through its Starlink network. He also owns the social media platform X, which China has used for disinformation campaigns.
“Elon Musk has deep financial exposure to China — including his plant in Shanghai,” said Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee.
It’s not clear whether Beijing has sought to exert leverage over Mr. Musk, but leaders have levers they could pull. Last year, several Chinese localities banned Teslas from sensitive areas, prompting the automaker to emphasize that all Chinese data is held locally. And in February, after the Commerce Department announced an investigation into data retention by Chinese electric vehicles, the Global Times, a Communist Party newspaper, warned that Chinese consumers could retaliate against Tesla.
Mr. Musk has taken China’s side in several international disputes. He has made China’s case for why it should control Taiwan, the self-governed island democracy that has resisted Beijing’s claims. (Taiwan is now building an alternative to Starlink, in part because of concerns about Mr. Musk’s ties.)
Mr. Musk has reportedly argued that there are two sides to repression in Xinjiang, home to the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs. In 2021, as other companies were pulling back from Xinjiang, Tesla unveiled a charging line ending there, which it called the Tesla Silk Road, after the historic route that has been revived by Mr. Xi in a campaign for global influence. The company has a similar charging line to Tibet.
Tesla, SpaceX and Mr. Musk did not reply to a detailed list of questions and findings. At The New York Times’s DealBook Summit on Nov. 29, Mr. Musk said that “every car company” relies in part on the Chinese market. He also dismissed concerns surrounding SpaceX and Starlink, saying they did not operate in China and that his companies should not be conflated.
But in an online conversation with two members of Congress in July, he was more direct. He acknowledged having “some vested interests” in China, and described himself as “kind of pro-China.”
In California, Tesla has enjoyed strong regulatory support. Since 2008, when it unveiled its first car, the company has earned cash under the state’s emissions mandate by selling credits to automakers that could not meet pollution targets. Those credits were worth $3.71 billion by late 2023, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office.
Mr. Musk has downplayed Tesla’s reliance on government help, but Alberto Ayala, a former emissions regulator for California, said that the policy helped Tesla survive when it was struggling. “That is what kept the company afloat.”
Another former state regulator, Craig Segall, said that Tesla lobbied extensively on the emissions regulations, seeking to skew them in a way that enriched Tesla.
In China, the company aimed to recreate California’s lucrative policy.
在中国,特斯拉致力于重现使其获利的加州政策。
As California built ties with China, several groups were championing an emissions mandate as a cure for its pollution. Among the policy’s enthusiasts was then-Gov. Jerry Brown, who saw electric vehicles as a potential area of cooperation. Environmentalists were on board as well.
In 2014, as Mr. Musk talked about setting up a factory in China, Tesla joined the groups in pushing for a change.
2014年,当马斯克谈到在中国建厂时,特斯拉也加入了推动变革的行列。
Grace Tao, a Tesla lobbyist, met with people at the Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation, an environmental nonprofit based in Los Angeles and Beijing. The group, also known as iCET, had approached Tesla. They talked about working together on an emissions mandate in the country, according to notes taken by the nonprofit and shared with The Times.
“They needed that to be successful in China,” Feng An, iCET’s executive director, said about Tesla. But Chinese officials were initially skeptical, he added, because the policy would effectively require traditional automakers to subsidize E.V. companies like Tesla.
His group helped plan meetings with Ken Morgan, then a U.S.-based Tesla lobbyist, according to event materials and emails obtained by The Times. In 2015, Mr. Morgan met with officials in three Chinese cities, touting how California’s emissions mandate had helped spur E.V. production. (Ms. Tao and Mr. Morgan, who recently left Tesla, did not respond to questions.)
Local officials were keen to persuade Tesla to build a factory in their cities. That interest could “potentially be leveraged” to promote a mandate, Maya Ben Dror, who worked for iCET at the time, wrote in an email to Mr. Morgan.
Dr. An said he took two groups of Chinese city officials to visit Tesla’s office in California, adding that neither Tesla nor Mr. Musk gave iCET any money. He and Ms. Ben Dror saw the emissions scheme as sound environmental policy.
The priorities of the environmentalists and Chinese officials often differed. In the West, clean transportation was seen as a “tree-hugging kind of issue, while in China it was from the start seen as an industrial issue,” said Ilaria Mazzocco, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who studied the emissions policy discussions.
But as an innovative green business, Tesla checked both boxes.
但作为一家创新的绿色企业,特斯拉同时满足了这两个条件。
In 2015, at a clean transportation conference in California, Chinese central government officials listened as a Tesla lobbyist laid out the reasons that Beijing should adopt an emissions mandate, said Yunshi Wang, an energy economist who organized the session.
“Obviously Tesla was all in,” said Dr. Wang, director of the University of California-Davis’s China Center for Energy and Transportation.
“显然特斯拉当时全力以赴了,”加州大学戴维斯分校中国能源与交通中心主任王云石说。
The emissions mandate eventually appealed to the officials, too. The existing government subsidy system was rife with fraud. The mandate was more efficient and would save the government money.
Mr. Musk did not want to share ownership of Tesla’s factory with a Chinese company, as was required at the time. So in 2018 officials revoked the rule for all foreign electric car companies. The change was Tesla’s second big win.
Soon after, Shanghai beat out other cities competing for Tesla’s factory. Mr. Li, then Shanghai’s top leader, became a key ally. He had visited Tesla in California, on a trip that also included a meeting with Governor Brown, Mr. Xi and others about climate cooperation.
Mr. Musk proposed constructing the factory in two years, state media reported. Mr. Li countered that they could do it in one — a goal that his government met.
“This was even faster than China speed,” said Tu Le, who heads the consultancy Sino Auto Insights, adding that Mr. Li’s help was key: “How quickly things happened points to his tacit approval of everything.”
“这甚至比中国速度还要快,”咨询公司Sino Auto Insights的负责人涂乐说,他还表示,李强的帮助是关键:“进展的速度之快,表明他默许了一切。”
Government officials used “very creative yet cautious approaches” to bend policy to Tesla’s wishes, Ms. Tao told Yicai Global, a Chinese media outlet, adding that she was “deeply impressed.”
Under Mr. Li’s watch, state-run banks offered Tesla over 11 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) in low-interest loans. The deal was so generous that Huang Yonghe, a senior official with a government-owned auto industry group, recalled one government minister balking at it.
“He said the Shanghai leaders were unbelievable — giving away the entire investment without Tesla having to spend a penny,” Mr. Huang said in an interview.
“他说上海的领导们太夸张了——就那么给出了全部投资,而特斯拉没有花一分钱,”黄永和在接受采访时说。
But Mr. Huang said the deal made sense for the banks.
但黄永和表示,这笔交易对银行来说是合理的。
He had long been impressed by Tesla, at one point importing a car and disassembling it to study how it worked. Like Mr. Li, he had visited the Tesla factory in Fremont, Calif., which had struck him as chaotic but promising.
China could improve on it, he thought, yielding an efficient foreign factory that would serve as a “catfish,” an aggressive creature that makes other fish swim faster.
Tesla also created a market for Chinese suppliers, saying recently that 95 percent of components used in the Shanghai factory are locally sourced.
特斯拉还为中国供应商创造了市场。该公司最近表示,其上海工厂使用的95%的零部件都是本地采购的。
One key supplier is a once-obscure battery company. In the United States, Tesla had a partnership with Panasonic, but in China it switched to mainly using batteries from CATL, which built a factory near Tesla’s. Today, buoyed in part by Tesla’s business, CATL is the world’s largest battery maker.
Another supplier, LK Group, developed enormous casting machines that can make an entire section of a car with Tesla’s help. The company’s founder, Liu Siong Song, told The Times in 2021 that LK planned to supply the machines to six Chinese companies.
That year, he said that he hoped the technology would “help our country’s automotive industry become bigger and stronger,” linking it to Mr. Xi’s “Chinese dream” of national resurgence.
Before the Shanghai plant opened, Fremont was Mr. Musk’s principal factory. He sometimes slept on the factory floor to model the intensity he expected of his employees.
In China, workers were accustomed to long workweeks, a fact that Mr. Musk saw as an advantage.
在中国,工人们习惯了每周较长的工作时间,马斯克将这一点视为优势。
The Shanghai plant’s schedule involves an unusual weekly change in shifts. According to two former employees, workers there pull four straight twelve-hour day shifts, followed by two days of rest, before switching to four twelve-hour night shifts. (Fremont employees typically work seven twelve-hour shifts over two weeks.)
China has also offered Mr. Musk an escape from California’s strict labor protections.
中国还为马斯克提供了逃避加州对劳工进行严格保护的途径。
During Shanghai’s 2022 lockdown, some Tesla workers slept on the factory floor. They were paid extra to continue working, but Tesla demanded six twelve-hour shifts in a row, the two workers said. (Employees who chose not to work were also paid, but less than their normal salary.)
Chinese workers “won’t even leave the factory,” Mr. Musk said at the time, speaking generally, adding, “whereas in America people are trying to avoid going to work at all.”
In Fremont, accidents have set off regulatory investigations. But in Shanghai, when the Tesla worker was crushed to death by machinery last year, a report published by city authorities citing safety gaps was taken down shortly after it went online.
The Shanghai government bureau that released the report did not respond to faxed questions.
发布该报告的上海市政府部门没有回复经由传真发送的问题。
‘May There Be Prosperity for All’
“愿所有人都能繁荣富足”
China’s vision of Tesla being a catfish for local electric vehicle brands has proved prescient. BYD, a top Chinese rival, overtook Tesla in worldwide sales late last year.
But China’s electric vehicle push has prompted anxiety in Europe. “When we decided to shift from thermic engines to E.V.s, we were late vis-à-vis China — I would say between five and seven years late,” said Bruno Le Maire, France’s finance minister.
In September the European Union started an inquiry into whether Chinese policies give electric vehicle brands there an unfair edge. Although Tesla is not technically under investigation, it could face tariffs on cars exported from China.
In the United States, the Biden administration pushed through the Inflation Reduction Act in an attempt to compete. The White House is now considering raising tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, which are already at 25 percent.
California officials reject the idea that Tesla’s rise in China has been bad for the state. “It’s not really a zero-sum game,” said David Hochschild, chair of the California Energy Commission, who said he saw “robust growth” ahead in E.V.s for both sides.
But Shanghai has replaced Fremont as Tesla’s global export hub, sending more than 175,000 cars to Europe from China last year, according to Schmidt Automotive Research.
And while the Chinese emissions program brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in credits for Tesla, according to the market analysis company CRU Group, the price of credits is dropping because Chinese companies are manufacturing more electric cars.
“We have reached the tipping point,” said Lei Xing, an independent auto analyst focused on China.
“我们已经到了临界点,”专注于中国的独立汽车分析师雷星(音)表示。
Despite rising competition, Mr. Musk remains strong in the country.
尽管竞争日益激烈,马斯克在中国的影响力依然很大。
In October 2022, Mr. Li, the former Shanghai leader, was promoted to the country’s No. 2 spot. Mr. Musk is also building a battery factory in Shanghai, which a state-owned research firm said last year would use CATL cells. When Mr. Musk traveled to China last May, the battery maker’s chairman welcomed him with a 16-course banquet. At his side for at least part of the trip was Ms. Tao, the lobbyist, who had risen to the post of vice president at Tesla. (CATL did not respond to questions.)
Even the plant Tesla is building in Nuevo León, Mexico, will use Chinese suppliers, several of whom the state governor has said will set up factories nearby.
就连特斯拉在墨西哥新莱昂州建造的工厂也将使用中国供应商,该州州长表示其中几家供应商将在附近设厂。
Late last year, Mr. Musk attended an exclusive reception for Mr. Xi in San Francisco.
去年年底,马斯克出席了在旧金山为习近平举行的一场不对外开放的招待会。
On Weibo, a Chinese social platform, Mr. Musk posted a photo of him shaking hands with the Chinese leader. “May there be prosperity for all,” he wrote.
Discover Financial Services said on Wednesday its CEO Michael Rhodes will step down from his role, effective April 1, three months after he joined the credit card issuer.
Jefferies Financial's first-quarter profit missed analyst expectations, after it lost money on an investment in hedge fund Weiss Multi-Strategy Advisers, which has since been closed down.
U.S.-based Keysight Technologies is preparing to launch a formal offer for British telecommunications testing firm Spirent Communications , a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.
Johnson & Johnson will get a new chance to contest the scientific evidence linking talc to ovarian cancer, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday, potentially disrupting more than 53,000 lawsuits the company is now facing over its talc products.
The Swiss National Bank was able to cut interest rates last week because inflation pressure has declined, Vice Chairman Martin Schlegel said on Wednesday.
Mexico's economy is seen growing between 2.5% and 3.5% this year and then expanding 2.0% to 3.0% in 2025, a draft budget from the country's finance ministry showed on Wednesday.
BlackRock was issued a legal warning by the U.S. state of Mississippi over "false and misleading statements to Mississippi investors" tied to its environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment strategies, according to a 33-page document released on Wednesday.
A 439-million-pound ($554 million) property fund managed by abrdn will be wound down after a proposed tie-up with a rival fund failed to get sufficient support from shareholders, the fund said in a statement on Wednesday.
Cruise operator Carnival , said on Wednesday it will probably not be sailing through the Red Sea region for the rest of this year and early next year given persistent hostilities across the key shipping route.
Russia's finance ministry has agreed with sanctions-hit diamond producer Alrosa to purchase part of the company's production in 2024, a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
Intesa Sanpaolo has booked an impairment on its joint venture with Sweden's Intrum , Europe's biggest debt collector, in a move that highlights the challenges facing the bad loan recovery industry.
Reddit stock's stellar market debut has drawn significant bearish bets against the social media forum in its first few days of trading, data from analytics company Ortex on Wednesday showed.
U.S. banks with significant lending exposure to some multi-family properties and particularly rent-controlled housing are vulnerable to posting losses this year on rising costs facing landlords, according to Fitch Ratings analysts.
A unit of Djibouti-based Salaam Group launched in Uganda on Wednesday as the country's first Islamic banking-compliant financial institution, the Ugandan president's office said.
German airline Lufthansa on Wednesday said it had reached an agreement with union Verdi on a pay raise for its 25,000 ground staff after weeks of wage dispute and strikes that have left thousands of passengers stranded across Germany.
Shares of Robinhood Markets jumped on Wednesday after the financial technology firm launched a credit card, as it expands its product offerings in order to reduce its reliance on market-sensitive trading revenue.
China’s film industry was operating under a planned economy when Wang Xiaoshuai graduated from Beijing Film Academy in 1989. Only a few studios, all state-owned, were allowed to make movies.
Eager to start careers as filmmakers, Mr. Wang and some friends scraped together about $6,000, borrowed a camera and persuaded a company to give them film for free. His directorial debut, “The Days,” about a despondent artist couple, was screened at film festivals in Europe in 1994. The British Broadcasting Corporation listed it as one of the 100 best films of all time.
But the Chinese film authorities weren’t happy. They barred Mr. Wang from working in the industry because he had screened “The Days” at foreign film festivals without their permission.
Mr. Wang, like many other artists in China, found ways around the ban, and he went on to become one of the country’s most acclaimed directors as the restrictions loosened. But last month, history repeated itself. When he screened his latest film, “Above the Dust,” at the Berlin International Film Festival, his company got a call from China’s censors. He was ordered to withdraw it or risk severe consequences.
“I didn’t expect that after 30 years, I would end up back in the same place,” he told me in an interview from London, where’s he’s staying for now.
“我没想到30年了又绕回来了,”他在目前的居住地点伦敦接受采访时告诉我。
“It’s a hefty price to pay,” he said. “But it’s a price I have to face and accept.”
“这是一个很沉重的代价,”他说。“但是你不得不去接受和面对的一个代价。”
The creative talent in China’s film industry is struggling under tightening censorship. The suffocating restrictions remind veterans like Mr. Wang of the harsher days when the Communist Party more strictly controlled speech and artistic expression.
The reversal is in line with what has happened in many other creative industries as the party has intensified its control over the public’s hearts and minds. Publishers have a hard time getting their books approved. Musicians and comedians have been banned for their lyrics and skits, or sometimes for just a single social media post. Even hip-hop music must reflect a positive energy, nothing sad or dark.
Literature and art should “serve the people and socialism,” China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, proclaimed in 2014. “In the core socialist values, the deepest, fundamental and most eternal is patriotism,” he said. “Works imbued with patriotic sentiment are most effective in rallying the Chinese people to unity and struggle.”
Mr. Xi’s dictate has since set the tone for Chinese cinema.
习近平的指示为中国电影定下了基调。
In 2018, the supervision of the film industry was transferred from a government agency to the party’s department of publicity, making it essentially an arm of the state’s propaganda mechanism.
电影的主管部门原本是政府机构,2018年划入中共的宣传部,使其实质上成为了国家宣传机制的一部分。
“The choice is clear for a lot of film directors,” said Michael Berry, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. They can get in line and make propagandistic films, which means they could have successful careers commercially, he said. “Or you turn your back on the Chinese market, then become a dissident director and work internationally.”
Mr. Wang decided to screen “Above the Dust” in Berlin after receiving more than 50 censorship instructions in about 15 months, with no hope of getting the green light. The movie is about descendants of a landlord in the land reform era of the 1950s, a sensitive subject in China because millions of landlords were persecuted or killed and their land was confiscated by the state. The censors demanded that Mr. Wang cut all references to the campaign.
Sometimes the censors kill projects for no obvious reasons, it seems. Circulating on the Chinese internet are variouslists of films that were killed or whose releases were postponed or revoked. The authorities never explained their rationale. Sex and violence are apparently a no-go. Anything can be considered sensitive: crime, corruption, poverty, history, superstition or simply sadness. Even propaganda films that were backed by the police and anticorruption agencies could end up failing the test because crime and corruption reflect dark aspects of the society.
“I always strive for creative freedom,” said Mr. Wang, 57. “But it’s become impossible because of the circumstances.” He said he and his peers often talked about whether the films they considered making could pass the censors. “The thought hinders you all the time,” he said. “It’s very painful.”
Mr. Wang has always been a maverick in Chinese cinema, Mr. Berry said. Still, the professor was surprised to find that to get around the censors, critics used garbled text to refer to “Above the Dust” on Chinese social media.
Born in Shanghai in 1966, Mr. Wang moved with his parents to the backwater province of Guizhou in southwestern China when he was 2 months old. It was part of Mao Zedong’s campaign to develop industrial and defense facilities in the country’s interior, and it involved relocating millions of people. Mr. Wang’s family stayed in Guizhou until he was 13. The experience deeply influenced his work. He has focused on these people’s lives because, he said, he wanted to show their hardship. Along the way, he said, he wanted to explain what made Chinese the way they are today.
Mr. Wang’s work was influenced by the French New Wave. He and directors such as Jia Zhangke and Lou Ye were known as leading figures in the “sixth generation movement” of Chinese cinema in the 1990s. They made underground movies outside the state-run film bureaucracy and heeded few official boundaries. When they were barred from working in the industry, they made independent movies for overseas markets.
In 2003, the authorities invited Mr. Wang and others to talk about the future of Chinese cinema. It was the only time in his memory that filmmakers sat down with regulators on a somewhat equal footing. The government hoped to make the industry more market-driven and wanted their participation.
The next year, Mr. Wang had his first film approved in China. The censorship process took only two months. His movies never did well at the box office, but he kept going, making one every two to three years. In 2019, he released “So Long, My Son,” about the impact of China’s one-child policy on two families. It won major awards at the Berlin Festival and the Golden Rooster Awards, the most prestigious in Chinese film.
Under Mr. Xi’s leadership, there was a period of romance between China and Hollywood, culminating in the 2016 movie “The Great Wall,” directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Matt Damon. But increasingly, the “main theme films” that promote official sentiment dominate Chinese cinema. In 2022, Mr. Zhang made a movie about a Chinese sniper who killed and wounded more than 200 Americans in the Korean War, a popular genre amid worsening U.S.-Chinese relations.
“We cannot turn Chinese cinema into an outlet exclusively for main-theme films,” Jia Zhangke, the director who made art house classics such as “Xiao Wu” and “Platform,” said in 2022. It can take two or three years for experimental films made by younger directors to obtain screening permits. “This uncertainty brings great anxiety to the industry,” he added. “Investors are reluctant to invest in these films, and our talent pool will encounter problems.”
“Any Chinese filmmaker knows how things have changed in the past few years in terms of censorship and self-censorship,” said Mr. Wang, the director. “The atmosphere is increasingly depressing and cautious.”
Barclays' former Global Head of Race at Work has defended her decision not to investigate further an employee complaint alleging racial, religious and sex discrimination at the British bank, an employment tribunal in London heard on Wednesday.
Italy has broadly met re-privatisation commitments agreed with Brussels over bailed-out bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) after the market placement of a 12.5% stake, Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said on Wednesday.
SIX Group has ruled out making a bid for fund distribution group Allfunds after studying an acquisition, and will instead consider other deals that can expand its data business or give it access to new asset classes, its CEO Jos Dijsselhof told Reuters.
Stellantis , the maker of Fiat cars, on Wednesday signed further deals with unions in Italy for voluntary lay-offs, meaning the automaker could cut its workforce by a total of over 3,000 roles in the country.
Ambassadors from European Union countries reached a deal on Wednesday to extend tariff-free food imports from Ukraine, with a "balanced approach between support for Ukraine and protection of EU agricultural markets", the Belgian EU presidency said.
SHOULDN’T OIL PRICES be surging? War has returned to the Middle East. Tankers in the Red Sea—through which around 12% of seaborne crude is normally shipped—are under attack by Houthi militants. And OPEC, a cartel of oil exporters, is restricting production. Antony Blinken, America’s secretary of state, has invoked the spectre of 1973, when the Yom Kippur war led to an Arab oil embargo that quadrupled prices in just three months. But oil markets have remained calm, trading mostly in the range of $75 and $85 per barrel for much of last year.
There have been exceptions. Brent crude, a global benchmark, ticked above $85 per barrel last spring after OPEC+, a larger organisation which includes Russia, said it would cut production. When Saudi Arabia extended its production cuts in September, prices reached almost $100. The market rose again after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th. Yet each time prices quickly returned to that $75-$85 range (see chart 1). Brent ended 2023 at $78, down $4 from the start of the year. There are three reasons why traders expect this trend to continue in 2024.
The first is supply—for years the biggest driver of price surges. Oil production is now less concentrated in the Middle East than it has been for much of the past 50 years. The region has gone from drilling 37% of the world’s oil in 1974 to 29% today. Production is also less concentrated among members of OPEC (see chart 2). That is partly because of the shale boom of the 2010s, which turned America into a net energy exporter for the first time since at least 1949. Growing output from non-OPEC countries such as Guyana, which produced record volumes of crude last year, is also helping to diversify supply. The International Energy Agency (IEA) reckons that new sources, along with increased volumes from America and Canada, will cover most of the growth in global demand in 2024.
Oil from Russia, the world’s third-largest producer, has continued to flow despite restrictions from the West, which in 2022 imposed a price cap of $60 per barrel on Russian exports of seaborne crude. Traders based in Dubai and Singapore promptly rejigged tanker fleets to send vast quantities of discounted oil through Indian refineries, changing established routes with astonishing agility. Russian oil is now widely traded above the West’s price cap. Yet in one respect, at least, the West’s policy has worked: the continued availability of Russian oil has helped prevent the dramatic surge in prices that many feared in 2022, when the EU banned imports of Russian crude after Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Another reason for calm is OPEC members’ ample spare production capacity (ie, the amount of oil that can be produced from idle facilities at short notice). When production is tight, as it was during the early 2000s, exporting countries have little room to respond to increases in demand. That can send prices soaring (see chart 3). Today the situation is different. America’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that OPEC’s core members have around 4.5m barrels per day of spare capacity—greater than the total daily production of Iraq. For now, traders are betting that OPEC’s cushion can soften the blow of the supply disruptions.
Finally, there is demand itself (see chart 4). The world still has a big appetite for oil: according to the EIA demand hit a record in 2023 and will be higher still in 2024, thanks in part to growth in India. But that is unlikely to push prices much higher. Global growth is not at the levels seen in the early 2000s. China, long the world’s biggest importer of oil, is experiencing anaemic economic growth. Structural changes to its economy also make it less thirsty for the stuff: next year, for example, half of all new cars sold in the country are expected to be electric.
Other climate policies will have a similar effect elsewhere. In the long term, the world’s move away from oil will ensure the market is more resilient to geopolitical shocks and production cuts, even if the transition is likely to be disruptive. Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries recently pushed Brent above $85 per barrel for the first time since early November. For now, though, the price rise looks modest. It will take a lot to roil oil markets this year.■
SHOULDN’T OIL PRICES be surging? War has returned to the Middle East. Tankers in the Red Sea—through which around 12% of seaborne crude is normally shipped—are under attack by Houthi militants. And OPEC, a cartel of oil exporters, is restricting production. Antony Blinken, America’s secretary of state, has invoked the spectre of 1973, when the Yom Kippur war led to an Arab oil embargo that quadrupled prices in just three months. But oil markets have remained calm, trading mostly in the range of $75 and $85 per barrel for much of last year.
There have been exceptions. Brent crude, a global benchmark, ticked above $85 per barrel last spring after OPEC+, a larger organisation which includes Russia, said it would cut production. When Saudi Arabia extended its production cuts in September, prices reached almost $100. The market rose again after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th. Yet each time prices quickly returned to that $75-$85 range (see chart 1). Brent ended 2023 at $78, down $4 from the start of the year. There are three reasons why traders expect this trend to continue in 2024.
The first is supply—for years the biggest driver of price surges. Oil production is now less concentrated in the Middle East than it has been for much of the past 50 years. The region has gone from drilling 37% of the world’s oil in 1974 to 29% today. Production is also less concentrated among members of OPEC (see chart 2). That is partly because of the shale boom of the 2010s, which turned America into a net energy exporter for the first time since at least 1949. Growing output from non-OPEC countries such as Guyana, which produced record volumes of crude last year, is also helping to diversify supply. The International Energy Agency (IEA) reckons that new sources, along with increased volumes from America and Canada, will cover most of the growth in global demand in 2024.
Oil from Russia, the world’s third-largest producer, has continued to flow despite restrictions from the West, which in 2022 imposed a price cap of $60 per barrel on Russian exports of seaborne crude. Traders based in Dubai and Singapore promptly rejigged tanker fleets to send vast quantities of discounted oil through Indian refineries, changing established routes with astonishing agility. Russian oil is now widely traded above the West’s price cap. Yet in one respect, at least, the West’s policy has worked: the continued availability of Russian oil has helped prevent the dramatic surge in prices that many feared in 2022, when the EU banned imports of Russian crude after Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Another reason for calm is OPEC members’ ample spare production capacity (ie, the amount of oil that can be produced from idle facilities at short notice). When production is tight, as it was during the early 2000s, exporting countries have little room to respond to increases in demand. That can send prices soaring (see chart 3). Today the situation is different. America’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that OPEC’s core members have around 4.5m barrels per day of spare capacity—greater than the total daily production of Iraq. For now, traders are betting that OPEC’s cushion can soften the blow of the supply disruptions.
Finally, there is demand itself (see chart 4). The world still has a big appetite for oil: according to the EIA demand hit a record in 2023 and will be higher still in 2024, thanks in part to growth in India. But that is unlikely to push prices much higher. Global growth is not at the levels seen in the early 2000s. China, long the world’s biggest importer of oil, is experiencing anaemic economic growth. Structural changes to its economy also make it less thirsty for the stuff: next year, for example, half of all new cars sold in the country are expected to be electric.
Other climate policies will have a similar effect elsewhere. In the long term, the world’s move away from oil will ensure the market is more resilient to geopolitical shocks and production cuts, even if the transition is likely to be disruptive. Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries recently pushed Brent above $85 per barrel for the first time since early November. For now, though, the price rise looks modest. It will take a lot to roil oil markets this year.■
WHAT MADE AI models generative? In 2022, it seemed as though the much-anticipated AI revolution had finally arrived. Large language models swept the globe, and deepfakes were becoming ever more pervasive. Underneath it all were old algorithms that had been taught some new tricks. Suddenly, artificial intelligence seemed to have the skill of creativity. Generative AI had arrived and promised to transform…everything.
This is the final episode in a four-part series on the evolution of modern generative AI. What were the scientific and technological developments that took the very first, clunky artificial neurons and ended up with the astonishingly powerful large language models that power apps such as ChatGPT?
Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Lindsay Bartholomew of the MIT Museum; Yoshua Bengio of the University of Montréal; Fei-Fei Li of Stanford University; Robert Ajemian and Greta Tuckute of MIT; Kyle Mahowald of the University of Texas at Austin; Daniel Glaser of London’s Institute of Philosophy; Abby Bertics, The Economist’s science correspondent. Runtime: 49 mins
On Thursday April 4th, we’re hosting a live event where we’ll answer as many of your questions on AI as possible, following this Babbage series. If you’re a subscriber, you can submit your question and find out more at economist.com/aievent.
Podcast transcripts are available upon request at [email protected]. We are committed to improving accessibility even further and are exploring new ways to expand our podcast-transcript offering.
The planned sale of the Italian government's stake in postal service Poste Italiane could be worth around 4.4 billion euros ($4.76 billion), Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said on Wednesday.
Britain said on Wednesday that post-Brexit trade arrangements with Canada that enable its carmakers to avoid high tariffs there were likely to expire next week, marking the latest deterioration in trade ties between the historic allies.
Russian company Automotive Technologies on Wednesday said it had started assembling Citroen C5 Aircross models in batches at a plant south of Moscow formerly owned by Stellantis , with the cars set to be sold in dealerships from May.
Artificial intelligence benchmarking group MLCommons on Wednesday released a fresh set of tests and results that rate the speed at which top-of-the-line hardware can run AI applications and respond to users.
Senegal's President-elect Bassirou Diomaye Faye rode to victory in Sunday's poll on a wave of protest votes against the West African country's current leader, fuelled by discontent that infrastructure-fuelled growth has failed to benefit all.
The United States is asking allies to stop domestic companies from servicing certain chipmaking tools for Chinese customers, a U.S. commerce department official said on Wednesday, as it ramps up efforts to hobble China's chipmaking capabilities.
Switzerland's economy likely performed slightly better during the January-March period than in the prior quarters, the Swiss National Bank said on Wednesday.
A rule that requires central bank approval for share ownership exceeding 1% in Moldovan banks is temporary and has worked, but could be lifted this year as the country seeks to boost capital markets, central bank Governor Anca Dragu said on Wednesday.
Annual wage negotiations in France suggest the pace of pay hikes will ease this year, but will exceed the expected inflation rate, France's central bank said on Wednesday.
In an anonymous warehouse in southern England, engineers at Evolve Dynamics are working on technology that could help keep Ukraine's reconnaissance drones in the sky even after Russia tries to jam them electronically.
Egan-Jones has become the second proxy advisory firm to back Nelson Peltz's push for board seats at Walt Disney , the activist investor's asset management firm said on Wednesday as it takes on the entertainment conglomerate in a bitter proxy battle.
Executives from Canadian miner First Quantum Minerals met with Chinese government officials last week to discuss funding and business options involving top investor Jiangxi Copper Co, three sources with knowledge of the matter said.
A federal judge in Manhattan on Wednesday said the U.S. securities regulator's lawsuit against Coinbase can move forward, but dismissed one claim the agency made against the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange.
Sterling steadied on Wednesday after a survey showed British businesses trimmed back plans for staffing and wage increases this month, with the Bank of England watching for signs of inflation pressures abating enough for it to cut interest rates.
JPMorgan Chase seeks to expand the reach of its wealth management business and bring in more investments by offering a new planning tool to its 54 million Chase retail customers.
Carnival Corp , raised its annual profit forecast on Wednesday, betting on a record year of bookings for its cruises as the industry has its "revenge travel" moment.
Chile's mining minister on Wednesday urged Chilean miner SQM and China's Tianqi Lithium Corp, a major shareholder in the company, to resolve their ongoing spat, but refrained from weighing into their private matter.
The Bank of England said on Wednesday it was taking a deeper look at risks from the opaque private equity sector, and why valuations of Britain's main banks are "subdued" compared with international peers.
Samsung Pay, a payment service owned by South Korea's Samsung Electronics , will stop working with Russia's national Mir payment cards from April 3, the two payment systems said on Wednesday.
Walt Disney completed the addition of the general-audience-focused Hulu streaming service to the family friendly Disney+ on Wednesday, putting titles such as "The Bear" and "American Horror Story" in the same app as "Moana" and "Frozen."
S&P Global said on Wednesday it had cut its long-term issuer default rating of Swedish property firm SBB to selective default from CCC+ after the group on Sunday said it would buy back debt at a 60% discount to its original value.
Dealmaking in global equity capital markets had its strongest start in three years in 2024 as economic uncertainty waned and stocks rallied, but a revival in initial public offerings has lagged.
U.S. banks could see a modest hit to their earnings due to the $30 billion settlement to limit credit and debit card fees for merchants by payments networks Visa and Mastercard , Wall Street analysts said.
GameStop's shares slumped more than 18% before the bell on Wednesday, as the brick-and-mortar video game retailer reported a decline in fourth-quarter revenue on the back of a spending slowdown and rising competition from e-commerce firms.
India's central bank on Wednesday eased its recently tightened rules that mandated lenders set aside higher provisions if they have bought into alternative investment funds (AIFs) that, in turn, have invested in the lender's borrowers.
Talks with Ukraine on food imports have been difficult, Poland's agriculture minister said on Wednesday ahead of a meeting that Warsaw hopes will help defuse farmers' protests, but a senior lawmaker said a deal could be near.
Tom Hayes, the first trader jailed worldwide for interest rate rigging, lost his appeal against his conviction on Wednesday, with London's Court of Appeal ruling that it was illegal to take commercial interests into account when setting rates.