(Bloomberg) — Asian stocks rose early Monday as traders sought to take advantage of last week’s selloff while weighing risks from the delta virus strain and China’s regulatory curbs. The dollar was firm. Shares climbed in Japan, South Korea and Australia. U.S. equity futures edged higher after an advance in the S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 at the end of last week. Beijing’s clampdown on private industries is set to shadow the market open in China and Hong Kong later. The dollar… Source link

Big Oil is coming off yet another blockbuster season, posting the second consecutive quarter of stellar top-and-bottom line growth. According to the latest FactSet data, the energy sector’s Q2 2021 revenue growth rate of 24.9% came in way higher than Wall Street’s estimate of 19.4% while the sector reported earnings of $15.9 billion compared to a loss of -$10.6 billion in Q2 2020 marked the biggest Y/Y improvement of any of the S&P 500‘s 11 market sectors.  Interestingly, the Big Oil duo of… Source link

Governments can’t stop cryptocurrencies, but they can make it much harder to access them. So it would make sense that unfriendly government policies in the world’s largest economies would play a role in driving down the price of bitcoin. As a case in point, in the few days after China reiterated its crypto crackdown in May, bitcoin at one point plunged by as much as 30%. The drop was another reminder that when China speaks, the market listens. The U.S., it seems, not so much.  This month,… Source link

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd -ADR (NYSE: BABA) has been slaughtered since October 2020 when it reached an all-time high of $319.32. The sharp decline has been partly due to poor U.S./China relations as well and Chinese regulators cracking down on the e-commerce giant and its CEO Jack Ma. Since July 22 the decline in the stock has accelerated and although there has been some bounce plays for the bulls, the stock has become risky due to new out of China, when the U.S. markets are closed, causing… Source link

Soaring COVID-19 infections, combined with mass uprisings around the world, are destabilizing global order — and new research from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) suggests the collective dynamic is likely to hinder a fragile recovery. A working paper published by IMF researchers Luca Antonio Ricci, Metodij Hadzi-Vaskov and Samuel Pienknagura, PhD, recently explored the macroeconomic impact of social unrest, finding that “unrest events” are correlated to a decline in global… Source link

The federal eviction moratorium, which has allowed struggling renters swamped by the fallout from COVID-19 to remain in their homes but left landlords mostly on the hook for unpaid rent, is starting to draw more fire from both camps. As the Delta variant drives a resurgence of cases across the country, landlords and tenants alike are speaking out about the shortcomings of the moratorium, which hasn’t resolved the fundamental issue of tenants unable to pay back rent — or property owners… Source link

Traders this week are poised to focus closely on Federal Reserve policymakers’ virtual appearance at the bank’s annual Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium.  The event, which takes place from Thursday to Saturday this week, is set to serve as a forum for more discussions around Fed policymakers’ plans to announce and implement a shift in the central bank’s monetary policy stance. Namely, investors have been closely watching for months to hear when officials will begin tapering their… Source link

Masks mandates are on the rise as the Delta variant of COVID-19 continues to spread across the United States — amplifying divisions between supporters of anti-coronavirus protocols and opponents who emphasize personal freedom. On Thursday at midnight, L.A. County enacted an outdoor mask mandate for large events with over 10,000 attendees, including concerts, festivals, and sporting venues — regardless of vaccination status. This comes after the L.A. County Public Health Department… Source link

(White House updates numbers of evacuees) By Idrees Ali and Susan Heavey WASHINGTON, Aug 22 (Reuters) – The United States has enlisted the help of six commercial airlines to help transport people after their evacuation from Afghanistan as Washington seeks to step up the pace of departures of Americans and at-risk Afghans from Kabul. The Pentagon said on Sunday it called up 18 civilian aircraft from United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air and others to carry people from temporary locations… Source link

Close to 2 million passengers pass through airport security every day and flight attendants on U.S. airlines face greater numbers of unruly pandemic weary passengers.   Flight attendants “are thinking about not having gotten sleep, how long the days are, how crowded the flights are, how screwed up the operation is, and whether or not this is the day they might get punched in the face,” Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, told Yahoo Finance Live. A recent… Source link