COVID-19 lockdowns in China threw a wrench into global supply chains earlier this year, causing shipping and production delays worldwide, and hindering economic growth. Now, the country is facing another major threat—and this one could be even worse for the economy. China has been coping with its worst heat wave in 60 years this month, with temperatures in several provinces routinely reaching 40°C (104°F). But one key province is experiencing the worst financial repercussions from the… Source link
Read More »Cisco Shortfall Jolts Wall Street as Lockdowns Roil Supply
(Bloomberg) — Cisco Systems Inc. spooked investors with a warning that Chinese lockdowns and other supply disruptions would wipe out sales growth in the current quarter, renewing broader concerns about tech spending in a shaky economy. Most Read from Bloomberg The outlook sent Cisco shares down as much as 19% in late trading and weighed on stocks of other networking companies, dealing a fresh blow to an already-battered sector. Even before Cisco’s latest plunge, its stock was down 24% this… Source link
Read More »Lockdowns and supply chain disruption to accelerate Apple’s move away from China, with India a likely beneficiary, analysts say
Apple’s value chain in China, an emblem of the country’s global role as a source of labour and assembly, has been hit hard by strict lockdowns in Shanghai and neighbouring provinces, raising the risk that the US tech giant may accelerate a shift of its operations away from China, say analysts. While it is hard to put an exact figure on the losses resulting from the disruption to transport and production along Apple’s extensive value chain in China, chief financial officer Luca Maestri told a… Source link
Read More »Experts say China’s lockdowns will make inflation and the supply chain nightmare even worse
China’s strict COVID-19 lockdowns will exacerbate global supply chain woes and add to inflation in the coming months, experts say. President Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy is being tested as the country struggles to tame its worst virus outbreak yet. Frustration is rising over food shortages, people being locked down in their homes for weeks, and a policy of killing pet dogs suspected of being infected with COVID. While China’s tech hub Shenzhen has emerged from its nearly month-long… Source link
Read More »Oil Little Changed as China Lockdowns Counter Libya Field Outage
(Bloomberg) — Oil was stable amid signs that continued coronavirus lockdowns in China are weighing on the economy, countering bullish news that protests are shutting in supplies from Libya. Most Read from Bloomberg West Texas Intermediate traded just below $107 a barrel after rallying last week by the most since early March. China reported its biggest decline in consumer spending and worst unemployment rate since the first months of the pandemic, while Shanghai reported its first deaths from… Source link
Read More »China’s Covid Lockdowns, Surging Oil Add to Inflation Risks
(Bloomberg) — China’s factory gate prices rose more than expected in March as oil prices climbed, while disruptions from Covid lockdowns drove up food costs, threatening the inflation outlook in the world’s second-largest economy. Most Read from Bloomberg The producer price index gained 8.3% from a year earlier, official data showed Monday, down from 8.8% in February and above the median estimate of an 8.1% increase in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Consumer-price growth accelerated to… Source link
Read More »Delta variant poses stark choice between behavior change or ‘more lockdowns’
The growing spread of the COVID-19 Delta variant is creating an increasingly stark choice that could make the difference between more reopenings — or a return to restrictions that decimated the world’s economy, a World Health Organization expert suggested on Friday. Amid the leak of internal documents from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), comparing the transmissibility of Delta variant to that of chickenpox, new discoveries are sparking furious debate about how… Source link
Read More »U.S. likely won’t see new lockdowns, Biden says
WASHINGTON — President Biden doesn’t believe the U.S. will see any new lockdowns in the coming months, even as he warned about the new Delta variant of the coronavirus, which is much more transmissible than other versions of the pathogen. That variant originated in India and took hold in the U.K. during the course of the spring. Its rapid proliferation led British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to delay full reopening by a month. That reopening was supposed to take place on June 21, only to… Source link
Read More »More than 11,000 Wuhan students poured into a stadium for their graduation ceremony sans masks or social distancing, even as the rest of Asia grapples with COVID lockdowns
More than 11,000 students and 3,000 proud parents turned up unmasked at a stadium in Wuhan, China, for a graduation ceremony. Stringer/Reuters China Thousands of students and their parents attended a graduation ceremony at a stadium in Wuhan, China. The grads in the coronavirus pandemic’s first epicenter weren’t wearing masks or social distancing. This is because China has reported fewer than 20 cases a day across its 23 provinces. Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories. For several thousand… Source link
Read More »