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Western businesses are finding life a grind in China
Thursday 15 Aug 2024A series of recent announcements from Western brands and businesses have revealed how tough they are finding life in China. While some of this is linked to the uneven performance of the world’s largest economy, shifting consumer habits and trends are also at play. On 6 August, Holiday Inn owner...
Calm returns to markets ahead of Fed inflation test
Thursday 15 Aug 2024While the sudden spike in volatility which triggered last week’s ‘market reset’ seems to have faded, thankfully, the question of whether the US Federal Reserve has been too slow to cut rates remains. As Shares went to press, traders were waiting for July’s inflation figures, with producer prices...
Beazley shares hit record high as profits almost double
Thursday 15 Aug 2024Shares in specialist insurance underwriter Beazley (BEZ) reached an all-time high at the beginning of August after the firm posted sharply higher half-year earnings and said it saw more business opportunities in underwriting cyber risk insurance. The company, which manages six Lloyd’s of London...
A dramatic shake-up of the US presidential race may take time to be felt in markets
Thursday 15 Aug 2024There has been a seismic swing in the polling ahead of this year’s crunch US presidential election (5 November). The latest polls conducted between 5 and 9 August by the New York Times and Siena College put current Democratic vice-president and presidential hopeful Kamala Harris ahead of former US...
Rolls-Royce shares roar to new life-high on raised guidance
Thursday 08 Aug 2024Shares in aero engine-maker Rolls-Royce (RR.) bolted 11% to 500p on 1 August, the first time in their history they have touched that milestone, after the firm posted forecast-beating first-half results and raised its full-year outlook. A 14% operating margin and 13.8% return on capital employed are...
Wizz Air spirals to six-month low on first-quarter loss
Thursday 08 Aug 2024Budapest-based low-cost airline Wizz Air (WIZZ) posted (1 August) a slight increase in revenue to €1.26 billion for the quarter to the end of June, but higher operating and finance costs plus a foreign exchange loss sent it into deficit for the period. The shares slumped as much as 380p or 20%, the...
Why the strong yen is behind the ‘tech wreck’ and the broader market meltdown
Thursday 08 Aug 2024Investors looking to pin the blame for the sudden panic in markets might wonder whether US chip firm Intel’s (INTC:NASDAQ) decision to lay off staff and cut spending, triggering a 26% fall in the share price on 2 August, was the trigger for the broad sell-off. While Intel may have played a part,...
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway slashes Apple stake in half amid valuation concerns
Thursday 08 Aug 2024Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B:NYSE) dumped roughly half its enormous stake in Apple (AAPL:NASDAQ) in a shock shift for the famously long-term-focused investor. The Omaha-based conglomerate disclosed in its earnings filing that it slashed its holding from 789 million shares to...
The biggest gainer on the S&P 500 this year is up 145%, and it isn’t Nvidia
Thursday 01 Aug 2024What is the best performing S&P 500 stock so far this year? AI (artificial intelligence) chip champ Nvidia (NVDA:NASDAQ) maybe? Weight loss wonder Eli Lilly (LLY:NYSE) or bitcoin proxy MicroStrategy (MSTR:NASDAQ) perhaps? No, no, and no. The gong goes to another AI story stock, Super Micro...
Entain shares plumb four-year low after latest profit downgrade
Thursday 01 Aug 2024Shares in embattled Ladbrokes and Coral owner Entain (ENT) plunged by almost a tenth on Monday (29 July), plumbing new four-year lows after the gambling giant’s US joint-venture partner BetMGM said it expected to deploy ‘greater than expected’ marketing in iGaming the back half of the year. This...