logo
Belgium's Credit Rating Cut by Fitch as Budget Concerns Linger

Belgium's Credit Rating Cut by Fitch as Budget Concerns Linger

Bloomberg16 hours ago

Belgium 's sovereign credit was cut by Fitch Ratings, signaling an increase in uncertainty about the country's ability to rein in years of substantial debt accumulation.
The rating company lowered its assessment of Belgium to A+ from AA-, leaving it four notches under the top rating and bringing it one level below Moody's and two levels below S&P. The outlook was revised to stable.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Zelenskyy warns oil price surge could help Russia's war effort
Zelenskyy warns oil price surge could help Russia's war effort

Washington Post

time40 minutes ago

  • Washington Post

Zelenskyy warns oil price surge could help Russia's war effort

KYIV, Ukraine — A sharp rise in global oil prices following Israeli strikes on Iran will benefit Russia and bolster its military capabilities in the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday in comments that were under embargo until Saturday afternoon. Speaking to journalists in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said the surge in oil prices threatens Ukraine's position on the battlefield, especially because Western allies have not enforced effective price caps on Russian oil exports.

If I Could Buy Only 1 Artificial Intelligence Stock Over the Next Year, Amazon Would Be It, but Here's the Key Reason
If I Could Buy Only 1 Artificial Intelligence Stock Over the Next Year, Amazon Would Be It, but Here's the Key Reason

Yahoo

time43 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

If I Could Buy Only 1 Artificial Intelligence Stock Over the Next Year, Amazon Would Be It, but Here's the Key Reason

There are several reasons to like Amazon as a long-term investment right now. AWS could be a particularly massive growth driver for the rest of the decade and beyond. The cloud computing business could drive market-beating performance all by itself. 10 stocks we like better than Amazon › There are some excellent artificial intelligence (AI) stocks you can buy right now. However, my favorite -- and largest AI play in my own portfolio -- is Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN). To be sure, there are a lot of reasons why I like Amazon as a long-term investment. E-commerce still represents less than one-fifth of all U.S. retail, and there's massive international expansion potential for the business, just to name a few pluses. But the No. 1 reason I love the stock is Amazon Web Services (AWS) and its potential to drive profits higher over the next decade. AWS makes up less than 20% of Amazon's revenue, but it's the fastest-growing, most profitable part of the company. Despite accounting for less than one-fifth of sales, as noted, AWS was responsible for 63% of the company's operating income in the first quarter. However, this could be just the beginning. The global cloud computing market is expected to roughly triple in size by 2030, compared with 2024 levels. Assuming AWS simply maintains its current market share, this means that AWS revenue could rise from $107.6 billion in 2024 to about $342 billion in 2030. If Amazon can maintain its current operating margin for AWS (it's likely the margin will improve as the business scales), this would result in about $87 billion in additional annual operating income just from AWS. This alone would likely drive excellent stock returns -- and that's on top of any value added through profit increases from the retail side. Before you buy stock in Amazon, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Amazon wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $657,871!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $875,479!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 998% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 174% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Matt Frankel has positions in Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. If I Could Buy Only 1 Artificial Intelligence Stock Over the Next Year, Amazon Would Be It, but Here's the Key Reason was originally published by The Motley Fool Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data

Fear of Uncertainty Held S&P 500 Back From Record. Now It's Real
Fear of Uncertainty Held S&P 500 Back From Record. Now It's Real

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Fear of Uncertainty Held S&P 500 Back From Record. Now It's Real

(Bloomberg) -- For weeks, the S&P 500 Index has inched along near an all-time high despite encouraging economic signals, as Wall Street's concerns about a rich stock market in the face of mounting global uncertainty kept buying in check. Shuttered NY College Has Alumni Fighting Over Its Future Trump's Military Parade Has Washington Bracing for Tanks and Weaponry NYC Renters Brace for Price Hikes After Broker-Fee Ban Do World's Fairs Still Matter? As Part of a $45 Billion Push, ICE Prepares for a Vast Expansion of Detention Space On Thursday night, those fears became real, with Israel and Iran exchanging missiles, threatening to start a wider war in the Middle East, which is already near boiling after years of fighting in Gaza. The price of oil spiked as much as 14% on Friday, while the yield on 10-year Treasuries halted a four-day slide and started rising again. The Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, climbed above 20. As for stocks, they were relatively subdued until selling pressure hit at the end of the day, sending the S&P 500 down 1.1%. Still, after a week of highs and lows, the index ended the five sessions essentially where it started. And it remains less than 3% away from a record. 'We don't think you trade to an all-time high in 2025 — it waits until 2026,' said Julian Emanuel, chief equity and quantitative strategist at Evercore ISI. 'We think with all the event risk — Israel and Iran, tariffs, the Big Beautiful Bill — that the summer will be a grind until uncertainty diminishes. And it will, eventually, and that will lead to new all-time highs.' That said, investors don't really seem to be stressing at the moment. A gauge of projected correlation for the 50 largest S&P 500 constituents in the next three months is hovering near the lowest level since February, when the stock market posted its last record, signaling that equities are expected to move more according to their own tunes than to macroeconomic headlines. It's been a weird time for trading stocks. The usual catalysts aren't working as expected, and moves in either direction are historically muted. The S&P 500 hasn't risen or fallen more than 0.6% in 11 of the past 13 sessions through Friday, a development not seen since December, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. 'Sell The News' A new high on the S&P 500 looked like a cinch this week before fighting in the Middle East escalated Thursday evening. Soft consumer price index and producer price index readings pointed to inflation that's under control. Treasury auctions were strong. And the US and China de-escalated trade tensions. But the benchmark index barely moved, and actually declined on Wednesday after a CPI print that was as close to ideal as it could be. 'The market has already priced out a lot of risk in the past two months, thus, there isn't as much of a coiled spring from markets to react so positively from a good inflation report,' said Michael Kantrowitz, chief investment strategist at Piper Sandler & Co. 'Especially since many still think the impact from tariffs hasn't flowed through yet.' Worries about what's to come — whether trade wars or actual ones — are a big reason why Wall Street is so skeptical of the latest rally and, in turn, why the S&P 500 is holding tight just below a new all-time high. Bank of America Corp.'s institutional clients have offloaded stocks for five consecutive weeks, according to the firm's latest flow figures published Tuesday by equity and quantitative strategist Jill Carey Hall. Their cumulative selling through this point in the year is the most in the bank's data history going back to 2008. 'It's a case of 'buy the rumor, sell the news,' and in this market's case, it has bought every positive rumor out there — trade, inflation, economy, earnings, and artificial intelligence,' said Sameer Samana, head of equities and real assets at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. 'Now, it seems like you're entering the 'sell the news' phase.' Meanwhile, the lack of clarity from Washington is keeping even potentially bullish large investors from buying in at these prices. Big money managers are historically underweight stocks — their overall equity positioning has been lower than this only 28% of the time since 2010, according to Deutsche Bank AG. 'We feel that the market is asking, 'OK, now what?!' and stalling a bit, waiting for some breakthrough,' said Keith Buchanan, senior portfolio manager at GLOBALT Investments, who remains cautious about the risks to equities and fixed income and is buying some precious metals. Even softer trade rhetoric from Trump is failing to juice the market like it has in the past. Last week, the US and China agreed to the framework of a trade agreement, the kind of announcement that not too long ago would've sparked a buying binge in the stock market. But ultimately the negotiations just brought tariff rates back to their already high levels, tempering the enthusiasm. 'There's surely an element of buyers exhaustion, at least as it relates to the headlines,' said Dan Greenhaus, chief economist and strategist at Solus Alternative Asset Management. 'Investors probably want to hear something more substantive or concrete than what they've heard thus far.' Search for Safety That caution is apparent beneath the stock market's surface, where traditional haven sectors are outperforming as investors rotate away from risk. The real estate, energy and pharmaceutical sectors are leading the S&P 500 this month, handily beating the once high-flying Magnificent Seven mega tech stocks, after being among the index's worst groups in May. The search for safety makes sense to GLOBALT's Buchanan, who questions how stocks are less than a multiple away from the valuation highs of the first quarter — a time when there was no palpable fear of a recession, inflation was headed toward the Fed's target, and tariffs appeared to be a mere negotiating ploy. 'It's difficult to reconcile the rosy outlook from the first quarter and the outlook now mired in trade, fiscal and monetary risks all while equities are at comparable levels,' he said. The S&P 500's fall since hitting an all-time high in February unfolded in stages, said Kevin Gordon, senior investment strategist at Charles Schwab & Co. First there was the selloff spurred by the creation of Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek, and then another one set off by Trump's April 2 tariff announcement. While the market has clawed back most of those losses, the underlying risks remain. 'We have arguably reversed the Liberation Day stress, but not some of the issues that plagued the market beforehand,' he said. 'I think it's worth noting that we still face a lot of headwinds in terms of tariffs being elevated and labor force growth slowing, which is why the market has had more of a grind higher versus a straight shot up over the past month.' --With assistance from Matt Turner and Elena Popina. American Mid: Hampton Inn's Good-Enough Formula for World Domination The Spying Scandal Rocking the World of HR Software New Grads Join Worst Entry-Level Job Market in Years As Companies Abandon Climate Pledges, Is There a Silver Lining? US Tariffs Threaten to Derail Vietnam's Historic Industrial Boom ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store