China benchmark jumps 0.85%
The summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Putin in Alaska yielded no concrete agreements, but Russia agreed to "game-changing" security guarantees for Ukraine, helping inject new momentum into stalled efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
The leaders of the U.K., France and Germany will accompany Ukraine's president for crunch talks with Trump at the White House today in a bid to come to a negotiated settlement in the three-and-a-half-year-old conflict.
China's Shanghai Composite index jumped 0.85 percent to 3,728.03, rallying to a 10-year high on strong institutional and retail buying amid hopes that a swift resolution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict will help remove U.S. scrutiny of Beijing's purchases of Russian oil.
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9 minutes ago
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US stocks: Wall Street ends flat after Trump-Zelensky's meeting, investors shift focus to US Fed's Jackson Hole
US stocks: The benchmark indices on Wall Street closed flat after Monday's trading session on the backdrop of Trump-Zelensky's meeting on a potential peace deal and an upcoming 'three-party' meeting. US market investors are now shifting their focus towards signs about the state of the economy and the US Federal Reserve's annual Jackson Hole. According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 lost 0.01% to end at 6,449.24 points, while the Nasdaq Composite closed 0.03% higher at 21,629.77 points, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 0.08% to close at 44,911.51 points. Walmart, Home Depot and Target, among others, are set to report results this week and are likely to indicate how trade uncertainty and inflation expectations have affected U.S. consumers. Markets also hope that the Fed's Jackson Hole, Wyoming, conference between August 21 and 23, where Fed Chair Jerome Powell is expected to speak, could offer more clarity on the economic outlook and the central bank's policy framework. "It's a quiet day, with investors getting ready for things to come," said Jed Ellerbroek, portfolio manager at Argent Capital. 'The most important event is Powell's speech, as we expect updated thoughts about how the Fed is viewing this economic environment where inflation is at a fairly high level while unemployment seems to have a rising trend.' Data on Friday showed that while retail sales were increasing broadly as anticipated, consumer sentiment overall had taken a hit from mounting inflation fears. On Monday, the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index fell to the lowest reading since December 2022. Wall Street's main indexes rallied over the past two weeks, with the blue-chip Dow hitting an intraday record high on Friday, aided by interest rate cut expectations and a better-than-expected earnings season despite an uncertain trade environment. On the geopolitical front, U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met to discuss the future of the war in Ukraine, days after Trump's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin which yielded no concrete outcome. Trump said he would call Putin and that it was possible the three leaders could hold a meeting. Investors continue to price in a 25-basis-point cut from the Federal Reserve next month, although they have lowered their expectations for another rate cut this year, according to data compiled by LSEG. Recent data has also suggested that while U.S. tariffs have not filtered in to headline consumer prices yet, weakness in the jobs market could nudge the central bank to take a more dovish stance. Intel shares fell after a Bloomberg report said the Trump administration is in talks to take a 10% stake in the chipmaker. Dayforce jumped after a report said private equity firm Thoma Bravo was in talks to acquire the human resources management software firm. Solar stocks including SunRun and First Solar gained after the U.S. Treasury Department unveiled new federal tax subsidy rules for solar and wind projects, which were less strict than investors had feared. (With agency inputs from Reuters)
Hindustan Times
33 minutes ago
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Five dangerous fault lines divide Trump and Zelensky
On August 18th Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's president, will enter the White House to meet Donald Trump and discuss ending the war in Ukraine . For Mr Zelensky it is a perilous moment. Since Mr Trump met Vladimir Putin , Russia's president, in Alaska on August 15th, the American president has put intense pressure on Mr Zelensky, stating that he could 'end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to'. The leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Finland and the European Union fear the White House will sell out Ukraine and Europe, and are rushing to Washington to support Mr Zelensky. 'Never had so many European leaders at one time,' wrote Mr Trump. 'My great honour to host them!' What are the contours of the negotiations? In the past 48 hours there has been a swirl of speculation and public comments by Team Trump. It is hard to know what the president is thinking. But five critical issues for any peace deal are likely to be discussed: sequencing, territory, security guarantees, sanctions and recognition. In each case, America will struggle to bridge the demands of Mr Putin with those of Ukraine and Europe. Map Start with sequencing, where Mr Trump has already all but folded to Mr Putin, dropping his demand that Russia should agree to a ceasefire ahead of formal peace talks. The Kremlin is keen to negotiate while the fighting still rages. On Sunday Mr Zelensky insisted that Ukraine would not begin talks with Russia 'under the pressure of weapons'. But that position—already undercut by Mr Trump's cosy bilateral meeting with Mr Putin—can probably not withstand for long American pressure to force Ukraine to the table. If the discussion moves straight to 'final' peace talks, the second issue is terrain, or what Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump's envoy, calls 'land swaps'. Russia controls all of Crimea, which it seized and annexed in 2014. Mr Trump says that the peninsula will remain in Russian hands. But Russia also claims and has formally annexed four provinces in southern and eastern Ukraine which its troops do not entirely control (see map). One proposal, which Mr Witkoff hinted at on Sunday, is reportedly for Ukraine to cede Donetsk and Luhansk entirely to Russia, including the areas that it does not presently control—and which British defence intelligence suggests could require four-plus years and more than 1.9m casualties to take on present trends. In exchange Russia would freeze the front lines in Kherson and Zaporizhia. It would also withdraw from the pockets of territory that it controls in Sumy and Kharkhiv, two northern provinces. Much of this would be anathema to Ukraine. 'Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier,' Mr Zelensky has said. The terrain in question in Donetsk and to an extent in Luhansk, is especially important because it is heavily fortified by Ukraine's army. Without it Ukraine would find it harder to defend the rest of the country against future Russian attacks. How to make any agreement on borders binding leads to the third issue: security guarantees. America has suggested that Ukraine's membership of NATO (an aspiration the alliance promised in 2008 to fulfil and which is enshrined in the country's constitution) is off the table. Forswearing NATO membership for Ukraine has long been a key Russian demand. Yet on Sunday Mr Witkoff claimed that America could offer some kind of guarantee, modelled on NATO's Article 5, a mutual-defence clause. Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, put more emphasis on guarantees from Europe. 'It would be a very big move by the President if he were to offer a US commitment to a security guarantee. That will be his decision to make.' But the detail matters: in earlier talks, in 2022, Russia appeared to agree to international guarantees, but demanded a clause that would have given it a veto on any assistance to Ukraine. Closely related to that is the question of boots on the ground. Britain has said it could send troops to Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force. But whether a European-only force is really credible is open to question. Very few troops have been promised for such a force, despite months of discussion. If America does not take part in a credible security guarantee European countries will push hard to at least secure promises about the supply of weapons from America. Mr Putin may try to push for limits on the flow of arms to Ukraine from the West. A priority for Russia is sanctions relief, the fourth issue. Mr Trump has used both threats of more financial warfare and the promise of future business deals as negotiating tools. On the one hand, he has threatened big importers of Russian oil, such as India, with swingeing tariffs. On the other, he and his team have dangled energy co-operation in the Arctic and other business partnerships. Russia's economy, which has weathered the impact of harsh Western sanctions since 2022, is beginning to feel the strain. Officials, who warn of a recession later this year, badly want the restrictions lifted. Here, Europe has some leverage. America would struggle to ease the economic strain on Russia without the full co-operation of Europe, which has a critical role in global banking, insurance, energy and shipping markets. Furthermore roughly two-thirds of the Russian central bank's foreign reserves that the West froze in 2022— thought to be worth more than $300bn—are are held in Brussels. Europe may be reluctant to release them if Mr Trump's deal weakens Ukraine. The final critical issue is recognition of any deal. Ukraine's constitution would require any 'land swap' to be put to a referendum, in which voters would almost certainly reject it. European leaders would be reluctant to endorse any deal that permanently recognises borders that have been altered by force. Whether America would do so for the sake of a peace deal is unclear. It is possible that America could recognise Russia's claim to Crimea, but not to other areas. Another fudge is for Europe to recognise the ceasefire line as a de-facto border without renouncing its view that Ukraine's pre-invasion border is the legitimate one. Mr Trump's meeting with Mr Zelensky and Ukraine's European allies will be a high-wire act of diplomacy. The brief, separate statements that Mr Trump and Mr Putin gave on August 15th, without taking questions from journalists, suggest that their plans are fragile. Mr Trump says he wants to bring the war to an end. For Ukraine and Europe the fear is that Mr Trump tries to force them to accept bad terms on the five key issues, and then threatens to abandon or punish Ukraine and Europe if they refuse. If this is how the talks turn out, Mr Putin will be the clear winner.
India Today
33 minutes ago
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Trump interrupts talks with European leaders to call Putin: Report
US President Donald Trump interrupted a high-stakes White House meeting with European leaders on Monday to place a call to Russian President Vladimir Putin, an EU diplomat told talks are expected to resume afterward, the diplomat added, noting Trump had initially indicated the call would come only after consultations with his European interruption occurred as Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alongside the leaders of Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Finland, the European Union, and the secretary-general of NATO. Germany's Bild newspaper first reported the 'We'll try to work out a trilateral with the US, Ukraine and Russia,' Trump had told reporters earlier in the day, adding, 'Putin really would like to do something.'The talks with Zelenskyy and European leaders were due to resume after the call. European officials are pushing Trump to secure binding security guarantees for Ukraine, while Zelenskyy has made clear that any peace deal must avoid territorial Zelenskyy and Trump expressed optimism on Monday that high-stakes White House talks with European leaders could open the door to trilateral negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed at ending the war in summit followed Trump's recent meeting with Putin in Alaska, after which he suggested that the responsibility now rests with Zelenskyy to consider concessions that, in his view, could bring the conflict to an end.- Ends
