India to benefit at the expense of China amid tariffs: Mark Mobius
Mark Mobius, Chairman of Mobius Emerging Opportunities Fund, shares his bullish view on India, Brazil, Vietnam and Taiwan in emerging markets, as well as Japanese trading houses in the long run.
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Photowall Brings Scandinavian Wall Design to Japan
Swedish decor brand expands into Japanese market, launching localized platform and marketing campaign Japandi Wallpaper Photowall STOCKHOLM, June 10, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Photowall, the Swedish interior design company renowned for its custom wall murals, wallpapers, and canvas prints, is proud to announce its official entry into the Japanese market. From now on, Japanese customers can explore and shop the full Photowall collection in their local language at marking a major milestone in the company's ongoing global expansion. With a strong presence across Europe and North America, Photowall's move into Japan reflects the brand's commitment to making personalized interior design accessible to a wider international audience. The launch includes a comprehensive marketing campaign, local customer support, and tailored logistics to ensure a seamless experience for customers in Japan. 'We're thrilled to bring our products and design philosophy to Japan, a country that shares our appreciation for craftsmanship, aesthetics, and individuality,' a company spokesperson said. 'Japan's design culture is both rich and globally influential, making it a natural next step for us. We're excited to see how our wall art collections will inspire new creative spaces across the country.' Founded in 2006 in Sweden, Photowall offers a vast library of wall decor — from striking nature scenes and minimalist patterns to exclusive artwork by international designers. Customers can also upload their own images to create one-of-a-kind wallpaper or prints, making every product deeply personal. All items are made to order in Stockholm using eco-friendly materials and water-based inks, ensuring minimal environmental impact. Japanese customers will benefit from a fully localized shopping experience, which features local currency, language, customer service, and optimized shipping. The site will also feature local design inspiration and partnerships with Japanese influencers, artists, and interior design experts. Photowall's products are particularly well-suited to Japan's evolving interior design trends, which increasingly embrace customization, biophilic design, and sustainable materials. Whether decorating a small apartment in Tokyo or a traditional home in Kyoto, Japanese homeowners and businesses can now transform their walls with designs that reflect their personality and values. The Japanese launch builds on Photowall's strong global momentum, as the company now serves customers in over 25 international markets. With a growing reputation for quality, fast production, and highly customizable design options, Photowall continues to gain loyal customers around the world — particularly in the United States, where its dedicated storefront at has seen strong demand across both residential and commercial segments. For more information, visit: Japan: United States: A photo accompanying this announcement is available at CONTACT: Media Contact: BJÖRN WAHLMAN Head of Digital Marketing, Photowall Email: press@ 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
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Big-spending Macron has pushed France perilously close to a debt crisis
France faces the ultimate indignity. For the first time in living memory, the French risk falling behind their eternal poor relations on the other side of the Alps. The Italian press has proclaimed the 'sorpasso' of 2025 as Italy's economy pulls ahead across a wide range of economic measures. The most astonishing figure in the European Commission's latest data is that Italy's per capita income has drawn level with France. It was 10pc lower just before the pandemic. You could call it the Meloni miracle – but Italy too is struggling by any historical or global standard. It is really a story of Emmanuel Macron's failure to halt the runaway expansion of the French state, and behind that is the larger story of incorrigible Gallic wishful thinking. 'Our sad record is that we are the most spendthrift country in the world. People simply don't realise it, and those who ought to be talking about this are negligent,' said Jean-Claude Trichet, ex-president of the European Central Bank. The fiscal horror show has been running for a long time with barely a murmur from the bond vigilantes. But three storm-clouds are gathering: a) the country has crossed a critical line and is now in the early stages of an arithmetical debt trap; b) global real interest rates have jumped to a permanently higher level and creditors are freshly alert to debt dynamics; and c) the recent upheaval in Japan's once-catatonic bond market has sent shivers up everybody's spine. Last year the Japanese life insurers and pension funds liquidated a net €41bn (£35bn) of French debt, partly because they took fright at French political chaos but also because rocketing yields in Japan have reignited the repatriation trade. Woe betide any overstretched Western government if Donald Trump's putative 'Mar-a-Lago accord' forces a massive realignment of the East Asian currency system. It is not a time to stick out like a sore thumb. Liz Truss tempted fate during an earlier bout of global bond turbulence. But her sins were almost trivial compared to the structural self-indulgence of France. 'The situation is extremely serious,' said Mr Trichet. 'We are in a terrible situation when you compare us with other countries. We have the least ambitious deficit plans in Europe by a long way.' He is watching with forensic fascination and alarm as France is forced to pay significantly higher borrowing costs than Spain and Portugal, countries that he had to rescue and restructure not so long ago after a bond market meltdown. Eric Dor, the director of economics at the IESEG School of Management in Lille, says France is already facing a 'snowball effect' of spiralling interest costs. Nobody should be fooled by the eerie calm in the eurozone bond markets. 'It is getting dangerous. History shows us that the markets are highly non-linear,' he said. 'Emmanuel Macron has allowed such runaway growth in public spending that it is now nearly impossible to control. There are so many people dependent on the state that you can't get a majority to agree to cuts,' said Prof Dor. That is a withering verdict on the neo-liberal Wunderkind – the 'Mozart of finance', no less – who swept into office eight years ago vowing root-and-branch reform of the French state. The International Monetary Fund says French public spending will be 57.3pc of GDP this year and is still on a rising trend. This is roughly 10 points higher than in Sweden or Denmark. The sacred Modèle Français has many qualities, but Nordic public services are not among them. Prof Dor said the critical threshold is when interest costs rise above the growth rate of nominal GDP. This may already have happened. France has been stagnating for several quarters. The average interest cost is rising relentlessly as the existing €3.3 trillion debt stock – mostly borrowed when capital was free – is rolled over at much higher rates. Traders are betting that the ECB's Christine Lagarde will always step in to backstop French debt. Is that not why Mr Macron insisted that she have the job? But the ECB's untested intervention tool (TPI) can be used only to defend countries that pursue 'sound fiscal and macroeconomic policies', are not 'subject to an excessive deficit procedure', do not have 'severe macroeconomic imbalances' and where the 'trajectory of public debt is sustainable'. France fails on all counts. The ECB will act to stem contagion but there will be trouble in the governing council – and legal challenges in Germany – if Mme Lagarde bails out France pre-emptively. Let us not confuse matters. France has great economic and strategic depths. It is an agricultural superpower. It has a world-class defence industry and a flourishing tech sector. It has a genuine rule of law and a AAA civil service. It has an unbeatable cultural brand. The problem is a budget deficit running at 6pc of GDP long after Covid and the gas price shock have passed, roughly matching the pace of fiscal degradation in the US under Joe Biden and Donald Trump but without America's advantages. Debt will rise mechanically to 116pc this year from 113pc last year. It will reach 120pc by 2028 even if all goes well. Britain is hardly a shining example either but at least it has a coherent government able to impose a degree of discipline. The French political system is split three ways and is in a state of near complete breakdown. Another lame-duck prime minister – the fourth in 18 months, this one a septuagenarian biographer of King Henri IV called François Bayrou – has no functioning majority in parliament and no functioning cabinet either. He herds squabbling cats. Mr Bayrou faces near total impasse as he tries to push through €40bn of emergency cuts. French society will have none of it. Fury has greeted his first trial balloon, a modest plan to trim state subsidies for taxis taking people to the doctor or for paying for them to wait for hours at hospitals. An IFOP poll shows that 65pc of the French public want to repeal the recent pension reform and revert to retirement at 62 instead of 64. No matter that the pension council says the age must rise to 66.5 to stave off insolvency, or that the rest of Europe is heading for 67 or 68. The Club Med states reformed drastically and carried out an 'internal devaluation' within the eurozone to regain competitiveness after the debt crisis of 2010-2012. It was brutal, cost Europe a lost decade, and was enforced with a gun held to their heads – by Mr Trichet himself. But that ordeal is behind them. France coasted. It could always count on Italy being in worse shape, or thought it could. But Italy is now running a primary budget surplus and is whittling down its debt ratio at a brisk pace. The two debt trajectories may soon cross in opposite directions. Italy also has a current account surplus of 1.6pc of GDP and a net international investment position of plus €416bn. France is deeply in the red on both counts, with an NIIP of minus €757bn. Furthermore, Italy's economic growth has been higher over the last five years. The rating agencies have so far pulled their punches on French debt but they are too frightened to downgrade important countries until it is already blindingly obvious. Moritz Kramer, ex-head of sovereign ratings at Standard & Poor's, said rating agencies fear being put on show trial by politicised judges in Europe, and they fear Washington. S&P raised its score on America's institutional strength to a top level of one, just weeks after Jan 6 2021, when a violent mob stormed Congress and 147 House Republicans voted for the coup d'etat. President Macron can ram through spending cuts by executive decree – the infamous Article 43.3 – but this is the method that so tainted his pension reform and pushed his presidency off the rails. If he tries, there is a high likelihood that the hard Left and hard Right will combine to bring down the Bayrou government and precipitate a constitutional crisis. Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement will do even better than last time in a snap election. Mr Macron's moribund centre will shrink further. 'We'd end up in the same mess. I don't see any political way out of this. That is what is so worrying,' said Prof Dor. You can shrug off bad debt dynamics for a long time, and you can shrug off bad politics for a while. But once you have the two together, you are courting fate. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
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Mission Launches Fuel Rocket Lab's Rally: Should You Buy the Stock Now?
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. RKLB has recently launched several successful missions, which involve deploying satellites to Earth orbit using its Electron space vehicle. Evidently, at the onset of June 2025, RKLB launched its 65th Electron rocket to deploy Earth-imaging satellites for real-time space-based intelligence company, BlackSky. In May, Rocket Lab launched the third mission for its Japanese customer, Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space, Inc. (iQPS). In March, the company deployed eight satellites for Germany-based global wildfire and detection company OroraTech. These missions, apart from showcasing Rocket Lab's increased launch cadence, also demonstrate the company's efficiency in conducting frequent, reliable and dedicated small orbital launches for satellite operators with 100% mission success. Such back-to-back launch missions must have been boosting investors' confidence in RKLB lately, as evident from its three-month price performance. Rocket Lab's shares have surged an impressive 66.2% in the past three months, outperforming the Zacks aerospace-defense industry's gain of 18%. It has also outpaced the broader Zacks Aerospace sector's rise of 21.8% as well as the S&P 500's gain of 7.5% in the same time frame. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research A similar stellar performance has been delivered by other defense stocks involved in the space industry, such as Lockheed Martin LMT and Intuitive Machines LUNR, over the past three months. Shares of LUNR surged 82%, while those of LMT rose 2.6%. According to a World Economic Forum report from April 2024, the space economy is projected to grow from $630 billion in 2023 to $1.8 trillion by 2035, driven by the increasing adoption of satellite and rocket-enabled technologies. This outlook strengthens the long-run growth prospects of stocks like RKLB, LUNR and LMT. Notably, Lockheed engages in the research, design and production of satellites and space transportation systems, while Intuitive Machines is a space exploration company involved in supplying space products and services to support sustained robotic and human exploration to the Moon, Mars and beyond. On the other hand, RKLB's Electron launch vehicle ranks as the second most frequently launched orbital rocket by U.S. companies. Looking ahead, the company is expected to continue its strong prowess in the space industry, with RKLB aiming to launch more than 20 Electron rockets in 2025. This, in turn, should bode well for Rocket Lab's operational results in the coming quarters. Let's take a sneak peek at its near-term estimates to check if that reflects a similar story. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for RKLB's 2025 and 2026 sales suggests an improvement of 32.8% and 47.7%, respectively, year over year. A look at its 2025 and 2026 earnings estimates suggests a similar year-over-year improvement. However, its second-quarter 2025 earnings estimates suggest a year-over-year decline. The upward revision of its 2025 and 2026 estimates over the past 60 days indicates investors' increasing confidence in the stock's earnings generation capabilities. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Image Source: Zacks Investment Research While Rocket Lab holds strong long-term growth potential, it faces several pressing challenges. One of the primary concerns is its high operating expenses, driven by continued investment in next-generation technologies such as the Neutron launch vehicle, spacecraft capabilities and a broader portfolio of components. These expenses often offset revenue gains, leading to losses, as evident from its recent quarterly reports. Another major risk is Rocket Lab's elevated debt levels, which currently surpass those of many industry peers (as illustrated by the long-term debt-to-capital ratio in the image below). The company invests aggressively in the design, manufacturing and commercialization of new space technologies. However, if product development timelines slip, the associated debt burden could significantly strain future financial performance. This risk is underscored by Rocket Lab's recent delay in its first Neutron rocket launch, from an initial 2024 target to mid-2025 at the earliest. Delays like this highlight execution risks that could further pressure the company's balance sheet. RKLB's Long-term Debt-to-Capital Image Source: Zacks Investment Research In terms of valuation, RKLB's forward 12-month price-to-sales (P/S) is 19.18X, a premium to its peer group's average of 4.50X. This suggests that investors will be paying a higher price than the company's expected sales growth compared to that of its industry. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Other space stocks, such as LUNR and LMT, are trading at a discount to RKLB in terms of their forward P/S ratio. LUNR and LMT have a forward sales multiple of 6.51X and 1.49X, respectively. To conclude, investors interested in Rocket Lab should wait for a better entry point, considering its premium valuation and high leverage. The stock holds a VGM score of F, which is also not a very favorable parameter for investing in a stock. However, those who already own this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock may continue to do so, considering its impressive performance at the bourses, upward revision in annual earnings estimates and year-over-year sales growth predicted by its near-term estimates. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) : Free Stock Analysis Report Rocket Lab Corporation (RKLB) : Free Stock Analysis Report Intuitive Machines, Inc. (LUNR) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research 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
