US-Sanctioned Russian LNG Heads to Asia in Search for Buyers
The Iris and Voskhod vessels, which are carrying shipments from the Arctic LNG 2 plant in Siberia, began traveling to North Asia via the Northern Sea Route on Aug. 15 after being idled for weeks, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. Two other tankers that recently loaded at the plant also started heading toward Asia last week.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
36 minutes ago
Asian shares mostly gain as eyes turn to meetings at the White House and Jackson Hole
BANGKOK -- Asian shares were mostly higher Monday after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite edged back from their record levels while the Dow inched to a new record close. U.S. futures were little changed as investors watched for developments in the Ukraine crisis following a summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that brought no breakthroughs. Japan's Nikkei 225 gained 0.8% to 43.714.31, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong added 0.1% to 25,291.42. The Shanghai Composite index jumped 1% to 3,732.44. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 picked up 0.2% to 8,959.30. The Kospi in South Korea declined 1.5% to 3,177.28 on heavy selling of semiconductor makers like Samsung Electronics, whose shares fell 2.2%. SK Hynix lost 3.3% as investors fretted over the possibility of more U.S. tariffs on computer chips. Trump was preparing to meet later Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders in Washington. The European vanguard were not included in Trump's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin last Friday. They are seeking to present a united front in safeguarding Ukraine and the continent from any widening aggression from Moscow. An annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, of top central bankers later this week will be watched closely for hints about possible interest rate cuts from Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. He is due to speak Friday at the economic policy conference. 'While the official theme is labor markets, investors will scrutinize any hint of September policy direction, especially after last week's mixed inflation data,' Ipek Ozkardeskaya of Swissquote said in a commentary, adding that 'any progress on Ukraine peace talks could push global equities higher still.' Expectations have been building that the Fed will cut interest rates at its next meeting in September, though mixed reports on the U.S. economy have undercut those bets somewhat. One report Friday said shoppers boosted their spending at U.S. retailers last month, while another said manufacturing in New York state unexpectedly grew. A third said industrial production across the country shrank last month, when economists were looking for modest growth. Yet another report suggested sentiment among U.S. consumers is worsening because of worries about inflation, when economists expected to see a slight improvement. On Wall Street, UnitedHealth Group jumped 12% on Friday after famed investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway said it bought nearly 5 million shares of the insurer during the spring, valued at $1.57 billion. Buffett is known for trying to buy good stocks at affordable prices, and UnitedHealth's halved for the year by the end of July because of a run of struggles. Berkshire Hathaway's own stock slipped 0.4%. Applied Materials helped lead Wall Street lower with a decline of 14.1% even though it reported better results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The focus was on the company's forecast for a drop in revenue during the current quarter. Its products help manufacture semiconductors and advanced displays, and CEO Gary Dickerson pointed to a 'dynamic macroeconomic and policy environment, which is creating increased uncertainty and lower visibility in the near term, including for our China business.' Sandisk fell 4.6% despite reporting a profit for the latest quarter that blew past analysts' expectations. Investors focused instead on the data storage company's forecast for profit in the current quarter, which came up short of Wall Street's. On Friday, the S&P 500 fell 0.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.1% higher. The Nasdaq composite sank 0.4%. In other dealings early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil rose 24 cents to $63.04 per barrel, while Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 16 cents to $66.01 per barrel.
Newsweek
an hour ago
- Newsweek
Donald Trump's Approval Rating Surges After Putin Summit
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. U.S. President Donald Trump's approval rating surged after his summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. According to polling by InsiderAdvantage, 54 percent of voters said they now approved of the president while 44 percent disapproved. Trump's net +10 percent approval rating is an increase from the publication's last poll in July, which gave him a net +2 percent approval rating—with 50 percent of respondents approving and 48 percent disapproving. Why It Matters Approval ratings are useful in providing a snapshot of the electorate's response to key policies and developments in Trump's presidency. During his presidency, Trump's popularity has fluctuated. Maintaining broad support will be important for the president and the Republican Party more widely, particularly when voters head to the polls for the November 2026 midterms. Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump talk at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, on August 15. Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump talk at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, on August 15. AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson What To Know Trump hosted Putin in Alaska for a summit on Friday during which they spoke for two and a half hours to try to broker a ceasefire deal to end Russia's war with Ukraine. Critics have said Trump conceded too much to Putin and took umbrage with the talks ending without an agreement. Despite this, the new polling indicates the talks have boosted Trump's approval rating. InsiderAdvantage's survey was conducted between August 15 and 17. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.09 percentage points. The poll also suggests Trump is faring better than in other recent polls, which showed declining support for the president. According to a YouGov poll for British newspaper The Times, the proportion of people who disapproved of Trump's job performance increased from 52 percent in April to 57 percent in July. Newsweek analysis also found that Trump's approval rating was positive in 18 of the states he won in the 2024 election and negative in 13. What People Are Saying InsiderAdvantage pollster Matt Towery said in his analysis: "Donald Trump now has an advantage among every age group other than the most senior of voters. He has improved his numbers among African-Americans and Hispanic-Latinos. White voters are at a near record 64 percent. Voters under 65 years of age now approve of his job performance by wide margins. Only the nation's oldest voters disapprove of his job performance, which is consistent with our prior surveys. Overall, his approval numbers are surging upwards post-summit." U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social after the summit: "The Fake News has been saying for three days that I suffered a 'major defeat' by allowing President Vladimir Putin of Russia to have a major Summit in the United States. Actually, he would have loved doing the meeting anywhere else but the U.S., and the Fake News knows this. It was a major point of contention! If we had the Summit elsewhere, the Democrat run and controlled media would have said what a terrible thing THAT was. These people are sick!" What Happens Next Trump's popularity is likely to continue oscillating throughout the remainder of his presidency. Meanwhile, he has discussed plans to secure a trilateral meeting with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He is also meeting with European leaders, including Zelensky, at the White House on Monday.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Chinese Stock Index Rises to Decade High as Investors Dump Bonds
(Bloomberg) -- A gauge of Shanghai-listed stocks closed at its highest level in a decade, as cash-rich local investors plow into a market that has surged amid easing trade tensions with the US. The Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index jumped 0.9% to close at 3,728 on Monday, its strongest finish since August 2015, according to Bloomberg-compiled data. That cements a 20% turnaround since an April selloff, when US President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs roiled global markets. Trump extended a tariff truce with China last week. The US-Canadian Road Safety Gap Is Getting Wider A Photographer's Pipe Dream: Capturing New York's Vast Water System Festivals and Parades Are Canceled Amid US Immigration Anxiety A London Apartment Tower With Echoes of Victorian Rail and Ancient Rome Princeton Plans New Budget Cuts as Pressure From Trump Builds The rally reflects a rising sense of optimism among small investors, flush with near record-high savings and increasingly rotating out of bonds. Those investors were scarred a decade ago, when a precipitous stock market crash led Beijing to unleash state-backed funds to prop up share prices and left a bitter memory for many investors. There have been false dawns since then, but over the past decade Chinese stocks onshore have badly underperformed benchmarks of shares in the US, Asia and even Europe, long considered a global laggard for equity investors. Fund managers in China are now hoping that the current rally has enough behind it — ranging from hopes about artificial intelligence to government moves to bolster growth — to stand the test of time. 'We're confident that this rally has legs,' said Wang Huan, a fund manager at Shanghai Zige Investment Management Co. Ltd, pointing to sources of optimism including abundant liquidity, government moves to stem price wars and hopes that China's economy is bottoming out. China's stock market has been helped by investors shifting their investments from fixed income, as they scale back expectations of monetary easing and respond to Beijing's decision to restart taxes on interest payments made on government bonds or those of financial institutions. China's 10-year bond yield was up four basis points at 1.78% on Monday, while 30-year yields were around six basis points higher at 2.11%. The country's 30-year bond futures suffered their biggest drop since March. The latest monetary policy report from China's central bank showed policymakers are in no rush to aggressively ease. The Shanghai Composite remains a long way from the heady days of 2015, when a leverage-induced buying spree pushed the index as high as 5,166 before the bubble burst. The all-time high was set in October 2007. Trade Tensions Ease The buzz in China's share market is a stark change from just a few months ago, when fears that the world's two largest economies were entering a prolonged — and painful — trade war rattled markets around the world. The rally is part of a global rise in share prices: Stocks in the US and Indonesia set new highs last week, helping push an MSCI index of global equities to a record. The recovery in China's stock market has led to a frenzy of trading activity. Turnover on mainland exchanges was more than 2.7 trillion yuan ($376 billion) on Monday, the second highest turnover ever following an Oct. 8 peak, according to Bloomberg-compiled data. That followed mainland Chinese traders buying a record HK$35.9 billion ($4.6 billion) worth of stocks in Hong Kong on Friday, as the risk-on mood in mainland equities spilled over across the border. There has also been a surge in loans for stock purchases, a sign that investors are taking on leverage to join the rally. The amount of margin debt taken out to buy stocks climbed to the highest level since 2015 last week, and is now about 10% away from hitting an all-time high. Other policy tweaks have helped direct investors to local stocks. China strengthened its oversight of taxes on overseas stock trading gains, and said it will subsidize interest payments on eligible personal consumer loans. The Shanghai index's 11% gain this year has beaten the CSI 300 Index, another closely watched onshore gauge which is up around 8%. A bigger weighting of high-performing bank stocks in the Shanghai Composite has helped drive the outperformance, in large part due to buying by insurance funds. --With assistance from Julia Zhong. (Updates stock and bond prices. Adds details of latest central bank policy report.) What Declining Cardboard Box Sales Tell Us About the US Economy Americans Are Getting Priced Out of Homeownership at Record Rates Living With 12 Strangers to Ease a Housing Crunch Bessent on Tariffs, Deficits and Embracing Trump's Economic Plan How Syrian Immigrants Are Boosting Germany's Economy ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
