Latest news with #LONDON
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
After 40 Years, Ontario Finally Recognizes Injured Workers' Day
TORONTO and LONDON, Ontario and OSHAWA, Ontario and PETERBOROUGH, Ontario and THUNDER BAY, Ontario, June 01, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Injured & ill workers will gather at Queen's Park and across the province as they have done every June 1st for 43 summers. This year, however, they come together for the first ever provincially proclaimed Injured Workers' Day, thanks to the passage of Bill 118 – The Injured Workers' Day Act. 'Making Injured Workers' Day official helps make our long-term struggle visible in Ontario,' says Janet Paterson, president of the Ontario Network of Injured Workers' Groups, 'but until it is accompanied by meaningful action to help address the poverty we face, it isn't enough.' In the last year alone, the Ontario Government and Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) have handed over $4.5 billion dollars in 'rebates' to employers – bringing the total handouts to over $20 billion since 2017 – while overall benefits paid to workers are near historic lows amidst a culture of claims denial, claims suppression, and benefit cuts by the WSIB and rich employers. For too many workers in Ontario, an injury means poverty and pain. 'This is the Premier and the WSIB reaching into injured workers' pockets and taking our money in order to hand it over to their rich friends – the bosses who did this to us in the first place,' said Wayne Harris, executive vice-president for ONIWG. 'These are not taxpayer dollars, they comes from a fund that employers pay into that is meant to look after the workers that they injure.' Injured, ill, and migrant workers demand that this reckless practice of corporate handouts ends until their basic needs are met. The government and WSIB must immediately: Stop 'deeming' injured workers by pretending we have jobs that we can't get. Provide real healthcare to injured & ill workers. Stop practices that systematically discriminate against migrant workers. This year's Injured Workers' Day events took place in six cities. Details below. Event Details & Media Contacts Toronto: June 1st • Queen's Park • 11am to 1pm Provincial Media Coordinator – Matthew Pi: 416-461-2423 London: June 1st • Victoria Park • 11am to 1pm • Northwest CornerRally organizer Kevin Jones – Home phone: 519- 936-6715Kevin will also be available at event for media inquiries Oshawa: *THURSDAY MAY 29th • Justice for Injured Workers Event hosted by Durham Regional Labour Council • 6:30pm – 8:30pm • IBEW East Hall • 1001 Ritson Rd. VP Wayne Harris: 289-830-2103 Peterborough: June 1st • Millennium Park • Noon • North end of the pathwayPeterborough Occupational Disease Action Committee Rep Sue James: 705-876-1150 Thunder Bay: *FRIDAY MAY 30th • City Hall • 10am. ONIWG VP Eugene Lafrancois: 807-767-7827 Windsor: June 1st • Corner of Ouellette & Tecumseh • 11am • At the flagpoleONIWG VP Liz Garant: 226-961-3906Sign in to access your portfolio
Reuters
2 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
China's stock market favours foxes over hedgehogs
LONDON, May 29 (Reuters Breakingviews) - 'The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.' The famous adage of the ancient Greek poet Archilochus is reflected in investors' deeply contrasting attitudes towards China's stock market. Over the past year, the foxes, who have a trading mentality, have been riding a rally in Chinese equities. Hedgehogs have stayed away. The one thing they know is that the People's Republic is no place for long-term investors. Over the past decade, U.S. stocks have trounced Chinese equities. That order has reversed this year. Since the beginning of January, the S&P 500 Index (.SPX), opens new tab is basically flat while the MSCI China Index (.dMICN00000PUS), opens new tab, which includes mainland companies listed in Hong Kong and New York, has climbed over 10%. On the surface there's plenty for investors to get excited about. Chinese companies remain ultracompetitive, as evidenced by the country's massive trade surplus. The People's Republic boasts several world-class firms, including tech giant Tencent and carmaker BYD. It also dominates cutting-edge technologies from electric vehicles to battery storage. Viewed over a longer period, Chinese equities have profoundly disappointed. Since the re-establishment of the country's stock market in the early 1990s, they have returned a mere 3.3% a year after inflation, according to UBS. That's just half the average long run historic return of the U.S. stock market, and in line with the return on Chinese bonds. The country's stocks look relatively cheap at 15 times cyclically adjusted earnings, less than half the level of their U.S. counterparts. But Chinese equities traded at a similar valuation 10 years ago. What explains the systematically low returns from Chinese stocks? In his recently published book 'The Making of Modern Corporate Finance, opens new tab', the author and consultant Donald Chew argues that China has adopted the form of Western financial practices - stock exchanges, regulators, brokers, and auditors - but not their substance. Chinese companies and investors operate without the strict rule of law or strong property rights. Beijing views the stock market primarily as a place to raise cheap capital rather than reward those who provide it, says Chew. There's no market for corporate control in China. Minority shareholders have little influence. Listed Chinese companies have low profit margins and sluggish asset turnover. Over the past decade, their returns on equity have fallen from 10% to 6%, according to Gillem Tulloch, founder of Hong-Kong based GMT Research. A recent paper, opens new tab by Ben Inker and Anna Chetoukhina of the Boston-based investment firm GMO finds that the mildly negative annual returns on Chinese stocks in the decade between September 2014 and September 2024 were due to deteriorating fundamentals and significant shareholder dilution. The issuance of additional stock lowered returns by 2.6% a year over this period, according to GMO. The addition of several highly valued tech companies, such as Alibaba and Baidu, to the MSCI China Index provided an additional drag. Chinese stocks deserve a steep discount to other markets because companies reinvest close to 100% of their profits at structurally low returns, GMO concludes. Future changes to the MSCI China Index may not to be so damaging to investors while the decline in returns on capital could turn out to be a cyclical phenomenon. After all, investors were put off by years of lacklustre returns from Japanese stocks until former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe instituted a series of reforms after returning to power in 2012. Since then, the Nikkei 225 Index (.N225), opens new tab has more than trebled. Chinese authorities last year tried to revive the stock market as part of efforts to stimulate the world's second-largest economy. There's little evidence, however, that President Xi Jinping is a convert to shareholder value. If anything, he has moved corporate China in the opposite direction. Public companies are expected to conform to Xi's vision of 'common prosperity', which means avoiding supposed capitalist 'excesses' and following the Communist Party's priorities. State-owned enterprises, which account for around half the Chinese market's capitalisation, are cogs in the party's machine. Their resources are often allocated at the government's behest. For instance, when Beijing launched its massive stimulus programme in late 2008, the biggest listed banks provided much of the credit, while many other SOEs became involved in supporting the property market. Private Chinese companies regularly face pressure to support the government's priorities. Business leaders who step out of line, as Alibaba founder Jack Ma did in October 2020 when he publicly criticised Chinese financial regulators, face repercussions. Companies that operate in sectors that have fallen out of favour with Beijing are liable to be crushed, as investors in private education providers discovered in 2021. Although the epidemic of corporate fraud that erupted in the early 2010s has abated, Chinese financial statements are the least reliable in Asia, says Tulloch. Company research provided by analysts based on the mainland is also of low quality, he says. The risk factors listed in Chinese IPO prospectuses are watered down to comply with rules banning comments that disparage government policies or the business environment, argues Ian Williams in his book 'Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy", opens new tab. Despite the Chinese stock market's lacklustre returns over the past 15 years, investors have had opportunities to make money. During this period there have been several strong market rallies, including two full-blown bubbles, starting in 2014 and 2020. The trick for investors is to front-run those rallies by gauging when Beijing is poised to support the market. That's what happened last year, when the People's Bank of China lowered the reserve requirement for banks and set up a stock market lending facility. The securities regulator banned short sales. Large shareholders were instructed not to sell shares and state-owned entities stepped in to support the market. More recently, Chinese tech stocks have benefitted from optimism about advances in artificial intelligence. Speculative foxes who anticipated these moves are licking their chops. They should not overstay their welcome. Hedgehogs believe that foreign investors in China face similar risks to those operating, until recently, in neighbouring Russia. In their view, Chinese stocks are only ever a trade and not an investment. Follow @Breakingviews, opens new tab on X
Sinar Daily
2 days ago
- Health
- Sinar Daily
Dinosaurs could hold key to cancer discoveries, UK scientists say
Researchers identified preserved red blood cell-like structures in a dinosaur fossil. 29 May 2025 06:33pm Dinosaur fossils could hold the key to new cancer discoveries and influence future treatments for humans, scientists have said. Photo for illustrative purposes only - Canva. LONDON - Dinosaur fossils could hold the key to new cancer discoveries and influence future treatments for humans, scientists have said, PA Media/dpa reported. In a new study published in the journal Biology, which was almost a decade in the making, researchers from Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and Imperial College London identified preserved red blood cell-like structures in a dinosaur fossil. The findings raised the possibility that prehistoric creatures could be used to study ancient tumours, helping to fill in the "jigsaw' of cancer's molecular building blocks, and potentially influencing future treatments for humans. Dinosaur fossils could hold the key to new cancer discoveries and influence future treatments for humans, scientists have said. Photo for illustrative purposes only - Canva. The idea for the study began when Professor Justin Stebbing, an oncologist at ARU, was reading the news in 2016 and came across an article about the discovery of a new fossil in Romania with a tumour in its jaw. The remains were those of a Telmatosaurus transsylvanicus, a duck-billed, plant-eating "marsh lizard', a specimen that had lived between 66-70 million years ago in the Hateg Basin in present-day Romania. - BERNAMA-PA Media/dpa More Like This
Free Malaysia Today
3 days ago
- Business
- Free Malaysia Today
Opec must squeeze US shale much more to win oil price war
Benchmark US oil prices have dropped by nearly a quarter since January to US$61 a barrel, in response to Opec+'s strategy and concerns over trade wars. (File pic) LONDON : Oil drillers in the US shale heartland are slowing down operations, a sign that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' (Opec) high-stakes price war is starting to pay off, but Saudi Arabia will need to exert a lot more pain to make a lasting impact on market share. US oil producers upended the global market in the early 2010s, as the innovative 'fracking' drilling technique allowed them to tap vast onshore shale formations. Consequently, the US, long the world's top oil consumer, became its leading producer as of 2018. It currently pumps around 13.5 million barrels per day (bpd), around 13% of world supplies. The rising tide of US oil has long irked the Opec, which has seen its market share steadily erode over the past two decades. Saudi Arabia, Opec's de-facto leader, in 2014 sought to curb surging US output by flooding the market with cheap oil. This effort bankrupted a number of shale producers, but it only temporarily paused the country's ascent as companies adapted to lower prices and the industry consolidated. Price war redux Riyadh and its allies, a group known as Opec+, are now giving it another go. They surprised the market earlier this year by announcing that they would rapidly unwind 2.2 million bpd of production cuts introduced in 2024. The group is expected to announce further increases in production later this week. Benchmark US oil prices have dropped by nearly a quarter since January to around US$61 a barrel in response to Opec+'s strategy as well as concerns over US President Donald Trump's trade wars. At these prices, many shale wells are not profitable, as frackers require an oil price of between US$61 and US$70 a barrel to expand production, according to a survey conducted by the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. Sure enough, nimble frackers have already responded by paring back drilling activities to conserve cash. The number of US onshore oil drilling rigs dropped by eight to 465 last week, the lowest since November 2021, according to energy services firm Baker Hughes. Crucially, drillers in the Permian Basin in West Texas and eastern New Mexico, which accounts for nearly half of US production, cut three rigs, bringing the total down to 279, also the lowest since November 2021. Crude production from new Permian wells, a measure of productivity, slightly improved in April, but that was largely offset by declines in other basins. Multiple indicators suggest activity is set to decelerate further. Importantly, Frac Spread Count, which measures the number of crews actively performing hydraulic fracturing, has seen a 28% annual drop to 186, according to energy consultancy Primary Vision, an indication that production could fall sharply in the coming months. Another measure to watch is drilled but uncompleted wells (DUCs), or partially completed wells that can start production quickly, offering operators flexibility to withhold production until market conditions improve. DUCs have risen by 11% since December 2024 to 975 in the Permian Basin. Down but not out While the latest data on shale drilling activity suggests US production will continue to slow, it is far from falling off a cliff. The US energy information administration reduced in May its forecasts for US production in 2025 and 2026 by around 100,000 bpd to 13.4 million bpd and 13.5 million bpd, respectively, compared with 13.2 million bpd last year. Production in the Permian Basin is forecast to average 6.51 million bpd in 2025, down from its previous estimate of 6.58 million bpd. However, that would still mark a significant increase from 6.3 million bpd in 2024. Opec+ may find it even harder to have a sustainable impact now than it did in 2014 as the US shale landscape is significantly different from a decade ago. True, 15 years of intensive oil and gas drilling have depleted a large chunk of the most profitable shale acreage. However, shale drillers have in recent years adopted much stricter spending discipline, focusing on returning value to shareholders in contrast with last decade's focus on growing production. Independent US oil and gas producers have so far reduced their planned 2025 spending commitments by an aggregate 4% to US$60 billion, while output is expected to remain largely flat, according to consultancy RBN Energy. Also, production today is concentrated in the hands of far fewer companies, such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron. These energy majors have developed highly efficient drilling techniques and boast strong balance sheets that leave them better equipped to withstand the Opec assault. Current oil prices are therefore likely to temporarily curb US production but not lead to the type of sharp deceleration seen in 2014. Opec+ will therefore need to deepen and extend its price war for many months if it seeks to fundamentally change the oil production balance of power.
Zawya
5 days ago
- Business
- Zawya
Saudi's refining boom helps it weather oil price war: Bousso
(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.) LONDON - Saudi Arabia has been cranking up oil refining operations to capture strong profit margins, helping the kingdom offset revenue lost from declining crude prices and exports. The world's top oil exporter has in recent years invested heavily in expanding and modernizing its refining and petrochemical capacity at home and overseas to meet growing demand for fuel and plastics while also securing outlets for its crude oil. Saudi Arabia has nine local refineries with a combined capacity of 3.33 million barrels of oil per day (bpd), accounting for roughly 3% of global demand, which are configured to process its domestically produced crude oil. It operates another 4.3 million bpd of refining capacity abroad, including in China, the United States and Malaysia. The kingdom's domestic refineries processed 2.94 million bpd in March, the highest-ever volume for that month and only a smidgen below the record high of 2.96 million bpd in April 2024, according to data from the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI). The 12% monthly increase in refining crude intake in March was 23% above the 10-year average for the same period. It correlates with a 12% month-on-month drop in Saudi crude exports to 5.75 million bpd in March, according to the data, highlighting the kingdom's flexibility between directly selling crude to other refiners and refining it itself. Saudi refinery rates likely declined by around 200,000 bpd in April due to planned plant maintenance, but should remain at elevated levels ahead of peak summer demand season, according to Keshav Lohiya, CEO and founder of analytics firm Oilytics. Saudi's refined product exports, which include diesel, gasoline, jet fuel and fuel oil, rose to a record 1.58 million bpd in March, before declining to 1.48 million bpd in April and 1.42 million bpd so far in May, according to data from ship tracking firm Kpler, likely reflecting refinery turnaround. FLEXIBILITY This integrated strategy offers Saudi Aramco, the country's national oil company, an effective way to manage oil price volatility as refining margins - the profit made by processing crude oil into transportation fuels and chemicals - typically rise when feedstock prices decline. It will likely prove valuable going forward after OPEC+, an alliance of major producing countries unofficially led by Riyadh and including Russia, started to rapidly unwind 2.2 million bpd of output since April. The move to add a large volume of oil into an already well-supplied market concerned by the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs on global economic activity put heavy pressure on oil prices, which dropped to around $65 a barrel from a high of $82 in mid-January. Saudi Arabia and its allies will likely deepen the price war when they meet later this month by further accelerating the unwinding of their production cuts. Refining margins have held strong so far this year despite the growing economic headwinds, benefiting from lower crude prices and healthy demand for diesel in particular. Benchmark Singapore refining margins are currently near their highest since February 2024 of around $8 a barrel, according to LSEG data. Regardless of the possible impact of the trade wars, global fuel demand in the northern hemisphere typically peaks from June through early September, as motorists drive more over the summer while more air travel buoys jet fuel demand. This will therefore likely support refining margins in the coming months. Saudi Aramco placed 28% of its crude oil production in domestic refining operations in 2024, up from 26% the previous year, according to its annual report. It also supplied 53% of the crude used by its joint venture refineries abroad. The International Monetary Fund assessed that Saudi Arabia will need an average Brent oil price of around $90 a barrel in order to balance its national budget. While crude prices are likely to remain at current levels or even lower for most of the year given the surge in supplies and demand uncertainty, the increased refining operations offer Riyadh an effective tool to manage oil price volatility and to better withstand a protracted price war. ** The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters. ** Want to receive my column in your inbox every Thursday, along with additional energy insights and trending stories? Sign up for my Power Up newsletter here. (By Ron Bousso; Editing by Susan Fenton)
