Latest news with #economicdecline
Bloomberg
18 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
China Home Sales Slump Drags On as Deflation Eats Into Incomes
China's residential property sales continued to fall on in May, signaling the real estate slump is still weighing on an economy that's under pressure from deflation and trade tensions. The value of new-home sales from the 100 largest property companies slid 8.6% from a year earlier to 294.6 billion yuan ($40.9 billion), according to calculations based on preliminary data from China Real Estate Information Corp. That follows an 8.7% decline in April.
Globe and Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Market Analysis: May 29th, 2025
Global Markets Canadian Markets Canada's TSX declined on Thursday as falling oil prices weighed on the energy sector. Investor sentiment was further dampened after the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), the country's largest lender, reported quarterly earnings that missed analysts' expectations. The miss was primarily due to higher-than-anticipated provisions for credit losses, as the bank prepared for potential loan defaults amid a weakening economic environment. This cautious stance, despite RBC's overall income growth across most business lines, intensified concerns about the financial health of Canadian consumers and the broader domestic economy. The combination of lower oil prices and rising worries over economic resilience pushed equity markets lower. American Markets U.S. stocks posted gains, bolstered by Nvidia's strong earnings report which exceeded Wall Street's expectations, reinforcing optimism about the AI-driven tech rally. The broader market was also buoyed by a legal development: a U.S. federal court blocked the implementation of President Donald Trump's proposed 'Liberation Day' tariffs. This decision was seen as a major relief to global markets, which had been bracing for potential disruptions in trade. The U.S. dollar also rose on the news, supported by strong investor appetite and increased demand for safe-haven assets. European Markets European stock markets opened in positive territory, but reversed course and drifted lower later in the session as investors adopted a cautious stance ahead of key macroeconomic data. Focus now turns to Friday's release of German inflation figures, a critical input ahead of next week's European Central Bank (ECB) monetary policy meeting. Traders and investors are closely watching for any signs of easing or tightening in the ECB's tone. Meanwhile, forecasts indicate that European homeowners are likely to face elevated mortgage rates until at least 2030, adding pressure on household finances and consumer spending across the continent. UK markets slipped, led by losses in blue-chip stocks. Data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) revealed a sharp decline in vehicle production in April, with just 59,203 cars manufactured. This marks the lowest April output in more than 70 years, excluding 2020 during the pandemic lockdowns. The drop was attributed to weaker U.S. demand amid trade tensions, as well as calendar effects due to the timing of the Easter holiday. Additionally, UK services sector sentiment has deteriorated to a 2.5-year low, reflecting growing concerns about domestic economic momentum and consumer confidence. Corporate News Abercrombie & Fitch Co: Barclays raised its target price to $84 from $71 after the company's strong Q1 results beat expectations. Agilent Technologies Inc: Beat Wall Street's Q2 estimates and raised its annual revenue forecast due to strong demand in drug development tools. It maintained its fiscal 2025 adjusted profit forecast. Alphabet Inc: Google began direct online sales of Pixel devices in India, anticipating the launch of its first physical stores in the country. Ansys Inc & Synopsys Inc: The FTC will require asset divestitures to address antitrust concerns over their $35B merger. Synopsys also raised its Q3 revenue forecast. Boeing Co: Expects to complete 737 MAX 7 and MAX 10 certification by year-end, with significant order backlogs for both models. Cadence Design Systems Inc: Named among companies affected by new U.S. export restrictions to China, impacting design software and semiconductor materials. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC): Reported a 20% rise in capital markets income and an increase in adjusted net income to C$2.02B in Q2, driven by market volatility and higher trading fees. Chevron Corp: Will lay off nearly 800 employees in Texas as part of broader workforce reductions aimed at simplifying operations. Elf Beauty Inc: Acquired Hailey Bieber's skincare brand, Rhode, for about $1B, aiming to expand into the prestige beauty market. Energy Transfer LP: Signed a 20-year LNG supply deal with Japan's Kyushu Electric, marking the latter's first long-term U.S. LNG contract. HP Inc: Cut its FY2025 profit forecast due to weak PC market outlook and inflationary pressures; shares dropped in extended trading. Moderna Inc: The Trump administration canceled a $590M contract for the development of its bird flu vaccine. nCino Inc: KBW raised the price target to $33 from $28, citing improved operating income forecasts for 2026 and 2027. Nordson Corp: Beat Q2 earnings estimates, helped by a 20% revenue jump in its medical and fluid solutions business, aided by the Atrion acquisition. Nutrien Ltd: Announced plans to build a major West Coast port terminal to boost potash exports to Indo-Pacific markets. Nvidia Corp: Beat Q1 sales expectations despite China export curbs, but forecasted $8B in lost revenue due to these restrictions. Piper Sandler raised its price target to $180. Paramount Global: Reportedly offered $15M to settle a Trump lawsuit against CBS News; Trump's team wants over $25M and an apology. PepGen Inc: Discontinued its DMD therapy after failing to boost protein production in a mid-stage trial. Royal Bank of Canada: Reported a strong Q2 with benefits from the $13.5B acquisition of HSBC Canada and strong wealth management performance. Salesforce Inc: Raised its FY2026 revenue and profit outlook due to resilient cloud spending and increasing AI monetization. Baird lowered its price target to $365 from $400. SentinelOne Inc: Trimmed annual revenue guidance due to cautious enterprise spending, especially among SMB clients. Skyward Specialty Insurance Group Inc: KBW raised its target price to $72 from $67, expecting strong growth in premiums and underwriting profits. Sunnova Energy International Inc: Trump administration canceled a $2.92B partial loan guarantee tied to its solar financing initiative. Tesla Inc: Testing driverless Model Y cars in Austin with delivery targeted for June, ahead of schedule. United States Steel Corp: Questions raised about Nippon Steel's $15B bid to acquire U.S. Steel, with investor concerns on capital deployment amid U.S. demand hopes. Victoria's Secret & Co: Took down its website and some in-store services after a security incident. Stores remain open as the company investigates.
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
STEPHEN GLOVER: I once believed Farage would take up Mrs T's mantle. Now, as he jettisons her core beliefs, he's looking less like the saviour this country needs
Nigel Farage is the most significant Right-wing politician since Margaret Thatcher, whom he idolised. He left the Tory Party not long after she was jettisoned, and kept her candle burning bright over many years. Will he, as his heroine triumphantly did, save this country from economic decline, ever higher taxes, bolshy trade unions, and a bloated and often inefficient state? I used to think he was our best, perhaps our only, hope to rescue us from the mess we're in. Now I am less sure. As Reform UK eclipses the Tories in the polls, and spreads panic in Labour ranks, Farage is shedding Thatcherite views in favour of Left-wing ones. Almost every policy he announces is calculated to woo disenchanted Red Wall voters, who have every reason to be fed up with both Labour and Conservatives. His commitments are liable to add to our spiralling debts. There is admittedly lots of talk – if rather unconvincing – from Farage about slashing public expenditure. But there is less mention of the urgent need to reduce the tax burden, which stands at a peacetime high, and is certain to climb further under Rachel Reeves 's shaky stewardship. On tax the Reform leader has produced a specific plan. Before his speech in London on Tuesday, he had already pledged to raise the threshold for paying income tax to £20,000. This is intended to appeal particularly to low-paid workers, though it would also benefit the better off. A wonderful idea, but not one that could be afforded without huge cuts in public expenditure. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, lifting the threshold from the existing £12,571 to £20,000 would cost between £50billion and £80billion a year. That's an enormous sum. Nigel Farage made other undertakings on Tuesday that will also be expensive. Winter fuel allowance will be reinstated for all pensioners (annual cost £1.5billion) and the two-child benefit cap abolished (cost £3.5billion a year). By the time Farage enters No10 – if he does – Labour will probably have done both these things. It is less likely to copy Reform's idea of a marriage tax allowance, whose costs are not yet clear. Instead of showing how he would reduce the ballooning welfare budget (which Labour's milksop reforms will do little to curtail), Farage has come up with proposals that are likely to increase it. And the cuts to pay for all this? Let's just say that they press the right buttons with many voters, including your columnist. But most of them could have been written down on the back of a beer mat at the end of a long evening. Is it really practicable, or indeed desirable, to scrap the entire Net Zero budget at a claimed annual saving of £45billion? Granted, Ed Miliband's schemes are wrong-headed and costly, but I doubt that any British government can simply pretend that climate change doesn't exist. Equally, Reform's promise to take an axe to quangos will raise a cheer across the land. But is every quango useless? As prime minister, Nigel Farage might see the point of some of them. An annual saving of £13billion sounds fanciful. Nor does the plan to claw back £5billion a year by ditching migrant hotels carry conviction. Where will they stay? They could be put in a well-run camp on some uninhabited island off the British coast – a sensible proposition, I believe – but Farage has vetoed this idea. Incidentally, Reform's plan to dump cross-Channel illegal migrants on the French coast is also far-fetched. It would be a breach of international law, which grown-up prime ministers are supposed to take seriously. All in all, there's an air of unreality about the proposals announced by Farage on Tuesday. Many of the figures are broad brush. They can only be made to add up through a haze of cigarette smoke amid the sound of merriment. Here we come to the crux. It seems to me perfectly possible, if not likely, that Nigel Farage and Reform will constitute the next government of the United Kingdom without ever making their figures tally. Lots of voters are so fed up with Labour and the Tories that they will try anything. After all, this has happened before. During the American presidential elections many people turned a blind eye to Trump's factual errors, obfuscations and wild exaggerations. I don't accuse Farage of such excesses but he has learnt something from his friend. In our own dear island, Labour won a huge landslide, albeit with an historically low share of the vote, even though it was obvious that it wouldn't be able to honour its pledges without raising taxes. People just hoped. Reform and Farage are riding a wave of renewed hope, and it will get bigger and bigger unless by some miracle Labour is able to reverse our economic decline or the Tories resurrect their skill at governing. I don't think either will transpire. Perhaps without realising it, or denying within himself that it has happened, Nigel Farage is reshaping his political beliefs so as to appeal to habitual Labour voters, as well as to disgruntled Tories tired of their party's incompetence and ideological dampness. Margaret Thatcher – whose very name is anathema in the folk memory of the Red Wall – is being pushed away by a man who was once proud to be described as a Thatcherite. Tellingly, he barely attacks Trump's tariffs, which are an affront to the Iron Lady's free-market economics. Since for many Red Wall voters the NHS is a sacred institution, I expect Reform's leader will soon be forced to disavow his preference for an insurance-based health service such as exists in France, and pledge his allegiance to the crumbling, irredeemable system we have. Farage's apparent transformation is nothing less than a tragedy for Britain. I don't ask for a re-run of Margaret Thatcher. This is another age, and of course she made mistakes – not least the harshness of the medicine she thrust on parts of industrial Britain. But her general prescriptions of lower taxation and a smaller state remain as relevant now as they were 45 years ago. Without these we will never get the economic growth that Labour yearns for. How absurd to imagine it can be achieved by building a few more houses. I once believed that Nigel Farage would take up her mantle. Here was a brave politician and a man of principle. Hadn't he given much of his life to the cause of freeing us from the European Union? My fear is that he is being held hostage by the expectations of his new supporters. They don't want a smaller state. They just want a better life, which I doubt they'll get with Farage's statist policies. He and Reform would then face a terrible reckoning – and Britain a dark future. I still haven't given up all hope. Maybe Nigel Farage still listens to Thatcherite ancestral voices. He might yet cast aside Leftist policies and dodgy sums. But he is looking less like the saviour that this country so desperately needs.
CBC
23-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
Steady decline in border crossings impacting N.B. operators for better or worse
Cross-border traffic between New Brunswick and Maine is still on the decline, and these changing habits are impacting operators differently. According to the latest data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 13,000 fewer people crossed the border in April, compared to March. And year over year, 70,000 fewer people, or 38 per cent, crossed the border. John Slipp, owner of the Atlantic Travel Centre duty-free shop at the Woodstock border crossing, is concerned. He said his shop will last just months if conditions don't change. "Traffic is certainly way down … it's like a ghost town here at the border, there's not much activity," Slipp told CBC Radio's Shift. Traffic in his store has dropped by 32 per cent from January to May, compared to last year. Slipp said the decline comes as the store is still recovering from COVID-19, which forced his store to close for a year and a half. At the end of last year, the store was down 20 per cent from 2019 and this new figure is an additional loss. "We still hadn't climbed all the way out of the COVID hole and now we're experiencing tariff nightmares," he said. Slipp said the situation is not sustainable. He's been in touch with the Canadian Border Services Agency and provincial and federal government programs, trying to find solutions and support for his business. "The struggle we have is, where we are not a manufacturer exporting goods, they struggle to understand how we should qualify," said Slipp. There are 32 duty-free shops at land borders in Canada, he said, and they are all struggling. "I talk to my colleagues quite often and we're all telling the same story." Slipp said Victoria Day weekend is usually when he expects an uptick in traffic that lasts until Thanksgiving weekend, "but not this year." He said fewer Americans are crossing into Canada because of an expected increase in the level of scrutiny at the border. "Americans are not keen to be anywhere near a border during this time, so not only are we not expecting a quick return to Canadian traffic even after the tariffs are removed, we are also not expecting a quick return of American traffic due to these immigration and border anxieties," said Slipp. He said the majority of people he's seeing cross the border are Americans travelling to Canada to visit family and truck drivers, but "almost no Canadians." Slipp said a federal rent deferral program would be helpful to businesses like his, as well as the opportunity for duty-free licensees to temporarily close. He would also like to see the provincial government offer loans to struggling businesses and advice on how they can pivot. Slipp said without some support, he doesn't see duty-free stores like his lasting through the summer. It seems these impacts are being felt in Maine, too. Just this week, Maine Governor Janet Mills unveiled new signs that will be installed across the state to "warmly welcome Canadian visitors." According to a news release from the office of the governor, these signs will also be available to Maine businesses for use during the tourism season. Mills said, while a sign can't stop the "harmful policies" coming from Washington, she hopes they will send a message to Canadians that they are valued and will be treated with respect. Mills and five other governors from New England and New York will meet with Canadian premiers in June to discuss ways to promote regional tourism. Back in New Brunswick, some operators are benefiting from people in the province wanting to stay put. Pat Gauvin and his partner opened Cielo Glamping Maritime on the Acadian Peninsula in 2019. He said the summer season is kicking off earlier this year. "It's looking like it's going to be even busier this summer," he said. Over in Saint Andrews, Windsor House proprietor Jay Remer said he's also seeing more bookings than usual. "I think the bookings this year have been stronger — advance bookings — than last year," he told CBC Radio's Shift. "It reminds me of a couple of years ago when we were dealing with COVID and we were having more bookings from people in Canada."
BBC News
19-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Data shows Jersey economy shrank by about 1.4% last year
Jersey's economy shrank by 1.4% in 2024 after strong growth in 2023, an independent body looking at the island's finances has Fiscal Policy Panel (FPP) found construction, real estate and retail were among the sectors which saw a financial decline, with reasons given being rising costs and people spending less also found that the public sector's expansion had helped overall the report, Treasury and Resources Minister Elaine Millar said: "While there is significant economic volatility across the globe, Jersey continues to be well placed to face these challenges and attract new business and investment." External factors The report said a decrease in bank profits, which comprised 20% of total Gross Value Added (GVA) in 2023, had led to the economy shrinking. The panel estimated that real GVA, which is a measure of economic output, fell by 1.5% in 2024. Its economic outlook report said bank profits were mostly driven by deposit rates and capital flows, factors that were largely external to Jersey, while real decline was not necessarily representative of performance in the rest of Jersey's cited strong earnings growth, particularly in financial services, which were less affected by mandatory said the advice from the FPP, which is an independent advisory body, "reinforces the importance of our work to curb expenditure growth and ensure the competitiveness of our economy"."Ministers will continue to maintain sustainable public finances and support long-term economic growth in the interests of Islanders," she added. A Government of Jersey spokesperson said the FPP's findings would help inform the development of the government's budget for 2026-2029, with ministers reaffirming "their commitment to sustainable public finances and long-term economic resilience".
