By Tetsushi Kajimoto and Leika Kihara TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese consumers may finally be shedding their decades-old frugal mindset, spending more on items that retailers were once too afraid to raise prices on and paving the way for the central bank to finally unwind its massive monetary stimulus. The world’s third-largest economy is seeing early…
By Nick Carey LONDON (Reuters) – China’s looming gallium export controls leave automakers with a dilemma over whether they can continue to rely on a metal which had been seen as a game changer for electric vehicles. Gallium is currently used in a wide variety of applications, from LEDs to smaller mobile phone adaptors. Little…
A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Tom Westbrook A day of calm after last week’s clear-out in the bond market and investors are back to trading near-term rate expectations. Traders in Asia nudged both yields and the dollar a whisker lower on Tuesday, with an eye on Wednesday’s U.S….
By Clare Jim HONG KONG (Reuters) -Shares of Chinese property developers rose on Tuesday after regulators extended some policies in a rescue package introduced in November to shore up liquidity in the embattled sector. Analysts said while the extended policy could ease the short-term financial pressure on property developers and ensure their home project completions,…
(Reuters) -Meta Platforms’ social media apps Instagram and Facebook, messaging app WhatsApp and Twitter-rival Threads were all back up after a brief outage affecting thousands of users on Monday, according to Downdetector.com. At the peak of the outage, lasting over an hour, over 14,000 users reported issues with accessing Instagram, while around 7,000 and 2,700…
By Suban Abdulla LONDON (Reuters) – Unusually hot weather boosted sales of sun screen and barbecue food in Britain last month, a British Retail Consortium survey showed on Tuesday, but consumers spent less on big-ticket items as high food prices continued to squeeze their budgets. The BRC said retail spending increased by 4.9% in annual…
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she believes the United States and China want to stabilize their economic ties with “candor” and “respect.” Yellen told American Public Media’s Marketplace in an interview taped shortly before her departure from Beijing on Sunday that she believed her trip, during which both sides discussed “significant…
By Anant Chandak BENGALURU (Reuters) – The Bank of Korea (BOK) will keep its key policy rate unchanged at 3.50% on Thursday and for the rest of the year as inflation continued to ease, a Reuters poll of economists predicted, but rate cut forecasts were pushed back by a quarter to early 2024. While inflation…
By Ben Blanchard, Munsif Vengattil and Aditya Kalra TAIPEI/BENGALURU (Reuters) -Taiwan’s Foxconn has withdrawn from a $19.5 billion semiconductor joint venture with Indian metals-to-oil conglomerate Vedanta, it said on Monday, in a setback to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s chipmaking plans for India. The world’s largest contract electronics maker signed a pact with Vedanta last year…
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Pop superstar Madonna said on Monday that all of the North American dates on her upcoming tour will be postponed while she recovers from a multi-day hospitalization for a serious infection. The “Celebration” tour had been scheduled to kick off this month in Vancouver. Now, the plan is to start the…
