TOKYO (Reuters) – Business sentiment in Japan is picking up in July on easing supply constraints and the removal of COVID-19 curbs, the first such uptick this year, a report by the cabinet said on Wednesday. The monthly report also said the government still believed the economy was “recovering moderately”, as consumer spending, capital expenditure…
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Alibaba’s cloud computing division said it has become the first Chinese enterprise to support Meta’s open-source artificial intelligence (AI) model Llama, allowing its Chinese business users to develop programs off the model. Meta released Llama2, a commercial version of Llama, this month to provide businesses a powerful free-of-charge alternative to pricey…
By Saqib Iqbal Ahmed NEW YORK (Reuters) – Some investors are zeroing in on the battered currencies of commodity-producing countries such as Norway and Australia to take advantage of more potential weakness in the dollar, which has recently wobbled on signs the Federal Reserve will soon end its rate-hiking cycle. Many commodity currencies suffered this…
By Harry Robertson, Alun John and Ankur Banerjee LONDON/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – A slide in the dollar and signs that volatility is returning to foreign exchange markets as interest-rate hikes bite is causing investors to reassess wildly popular carry trades and to be pickier about which currencies they back. The carry trade – an investment strategy…
By Christoph Steitz and Vincent Flasseur FRANKFURT/LONDON (Reuters) – German industry is finding new ways to transport cargoes from coal to chemicals as increasingly frequent low water levels on the Rhine disrupt Europe’s largest economy. The 1,230 km (764.29 miles) river, a world famous tourist destination and a part of the national psyche, is the…
By Lucy Craymer WELLINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned of China’s “problematic behaviour” during a visit to the Pacific island nation of Tonga on Wednesday, citing Beijing’s militarisation of the South China Sea and what he called economic coercion. China’s growing presence in the region, which saw it sign a security pact…
(Reuters) -Jack Ma-backed Ant Group is planning a restructuring that will break off some non-core operations of its China financial-related business, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The Alibaba Group affiliate is looking at excluding its blockchain, database management services and international businesses from a main entity that will be…
By Joyce Lee and Heekyong Yang SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea’s SK Hynix said on Wednesday the memory chip market was beginning to recover from a deep downturn amid robust artificial intelligence demand that helped it narrow its second-quarter operating loss from the prior quarter’s record. In particular, memory chip demand from corporate buyers stocking AI…
By Leika Kihara and Andrea Shalal TOKYO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Bank of Japan should start preparing for future monetary tightening by moving away from its yield control policy, the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said on Tuesday. The remarks came ahead of the BOJ’s closely-watched meeting on Friday, where the board will release fresh…
(Reuters) – Myanmar’s military government may move ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi from prison to house arrest in the capital, Naypyitaw, two media outlets reported on Wednesday. The 78-year-old Nobel laureate has been in detention since her arrest in early 2021 when the military overthrew her elected government in a coup and unleashed a…
