Business

BLOOMBERG  US employment costs accelerated by more than forecast at the start of the year, underscoring persistent inflationary pressures that will keep the Federal Reserve on track for another interest-rate hike next week. The employment cost index, a broad gauge of wages and benefits, increased 1.2% in the first quarter, according to Labor Department figures. It was the first quarterly ...

BLOOMBERG Political tensions between the US and China are contributing to lower container shipments between the world’s two largest economies, on top of an already-underway reshaping of global trade, according to a major shipping industry boss. “We are seeing a de-leveraging of trade between the US and China,” Jeremy Nixon, chief executive officer of Ocean Network Express, said at the ...

BLOOMBERG Taiwan’s industrial production plunged in March, weighed down by a manufacturing sector struggling to overcome a slump in global demand. Industrial output shrank 14.5% last month compared to a year ago, the Economics Ministry said in a statement. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast a 12.3% drop. March’s decline was the biggest contraction since May 2009 — in the ...

BLOOMBERG Adani Group bonds rose after a key company started the first debt buyback by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s conglomerate since it was targeted by a short seller in January. Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone Ltd plans to buy back as much as $130 million of its July 2024 bonds and similar amounts in each of the next four ...

BLOOMBERG Nippon Life Insurance Co expects the Bank of Japan (BOJ) will adjust its yield-curve control policy in June and will accelerate the purchase of local bond holdings when it does so, according to its annual allocation plan. The central bank will allow benchmark yields trade in a range of 1% around zero, compared to a current cap of 0.5%, ...

BLOOMBERG  China’s megabanks are planning at least 40 billion yuan ($5.8 billion) of bond sales, kicking off a major funding push to comply with global capital requirements by early 2025. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC) and its three closest rivals are planning to tap domestic debt markets to sell a new category of total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC) bonds ...

BLOOMBERG Moderna Inc said a final-stage study of its first experimental flu shot hasn’t accumulated enough data to determine efficacy, and the company will advance another candidate. Moderna tested its messenger RNA flu shot against a traditional vaccine in a trial of about 23,000 people age 50 and older in the northern hemisphere. An independent panel of scientific advisers recommended ...

BLOOMBERG India will likely see below-normal monsoon rain this year, according to a private forecaster, a prospect that could hurt its vast agriculture sector and stoke inflation in Asia’s third-biggest economy. The coming season may bring only 94% of the rain India usually gets from June to September, Skymet Weather Services Pvt said. A lack of rain spells trouble for ...

BLOOMBERG Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) missed sales estimates for the second consecutive quarter in a sign of continued weakness in global electronics demand. First-quarter revenue at the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of chips was NT$508.6 billion ($16.7 billion), according to Bloomberg calculations, falling shy of average analyst forecasts of NT$525.5 billion. A sharp slowdown in March contributed to that ...

GENEVA / WAM Global trade growth in 2023 is still expected to be subpar despite a slight upgrade to GDP projections since last fall, WTO (World Trade Organization) economists said in a new forecast. Weighed down by the effects of the crisis in Ukraine, stubbornly high inflation, tighter monetary policy and financial market uncertainty, the volume of world merchandise trade ...