Reuters (October 22)
“Sanae Takaichi wants to spend a lot of money on Japan, but she also needs to sort out some hefty financial obligations to the United States.” She is coming under immediate “pressure to secure backing for $550 billion her predecessor Shigeru Ishiba pledged to invest in U.S. projects as part of his tariff deal with the White House.” Given the new Prime Minister’s “desire to use fiscal spending to boost growth, she’s likely to lean on” private, rather than public, funding “to avoid immediate budgetary constraints.”
Tags: $550 billion, Financial obligations, Fiscal spending, Funding, Growth, Invest, Ishiba, Japan, Money, Pressure, Prime minister, Private, Public, Takaichi, Tariff deal, U.S.
New York Times (July 23)
“G.M. was the second automaker this week to show the toll that the Trump administration’s trade policies are taking on the industry. Stellantis, the maker of Chrysler, Jeep and Ram vehicles, said on Monday that it lost 2.3 billion euros ($2.7 billion) in the first half of the year partly because of tariffs and other Republican policies.” Automakers employ roughly “one million manufacturing workers. Eroding profits will make it harder for them to invest in new technologies to withstand growing competition from Chinese automakers that have been expanding abroad.”
Tags: $2.7 billion, Automakers, China, Chrysler, Competition, G.M., Industry, Invest, Jeep, Manufacturing, Profits, Stellantis, Tariffs, Technologies, Trade policies, Trump, Withstand, Workers
Market Watch (May 17)
“President Donald Trump’s move to defuse an ugly trade war with China not only sparked a massive stock-market rally but also drove down the chances of a recession — for now.” Though it’s a welcome sign of relief, numerous obstacles remain. Nobody can rest assured. “Ongoing trade wars have not gone away, for one thing. Trump could change his mind or the U.S. could fail to strike more economic-friendly deals with China, after that 90-day pause, and other countries.” Moreover, the uncertainty has “made households and business hesitant to spend, hire and invest. Confidence has plunged in the past few months, and anxiety is unlikely to fade quickly.” U.S. growth remains likely “to taper off sharply this year.”
Tags: 90-day pause, China, Confidence, Deals, Defuse, Hire, Households, Invest, Obstacles, Recession, Relief, Spend, Stock-market rally, Trade war, Trump, U.S., Ugly, Uncertainty
New York Times (January 20)
“The money flowing out of funds that invest in companies with environmental, social and governance principles has gone from a trickle to a torrent as investors sour on a sector hit by green-washing concerns, red-state boycotts and boardroom debates.” The phrase ESG “has become increasingly politicized” and has even “been scrubbed from the World Economic Forum’s official program in Davos, Switzerland, after being on the agenda in previous years.”
Tags: Boardroom debates, Boycotts, Davos, ESG, Funds, Green-washing, Invest, Investors, Money, Outflows, Politicized, Red state, Scrubbed, Sour, Torrent
Institutional Investor (October 20)
“Out of 770 institutional investors around the globe that are collectively responsible for $34.7 trillion in assets, 52 percent said in June that as de-globalization accelerates they will try to invest in companies with more localized supply chains, according to an annual study by Schroders.” While “trade and technology continue to cross borders and, generally speaking, the world is still shrinking,” geopolitical tension and war have turned “de-globalization into a megatrend creating winners and losers in business.”
Tags: De-globalization, Geopolitical, Institutional investors, Invest, Localized supply chains, Losers, Megatrend, Responsible, Schroders, Technology, Trade, War, Winners
Reuters (July 19)
“The TOPIX is up 20% this year and trading near a multi-decade high. Some of the drivers are profound. The Tokyo Stock Exchange is asking companies whose shares trade below book value to disclose plans to enhance their market worth, spurring hopes of share buybacks. And the welcome return of inflation could prompt Japanese companies to invest more and pay higher wages, which would in turn prop up consumer spending.”
Tags: Book value, Buybacks, Drivers, Enhance, High, Inflation, Invest, Japanese companies, Market worth, Shares, Topix, TSE, Wages
Financial Times (June 29)
Hong Kong elite are visiting Japan on posh tours to invest in Tokyo. Property brokers say the tours demonstrate “the appeal of the weak yen” and “the way in which the Tokyo market seemed immune from the recessionary worries swirling around other capitals.”
Tags: Appeal, Brokers, Elite, Hong Kong, Immune, Invest, Japan, Market, Posh, Property, Recessionary, Tokyo, Tours, Weak yen, Worries
Reuters (May 12)
“South Korea was the first country to launch a fifth-generation mobile network in 2019, heralding a warp-speed technological transformation to self-driving cars and smart cities. Three years on, the giddy promises are unfulfilled.” It has achieved one of the highest rates of adoption, around 45% with speed about five times faster. Until demand catches up, however, telecoms will remain unwilling “to invest in the fancier technology that would ramp speeds by 20 times over 4G technology…. To make the quantum leap to the highest-speed 5G will require the roll-out of essential services that need such fast connections.”
Tags: 5G, Adoption, Demand, Invest, Mobile network, Promises, Roll-out, Self-driving cars, Smart cities, South Korea, Speed, Technology Quantum leap, Telecoms, Transformation, Unfulfilled, Warp-speed
Washington Post (January 8)
“Money for war, but not for the poor.” Arguments over Mideast intervention overshadow “our failure to invest in or prioritize the safety and health of 327 million people living in the United States.” This “is also a threat to our safety and well-being.” In the U.S., 15% of children live in poverty, an opioid epidemic rages, suicide presents a massive threat, and life spans are actually declining.
Tags: Arguments, Children, Epidemic, Failure, Health, Intervention, Invest, Life spans, Mideast, Money, Opioid, Poor, Poverty, Safety, Suicide, Threat, U.S., War
Washington Post (December 1)
“Experts have known for years what the United States must do: place a strong and steadily rising price on carbon dioxide emissions, invest heavily in clean-energy research and development, and make climate a top priority in international diplomacy. President Trump is instead denying the problem.”
Tags: Clean energy, Climate, CO2, Denying, Diplomacy, Emissions, Experts, Invest, Price, Priority, Trump, U.S.
