Economics

In a move that will send shockwaves through markets, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has sold half its holding in Apple as part of a multi-billion-dollar sell-down from stock markets. This dramatically negative message to investors comes just as Wall Street has tanked.

Commodities ranging from copper to corn have been plummeting as ample supplies and waning Chinese demand have prompted fund managers to slash around $41 billion in bullish bets on natural resources.

Australian interest rates, US services activity surveys, a nervous global stock market, more company earnings reports, and crucial data from struggling China will all be in focus this week.

The crackdown on foreign investment into China by the Communist Party, led by President Xi Jinping, continues to “pay off” with yet another unwanted record set over the first half of 2024.

BYD's push away from battery-powered electric vehicles (or BEVs) continued in July as it sold more plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs).

Amid the flood of tech company earnings reports on Thursday, one stood out, not for a surge in earnings or revenue, but for what its radical restructuring suggests about the future of the sector.

The weak yen has allowed Toyota to fight off the financial impact of a slide in car sales and a certification scandal, lifting June quarter earnings 1.7% to a new all-time high for the three-month period.

Well, Apple stood out, Amazon didn’t, and Snap was weak (again).

The Bank of England (BoE) has joined the group of central banks cutting rates, a day after the US Federal Reserve moved to increase its rate.

More evidence that activity across the Chinese economy slowed in July.

Uber and Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD have announced a multi-year strategic partnership to add up to 100,000 new BYD EVs to Uber's global fleet. The deal is a clear shot across the bow of Elon Musk’s Tesla.

In the past couple of weeks, the outlook for the Australian lithium industry had been looking a little more confident.

A golden end to July was triggered by Israel's assassination of a Hamas leader in Tehran, which sent prices surging close to the unheard-of US$2,500 an ounce level.

From gloom, to boom all in the space of a few minutes from 11.30 am Wednesday as the details of the June quarter Consumer price Index and its monthly indicator for June made fools of gloomy business economists and media ‘experts’ by coming in a touch better than forecast.

Japan has finally ended a decade or more of a monetary policy experiment that eventually broke the country’s long bout of debilitating deflation and returned price pressures across the economy.

The Chinese economy is not in a healthy position, judging by another set of gloomy official activity surveys across the economy for July.

A very different tone to the June sales report from Toyota compared with the upbeat March when the company revealed record global sales for the year to March 31 (the end of the company’s financial year).

Man cannot live by beer alone, and the Grog Group certainly can’t survive off the back of big rises in sales of its legendary Guinness products – even if the big gainer was no-alcohol Guinness (which seems a contradiction in terms).

It was a rough day for iron ore companies on Wednesday. After the unsettling sale of $1.9 billion worth of Fortescue (ASX:FMG) shares, global prices dipped below the US$100 a tonne mark for the second time in a week.

The stock market reaction (after hours, it must be said) to Microsoft’s quarterly results, with higher revenue and earnings, should make you wonder if you’ve wandered into the stock market version of Alice Through the Looking Glass.

China held a two-day gold conference last week that skated over the big issue in the room—whether the country’s central bank has returned to buying the precious metal after two months on the sidelines due to high prices.

As expected, building approvals continued their volatility as a statistical series, with a drop of 6.5% in June, after May’s surprise 5.7% gain.

The hubris of McDonald's management, in believing it was somehow immune to consumers feeling the pinch of higher prices, has been shattered after the company reported its first decline in global sales since 2020.

Australian Foundation Investment Co (AFIC), the country's largest listed investment company, has reported solid financial results for the 2023-24 financial year, while also revealing ambitious plans for international expansion.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has delivered a decisive blow to the banking sector, rejecting calls for a relaxation of prudential restrictions on home loans. Led by ANZ, major banks and their financial media cheerleaders had mounted a concerted campaign to loosen the regulatory grip on mortgage lending.

On the face of it, Brazilian iron ore miner Vale saw its second-quarter net profit soar to US$2.77 billion in the three months to June as it boosted production and sales and took advantage of firmer iron ore and copper prices.

It has been a favorable month for America’s smallest stocks as investors seek likely beneficiaries of potential interest rate cuts and reconsider investments in the largest U.S. corporations.

Four of the so-called Magnificent Seven technology stocks that have driven the US market rally for the past nine months ended the week in correction territory, having fallen by more than 10 percent from recent peaks.