Weekly Wrap

Now here’s something requiring a bit of counterintuitive thinking: Did US retail sales really fall as much as reported by the government, or were there factors that added to a bit of weakness after solid rises in the closing months of 2023?

In the final quarter of 2023, Britain joined Japan and Germany in recession, marking a downturn for three of the world’s top eight economies.

The $9.1 billion bid for Altium from Japanese giant Renesas Electronics sent the ASX’s tiny tech sector sharply higher on Thursday.

The recent uptick in Australia's unemployment rate to above 4% in January, the first such increase in nearly two years, might seem like cause for concern. However, similar to the previous year, figures can be misleading.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has trimmed its renowned investment portfolio to its lowest level in nearly a decade, with only 41 companies remaining after divesting four holdings entirely in the last three months of December.

In a strategic move reflecting its formidable financial position, Barrick Gold, the world's second-largest gold miner, has announced a buyback program worth $US1 billion.

Biotech companies in the United States are witnessing a surge in fundraising activities, marking the fastest pace since the peak of the mid-pandemic market boom.

As central bankers navigate the confusion of an easing rate path, investors may still look to gold as protection against sticky inflation.

After 15 years of exceptional global growth it is believed the global economy is heading into a more difficult decade of economic trade.

Maybe it will be a goer down the track, but green steel is about to start a long journey to eventually replace the carbon (coal)-based production methods that account for most of the near 1.9 billion tonnes a year of steel produced globally.

2024 outlook could be bullish for an Australian Dollar resurgence as the Fed cuts rates and commodities lift.

Google has announced a significant rebranding of its AI chatbot and assistant, formerly known as Bard, unveiling it as Gemini. The rebrand comes alongside the launch of a new app and subscription options for users. Gemini, a key competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, shares its name with the suite of AI models powering the chatbot.

One way to slow or halt stock market uncertainty is to call a holiday. Usually, that ends up being bad news because when trading resumes, the slide continues and even deepens. Regardless of what happens, for China’s shattered stock markets, the week-long break for the Lunar New Year couldn’t come too soon on Thursday.

January wasn’t the happiest of months for Tesla or Elon Musk.

The December quarter retail sales data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, released on Tuesday, sheds light on why investors warmly received the results and updates from Myer and Nick Scali, the Sydney-based furniture chain.

Toyota Motor Co has joined its fossil fuel peers – Shell, Exxon Mobil, and Chevron – in demonstrating the lucrative opportunities still available in the oil industry.

The Reserve Bank left its cash rate unchanged at 4.35% after its first meeting of the year on Tuesday. Nevertheless, it hinted at the possibility of rate hikes to control inflation, although it also suggested that further rate increases might not be necessary, depending on inflation and economic indicators.

In 2023, gold had a remarkable year with its price soaring above $2,000 per ounce and remaining at that level throughout the closing weeks of the year and into the first months of 2024.

China secured its position as the world's largest automobile exporter in 2023, surpassing Japan for the first time, driven by robust overseas sales of electric vehicles.

Welcome to the newish black hole in China. Usually, it's occupied by someone arrested for corruption or some other breach of security laws, which are all pervasive. This one, however, is called China Evergrande, and it's going to last a long, long time if the forecasts of analysts at the ratings group, S&P Global, are any guide.

The US Federal Reserve has opted to leave interest rates at a 23-year high, disregarding market expectations for a potential pathway to rate cuts.

In 2023, Toyota Group achieved a historic sales record, boosted by its subsidiaries Hino Motors and Daihatsu Motor, as well as a surge in sales from its luxury Lexus business, reaching a total of 11.2 million vehicles sold. This marked a significant increase from the 10.7 million vehicles sold in 2022.

Now, this will puzzle the Reserve Bank and all those 'rate rise looms' urgents still breathing in the markets and among the commentariat – as expected, retail sales in December fell after the Black Friday sales event boost in November. However, November was, in turn, weaker than first reported a month ago by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).