WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and Japan have decided to launch a new joint international semiconductor research hub, Japanese Trade Minister Hagiuda Koichi said at press conference in Washington.
The countries agreed during U.S and Japanese economic talks to work on joint research for next-generation semiconductors to establish a secure source of the vital components.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said there was extensive discussion Friday "about how Japan and the United States could collaborate, especially with respect to advanced semiconductors."
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Reese)
One day you're out and the next day you're in: the world's battered sovereign bond markets are back in favour as global recession fears mount. Government borrowing costs from Germany to France and Australia are down sharply this month, with 10-year bond yields down around 50 basis points each in July and set for their biggest monthly falls in at least a decade. U.S. 10-year Treasury yields have slid some 80 basis points from 11-year highs hit in June as decades-high inflation fuelled expectations for aggressive Federal Reserve interest rate hikes.
Canadian pension plans delivered negative returns in public market asset classes across the board this past quarter, according to the RBC I&TS All Plan Universe. Global economic health concerns, stock market selloffs and rising bond yields weighed heavily on defined benefit (DB) pension plan assets, which decreased by 8.6% for the second quarter of 2022, bringing year-to-date total returns to -14.7%.
Wall Street bosses are in a bind about whether to cut investment bankers or keep them on staff in hopes of a recovery from a brutal first half. With risks of a recession looming and the Federal Reserve raising rates aggressively to stem inflation, prospects for arranging and financing deals have dried up. "There are a lot of people who think that we will get through this brutal uncertainty and that's why, for example, there's still much more hiring going on than we might have expected," said Julian Bell, managing director and head of Americas at Sheffield Haworth, a recruitment firm for top executives.
(Reuters) -Ray-Ban parent EssilorLuxottica saw sales growth slow in North America in its latest quarter, raising concerns about its exposure to recession in the United States and offsetting an improvement in its operating margin. The Franco-Italian company whose brands also include Oakley and Varilux said its adjusted operating margin rose by 100 basis points to 18.4% in the six months to June 30, driven by its upscale brands. "The main driver of that margin expansion for the first half was very much our price mix," finance chief Stefano Grassi said on a call with analysts, pointing to new product launches and the strength of its luxury and branded lens portfolios.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed sweeping legislation on Thursday to subsidize the domestic semiconductor industry as it competes with Chinese and other foreign manufacturers, a victory for President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats hoping to keep their slim majority in Congress in November midterm elections. Passage sends the bill to the White House, where Biden is expected to sign it into law as soon as early next week. The Senate passed the "Chips and Science" act with bipartisan support on Wednesday, after more than a year of effort.
A secondary listing in Milan is a possibility, but not a priority for Hong Kong-listed Italian luxury group Prada, its chairman said on Thursday, adding no decision had been taken on the issue. A dual listing in Europe would help Prada to widen its investor base, as some investment funds can only put money in European or U.S. stocks. Another analyst, who asked not to be named, said that when Prada had picked Hong Kong for its $2.1 billion IPO in 2011, the Asian stock exchange was seeking to lure overseas companies with attractive valuations.
When you are into stocks that are trading at a bargain price, try to differentiate between market/industry-driven and business-specific discounts. The post TFSA Investors: 2 Discounted Growth Stocks to Buy Before 2023 appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.
Shopify (TSX:SHOP)(NYSE:SHOP) stock remains down by 76%, yet this other value stock is up by 15% year to date. The post Forget Shopify Stock: Buy This Value Stock After Strong Earnings appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.
Some of Britain's top listed companies could be downplaying risks from climate change on their bottom line and could face "appropriate action", regulators said on Friday. Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange's premium market have been required since 2021 to make climate-related disclosures to investors in line with the global Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) - or to explain why they have not. Britain's Financial Conduct Authority, which regulates listings, and audit watchdog the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) published reviews https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/multi-firm-reviews/tcfd-aligned-disclosures-premium-listed-commercial-companies on Friday of how companies have applied TCFD so far.
Housing prices in Canada are dropping but tougher mortgage stress tests could significantly reduce homebuyer purchasing power. The post Homebuyers: Your Maximum Possible Purchase Price to Drop by 47K appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden's campaign trail promise to increase taxes on corporations and the wealthy as part of a battle against glaring income inequality in the United States got an unexpected boost on Wednesday. Early proposals to increase tax rates from Biden and his fellow Democrats hit a brick wall in Congress after Republicans -- and some Democrats -- opposed them. Biden has often said in office that companies should instead pay a "fair share," a contrast to deference to private markets begun by Republicans with former President Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, and buoyed by rounds of tax cuts and deregulation, by both parties.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican distiller Becle, better known as the parent company of the popular Jose Cuervo tequila brand, posted a 58.6% jump in second-quarter net profit on increased demand for the spirit across all regions except the United States and Canada, the company said on Thursday. Becle's net profit rose to 1.40 billion Mexican pesos ($69.5 million). Revenue for the company, whose portfolio also includes alcoholic beverage brands such as Maestro Dobel, Hangar 1 and Kraken, climbed 18.9% from a year earlier to 11.33 billion pesos as prices increased throughout the distiller's portfolio.
U.S. stocks on Thursday rallied for a second day, with all three major indexes ending up more than 1% as data showing a second consecutive quarterly contraction in the economy fueled investor speculation the Federal Reserve may not need to be as aggressive with interest rate hikes as some had feared. The yield on benchmark 10-year Treasury notes retreated following the data, while utilities and real estate - both of which tend to rise when yields fall - were the day's best-performing S&P 500 sectors. The decline in yields may suggest "that markets think the Fed will have to pivot and move rates lower at some point, maybe in the next 12-month period," said Mona Mahajan, senior investment strategist at Edward Jones.
Cineplex stock has rapidly recovered from the pandemic in 2022, but can it swing to a profit? And is it a top stock to buy now? The post Can Cineplex Stock Earn a Profit by the End of the Year? appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.
OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada on Thursday welcomed a deal reached by Democratic U.S. senators to back a bill that includes an expansion of tax credits for electric vehicles produced in North America that does not discriminate against those manufactured in Canada. A previous version of the bill presented by Democratic President Joe Biden's administration included tax credits that would have favored American-based manufacturers, sparking furious Canadian lobbying in Washington to get it changed. The bill had been blocked until late Wednesday, when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and fellow Democratic Senator Joe Manchin reached agreement on a revamped version that instead foresees tax credits for "North American" electric vehicles, or EVs.
(Reuters) -Hershey Co said on Thursday it would fall short of meeting demand for the all-important Halloween and Christmas holiday seasons this year, blaming a scarcity of raw ingredients and difficulties in securing suppliers. Pandemic-induced global supply chain disruptions and the Russia-Ukraine war have crunched supplies of cocoa, edible oil and other food ingredients, pinching production lines of packaged food companies around the world. Hershey Chief Executive Officer Michele Buck said those issues, along with the company's focus on meeting demand during non-holiday periods, would lead to a likely shortage during Halloween, but added that sales will still top last year.
Argentina's international bonds rose on Friday but remain near historic lows after President Alberto Fernandez's launched a "superministry" designed to coordinate economic policy, though analysts warned of uncertainties. Fernandez appointed veteran politician Sergio Massa, who heads the lower house of Congress for the ruling Peronist coalition, to the new role overseeing economic, manufacturing and agricultural policy. A new economic roadmap will be key to Massa's success as the country's third Economy Minister in a month, analysts said.
Through war, siege and social strife, rich and poor countries across the world have had a long and often painful history of rationing anything from food to fuel and water, sometimes with unintended consequences. 1793-94 - The food crisis in the chaotic aftermath of the 1789 French Revolution led Maximilien Robespierre's government to seek to control grain from the fields right up to the mouths of consumers under a rationing system backed by the guillotine. Its harshness finally led to Robespierre's fall from power and his execution, also by the guillotine.
Postmedia chairman Paul Godfrey is stepping down from his role at the end of the year, the company announced Thursday. Current board member Jamie Irving will step into the job at the start of 2023. Irving has sat on the company's board since April, when Postmedia acquired Brunswick News Inc., the media arm of the Irving family empire, for $16.1 million in cash and shares. Godfrey will serve as a special adviser to the board and CEO following the end of his term as chair. He was the founding CEO
LENORAH, Texas (AP) — To the naked eye, the Mako Compressor Station outside the dusty West Texas crossroads of Lenorah appears unremarkable, similar to tens of thousands of oil and gas operations scattered throughout the oil-rich Permian Basin. What’s not visible through the chain-link fence is the plume of invisible gas, primarily methane, billowing from the gleaming white storage tanks up into the cloudless blue sky. The Mako station, owned by a subsidiary of West Texas Gas Inc., was observed