15/05/2025

BIZ & FINANCE THURSDAY | MAY 15, 2025 18 US reports tame inflation, equity markets swing NEW YORK: Stocks fluctuated yesterday, with investors struggling to track a strong day on Wall Street as euphoria over the China-US trade detente petered out. But while the days of breathtaking volatility seen through April appear to be over for now, analysts warned that more work was needed for Washington to reach tariff deals with countries and instill a sense of stability. Data showing US inflation unexpectedly slowed last month provided some cheer, though observers pointed out that the real impact of Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tolls will not likely be felt until May’s readings. The US president played up a deal with Beijing. “We have the confines of a very, very strong deal with China. But the most exciting part of the deal ... that’s the opening up of China to US business,” he told Fox News on Tuesday. His remarks were made aboard Air Force One as he headed off on his Gulf tour, with Saudi Arabia on Tuesday pledging US$600 billion worth of US investments in a range of sectors from defence to artificial intelligence. The agreements – including a huge chip deal for Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices – would boost US jobs, and the stock market is “gonna go a lot higher”, Trump said, citing an “explosion of investment and jobs”. The tech-rich Nasdaq rallied with the S&P 500, which broke back into positive territory for the year, helped slightly by the inflation data. Asia was mixed, though there were some standout performances. Hong Kong jumped more than 2% and Shanghai also rallied thanks to healthy buying of Chinese tech firms ahead of earnings releases from market heavyweights Alibaba and Tencent. Investors are hoping the reports will provide an idea about how the sector’s two biggest firms are coping with the trade upheaval and uncertainty in the world’s number two economy. Tencent jumped 3%, while Alibaba and rival ecommerce giant JD.com put on even more. There were also gains in Sydney, Seoul, Taipei, Mumbai and Jakarta but Singapore, Wellington, Manila and Bangkok fell. Tokyo ended down even as electronics titan Sony surged 3.7% as it announced a record annual profit. However, it did warn profits could fall in this financial year and said it was hoping to manage the impact of Trump’s tariffs. – AFP Microsoft cites ‘new technologies’ in decision to cut staff SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft on Tuesday said it was slashing unnecessary layers of management and seizing the benefits of new technology as reports said the tech behemoth was laying off thousands of workers. The AI-focused tech giant did not disclose the total amount of lost jobs but US media reports said it will amount to about 6,000 people or about 3% of its global workforce, including 1,985 workers in its home state of Washington. “We continue to implement organisational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,”a Microsoft spokesman said in an e-mailed statement. The company, which is advancing in its plans of deploying AI across all its products, also said it was in a process to “empower employees to spend more time focusing on meaningful work by leveraging new technologies and capabilities”. Microsoft two weeks ago posted robust quarterly results for the January to March period, powered by a strong performance in its cloud computing and artificial intelligence businesses. The company was one of the first tech giants to double down on artificial intelligence when the launch of ChatGPT in 2022 rocked the tech industry. – AFP

Australia sues Macquarie over reporting of short sales

the published volume by more than 50%, ASIC said. Market participants rely on short sale data to assess sentiment and risks associated with a stock, and ASIC’s lawsuit was “timely given significant recent global market volatility”, said Longo. In the court filings, ASIC said Macquarie picked up inaccuracies in its automated short sale reports to the exchange operators in 2022 then discovered the software was producing several types of inaccuracies dating back to 2009. The inaccuracies continued until 2024, the filing said. Macquarie said it had fixed the software problems since reporting them to ASIC and that it was reviewing the regulator’s claim. The bank “takes its compliance obligations very seriously and continues to invest in programmes to further improve systems and controls across the group”, it added. The lawsuit continues a broader probe by regulators of Australia’s banks since a 2019 royal commission accused industry watchdogs of being too cooperative with the sector. ASIC actions against Macquarie in the past year have so far brought a total A$15 million in fines. – Reuters

Macquarie Securities Australia, the brokerage arm of the bank, both omitted and overstated information about its short-sale trades since 2009 by failing to fix software problems, ASIC said. After the financial crisis, Australia made it compulsory for fund managers to report short-selling trades – where an investor makes a profit when a stock price falls – to improve transparency. “Macquarie’s failures may have led to the financial services industry relying on misleading and false information for over 14 years,” ASIC chairman Joe Longo said. Macquarie’s “repeated systemic failure to detect and resolve these issues indicated serious neglect of its systems and disregard for operational controls and technological governance”, he added. The trades at the centre of the lawsuit were placed by Macquarie Securities on behalf of both clients and Macquarie itself, according to court filings published by the regulator. The misreporting related to at least 321 unique securities. Macquarie’s reports inflated or cut the overall published volume of short sales by an average 12%, and in several instances affected

SYDNEY: Australia’s corporate regulator sued top investment bank Macquarie Group alleging it misreported up to 1.5 billion short sales over a decade and a half, misleading the market and violating rules in place since the financial crisis. The lawsuit is a major escalation of conflict between Macquarie, Australia’s 10th-biggest listed company, and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), which has already hit the company with three enforcement actions in the past year. The regulator said in its lawsuit that it was seeking fines although it did not specify how much. The maximum possible penalty would be A$782.5 million (RM2.1 billion), according to corporations law that calculates fines as a percentage of company turnover multiplied by the number of breaches. o ASIC accuses bank of misleading market, violating rules in place since 2009

Colombia joins Belt and Road initiative as China courts Latin America BEIJING: Colombia formally agreed yesterday to join China’s vast Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, as Beijing draws Latin America closer in a bid to counter the United States. regional leaders in Beijing yesterday, Colombia became the latest country to join the vast, global initiative. of our foreign relations is changing”. “From now on, Colombia will interact with the entire world on a footing of equality and freedom,” he wrote. Colombia’s Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia (left) and Chinese counterpart Wang Yi (right) at a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. – AFPPIC

Colombia’s Foreign Ministry hailed the agreement as a “historic step that opens up new opportunities for investment, technological cooperation and sustainable development for both countries”. And after a meeting with Colombian President Gustavo Petro, Xi urged the countries to “take the opportunity of Colombia’s formal joining the high-quality Belt and Road Initiative family to promote the quality upgrading of cooperation”, Beijing’s state media said. Posting a video of the signing to social media platform X, Petro wrote that “the history

The BRI is a central pillar of Xi’s bid to expand China’s economic and political clout overseas. For more than a decade, it has provided investment for infrastructure and other large-scale projects around the world. Last year, Xi inaugurated Latin America’s first Beijing-funded port in Chancay, Peru. This week’s China-CELAC Forum in Beijing has seen China cast itself as the defender of the multilateral order and the backer of the Global South, with Xi pledging on Monday US$9.2 billion in credit towards development. – AFP

Latin America has emerged as a key battleground in US President Donald Trump’s confrontations with China, and the region is coming under pressure from Washington to choose a side. China has surpassed the United States as the biggest trading partner of Brazil, Peru, Chile and other Latin American nations, and two-thirds of countries there have signed up to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road infrastructure drive. On the sidelines of a major gathering of