The World Cup may be a “yellow card” for earnings at US technology companies as hundreds of millions of fans worldwide glue themselves to the soccer tournament in South Africa, Goldman Sachs Group Inc said.
In the quarter coinciding with three of the last five World Cups, technology companies on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index had their biggest earnings-per-share misses of the year, Sarah Friar, a San Francisco-based Goldman Sachs analyst, wrote in a report this week.
By contrast, the April-to-June period was the worst quarter in only three of the past 15 non-tournament years since 1990, she wrote.
“World Cup-year second quarters appear more susceptible to missing consensus estimates,” she wrote. “With macro and currency concerns already weighing on technology stocks, some view the World Cup as another possible near-term negative.”
The planet’s most popular sporting event kicked off last week and is expected to draw half a billion TV viewers globally by the time it ends on July 11, according to FIFA, soccer’s governing body. Even in the US, where the sport’s popularity lags behind American football and basketball, about 14.5 million people tuned in a match this week between the home team and England, according to estimates from ratings-company Nielsen Co.
The information technology sub-index of the S&P 500 has risen 3.7 percent since Friday, when the tournament started, while the broader index gained 2.6 percent.
“Some impact is a possibility, though the likelihood is not overwhelming,” Friar wrote.
People can preregister to receive their NT$10,000 (US$325) cash distributed from the central government on Nov. 5 after President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday signed the Special Budget for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience, the Executive Yuan told a news conference last night. The special budget, passed by the Legislative Yuan on Friday last week with a cash handout budget of NT$236 billion, was officially submitted to the Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office yesterday afternoon. People can register through the official Web site at https://10000.gov.tw to have the funds deposited into their bank accounts, withdraw the funds at automated teller
PEACE AND STABILITY: Maintaining the cross-strait ‘status quo’ has long been the government’s position, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan is committed to maintaining the cross-strait “status quo” and seeks no escalation of tensions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday, rebutting a Time magazine opinion piece that described President William Lai (賴清德) as a “reckless leader.” The article, titled “The US Must Beware of Taiwan’s Reckless Leader,” was written by Lyle Goldstein, director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based Defense Priorities think tank. Goldstein wrote that Taiwan is “the world’s most dangerous flashpoint” amid ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said that the situation in the Taiwan Strait has become less stable
REASSURANCE: The US said Taiwan’s interests would not be harmed during the talk and that it remains steadfast in its support for the nation, the foreign minister said US President Donald Trump on Friday said he would bring up Taiwan with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) during a meeting on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in South Korea this week. “I will be talking about Taiwan [with Xi],” Trump told reporters before he departed for his trip to Asia, adding that he had “a lot of respect for Taiwan.” “We have a lot to talk about with President Xi, and he has a lot to talk about with us. I think we’ll have a good meeting,” Trump said. Taiwan has long been a contentious issue between the US and China.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi yesterday lavished US President Donald Trump with praise and vows of a “golden age” of ties on his visit to Tokyo, before inking a deal with Washington aimed at securing critical minerals. Takaichi — Japan’s first female prime minister — pulled out all the stops for Trump in her opening test on the international stage and even announced that she would nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize, the White House said. Trump has become increasingly focused on the Nobel since his return to power in January and claims to have ended several conflicts around the world,
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