TRADE
Indonesia posts surplus
Indonesia recorded a trade surplus for the seventh consecutive month last month, official data showed yesterday, due to a steep fall in imports. The statistics agency said Indonesia posted a narrower surplus of US$477 million compared with a revised US$1.08 billion recorded in May. Exports last month slid 12.7 percent on-year to US$13.44 billion, while imports plunged 17.42 percent, down US$12.96 billion from a year before.
PROPERTY
Singapore home sales dip
Singapore home sales dropped 42 percent last month to the lowest this year, as fewer projects were offered. Developers sold 375 units last month compared with a revised 643 units in May, according to data released yesterday by the Urban Redevelopment Authority. Among companies that put up projects for sale, Watervine Homes Pte sold six of 145 units marketed in a northeastern suburb, while Sims Urban Oasis Pte sold 11 units of the 50 it offered in the east, data showed.
RETAIL
US sales edge down 0.3%
US retail sales slid 0.3 percent last month, as consumers pulled back spending in a broad array of areas, including auto purchases, the US Department of Commerce reported on Tuesday. Total retail and food services sales fell to US$442 billion last month, against analysts’ forecast of a 0.3 percent rise. The department also revised lower the May gain to 1 percent from 1.2 percent. Last month’s data suggested the economy was still struggling after a particularly harsh first quarter.
STEEL
POSCO to cut non-core units
POSCO Co Ltd is to reduce its domestic-market businesses by 50 percent and those overseas by 30 percent, as South Korea’s biggest steelmaker increases efforts to fight falling profits amid a global slump in prices. The company will “aggressively” leave non-core operations, CEO Kwon Oh-joon said at a briefing yesterday. The company has already agreed to sell a 38 percent stake in its engineering unit to the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia for 1.24 trillion won (US$1.1 billion).
LUXURY GOODS
Burberry quarterly sales up
Burberry Group PLC, the UK’s largest luxury-goods maker, reported a 10 percent increase in fiscal first-quarter sales, as strong demand in Europe compensated for a slump in Hong Kong. Retail revenue advanced to ￡407 million (US$637 million) in the three months through June, London-based Burberry yesterday said in a statement. Analysts predicted ￡414 million, according to the median of 17 estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Currencies should boost full-year profit by about ￡20 million if they stay at current rates, Burberry added, raising its forecast from May by ￡10 million.
BANKING
JPMorgan Q2 profit up 4%
JPMorgan Chase & Co said on Tuesday that its second-quarter profit rose 4 percent from a year earlier, as the bank continued to trim expenses and notched a solid performance at its investment banking division. The largest US bank by assets earned US$5.78 billion after payments to preferred shareholders, up from a profit of US$5.57 billion a year earlier. On a per-share basis, the bank earned US$1.54 per share, compared with US$1.46 per share a year earlier.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
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