Author: FX

I posted on this article a little earlier, here. Recapping it now:Japan’s government is set to revise a decade-old joint statement with the Bank of Japan (BOJ) that commits the central bank to achieve its 2% inflation “at the earliest date possible,” Kyodo news agency reported on Saturday, citing government sources.As to timing, not until April:Kishida will discuss details on how to revise the statement with a new BOJ governor, who will succeed incumbent Haruhiko Kuroda when his term ends in April, according to Kyodo.The news has been enough to send the yen higher in very early gappy Asia Monday…

To the great relief of movie-theater chains, Avatar: The Way of Water (NYSE:DIS) has grossed $134M in its North American opening – one of the year’s top debuts, and set to launch a multi-week recovery from some box-office doldrums. That $134M tied with The Batman (WBD) for fifth-best opening domestically of 2022 (and Sunday night receipts will move the new Avatar up there). It also added $301M overseas for a global first-weekend total of $435M and counting, the third-biggest opening of the COVID-19 pandemic era. While giving some breathing room for movies, the new Avatar’s opening take did come in…

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Elon Musk photo and Twitter logo are seen through magnifier in this illustration taken November 4, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration (Reuters) -Twitter on Sunday said that it will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames. The move would impact content from social media platforms like Meta Platforms’ Facebook (NASDAQ:) and Instagram, along with Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post while allowing cross-content posting, Twitter support said in a tweet. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who recently invested in social media platform Nostr, replied to…

loveshiba/iStock via Getty Images Credit card delinquencies and net charge-offs continued to creep up in November, extending the trend of credit normalization over the past couple of years. While COVID-19 initially triggered a sharp drop in spending in the spring of 2020, the unprecedented fiscal support from government led to a surge in spending and gave consumers a financial cushion. That resulted in unusually strong credit quality. At the least, most consumers kept up with their credit card payments, and many were able to pay down account balances. Now the stimulus checks have stopped and consumers’ savings are dwindling. “November…

© Reuters. Bitcoin: the Digital Gold – Positives for 2023 We’ve made it to the fifth article in DailyCoin’s “12 Days of Cryptomas” holiday feature, and this is sure to be a topic on everyone’s Christmas list. As most of our readers will know, “on the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me five golden rings.” What could be better than that? Five digital golden rings. Bitcoin’s status as digital gold is irrefutable. Being scarcer than its metallic counterpart and providing a better hedge against inflation, fits the bill to be the crypto industry’s “Five Golden Rings.”…

Jemal Countess/Getty Images Entertainment One of the leading scientists who helped shape messenger-RNA-based vaccine technology is not entirely convinced of its potential against cancer, even after groundbreaking data from Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) and Merck (NYSE:MRK) to prove the concept. In 1980, biochemist Dr. Katalin Kariko while working on her PhD in her home country Hungary was confident that mRNA molecules could be used to train the body to manufacture its own medicines. Decades later, in response to a raging pandemic, Pfizer (PFE)/ BioNTech and Moderna (MRNA) developed COVID-19 vaccines in record time, helping to save millions of lives and keep tens…

Recommended by Daniel Dubrovsky Get Your Free Top Trading Opportunities Forecast Market volatility remained the focus this past week. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 fell about 1.8%, 2.3% and 2.9%, respectively. Things were not looking much better in Europe. The DAX 40 and FTSE 100 sank roughly 3.3% and 1.5%, respectively. In the Asia-Pacific region, the Nikkei 225 and Hang Seng Index dropped 1.7% and 2.3%, respectively.This was despite a softer US inflation report for November. The focus remained on central banks instead. The Federal Reserve delivered a 50-basis point rate hike and continued…

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Employees handle packages at an Amazon logistic center in Mannheim, Germany, September 17, 2019. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski BERLIN (Reuters) – German union Verdi on Sunday called on workers at Amazon (NASDAQ:) warehouses across Germany to support rolling strikes in coming days in a protest over pay, aimed at maximising disruption to the online retailer’s pre-Christmas business. The union said that, in response to pay hikes that had lagged inflation, it had called on workers at seven German distribution centres to down tools unannounced in strikes that would alternate between different locations. Germany is Amazon’s biggest market after…

Dimensions/E+ via Getty Images Consumers are looking more miserly than expected into the year end, according to Wall Street channel checks. Nearly across the board, analysts are voicing concerns on consumer belt-tightening, coupled with a shift away from goods consumption. While e-commerce spending was noted as on the rise nominally, as reflected in Adobe Black Friday sales data, inflation dampens enthusiasm on that front. Meanwhile, retail sales data overall indicates brick and mortar spending is slowing substantially as well. “Inflation is pinching consumers at a record level, credit is harder to find, while job strength is the only thing better…

4/4 © Reuters. A health worker registers a resident for a nasal spray COVID-19 booster vaccine in Beijing, China December 17, 2022 in this still image obtained from a video. REUTERS TV/via REUTERS 2/4 By Siyi Liu and Eduardo Baptista BEIJING (Reuters) -Streets in major Chinese cities were eerily quiet on Sunday as people stayed home to protect themselves from a surge in COVID-19 cases that has hit urban centres from north to south. China is in the first of an expected three waves of COVID cases this winter, according to the country’s chief epidemiologist, Wu Zunyou. Further waves will…