Source: CNBCTV18
Chanel Ltd. profit plunged last year as the closely held company splurged on expanding its retail network and marketing to remain visible amid a luxury industry downturn.
Operating profit slid 30% to $4.48 billion as revenue fell 4.3% on a comparable basis, it said in a statement Tuesday. The region that includes China — which generates about half of Chanel’s revenue — saw a 7.1% sales fall.
The slump came as the luxury market struggles to emerge from a period of sluggish growth caused in part by Chinese shoppers reining in costly purchases. The industry’s outlook has grown even gloomier after US President Donald Trump unveiled global tariffs last month. Even once thriving companies like LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE have posted disappointing sales so far this year.
President Donald Trump is growing frustrated with demands to significantly boost the cap on the state and local tax deduction, according to a senior administration official, signaling a deadlock as Republicans aim to quickly pass a giant tax-cut bill.
Trump told lawmakers in a meeting on Tuesday not to let the SALT deduction or differences over social safety-net cuts impede the bill. But afterwards members of warring factions told reporters they were still dug in in opposing the bill unless their changes are made.
Trump urged Republicans from New York and other high-tax states to wait to try to raise the SALT limit further until after Congress is done with the tax legislation, the official said, a proposal that is likely to draw backlash from SALT lawmakers who see the the president’s “one big, beautiful bill” as their sole shot to address a political priority that dates back to 2017.
Currency options traders are now more pessimistic than they’ve ever been about the dollar’s path over the next year, according to one commonly-cited measure of investor sentiment.
One-year risk reversals — a gauge of how expensive it is to buy versus sell a currency in the options market — fell to minus 28 basis points in favor of puts over calls for the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index. That mark is the most negative level on record, according to Bloomberg data going back to 2011, surpassing even a level briefly hit at the outset of pandemic-driven market gyrations five years ago.
Up and down Wall Street, executives are readying new plans to expand in the Middle East, days after countries across the region flexed that they have more than $2 trillion of firepower to put to work in the US.
UBS Group AG is planning to open a new office in Abu Dhabi, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. said it would add more than 100 staffers to its businesses across the Middle East in coming years. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., for its part, is also looking to open more outposts and boost headcount in cities throughout the region.
“It is a very exciting time for everybody to be thinking about this,” Mary Callahan Erdoes, who leads JPMorgan’s asset and wealth management business, said at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha. “You can feel it when you’re here live and in person.”
Wall Street’s rally took a breather on Tuesday, with stocks falling as traders awaited fresh catalysts after a six-day run that put the S&P 500 up almost 20% from its April lows.
The equity benchmark lost steam following an $8.6 trillion surge to around “overbought” levels. Without relevant economic data, traders continued to parse remarks from Federal Reserve speakers. Long-term Treasury yields climbed as fractious US budget negotiations kept focus on the growth in deficit spending that’s prompted Moody’s Ratings to lower the nation’s credit score. Another heavy slate of new corporate bonds was also a factor.
The Trump administration is set to extend Chevron Corp.’s deadline to halt its operations in Venezuela by another 60 days as the US continues negotiations with President Nicolas Maduro’s government over the fate of US detainees in the country, a person familiar with the matter said.
The US planned to announce the extension later Tuesday, the same day that President Donald Trump’s envoy Richard Grenell traveled to Antigua to meet with members of Maduro’s government to negotiate the possible release of at least one American, according to the person, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.
Builder.ai, the British artificial intelligence startup backed by Microsoft Corp. and the Qatar Investment Authority, will file an insolvency case after overstating sales figures it provided investors.
“The business has been unable to recover from historic challenges and past decisions that placed significant strain on its financial position,” Builder.ai said in a statement Tuesday. The firm will appoint an administrator to manage the company’s affairs, it added.
The proceedings mark a stunning fall from grace for the company, which two years ago raised a $250 million funding round led by QIA, one of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth funds. Microsoft also made an equity investment in 2023 as part of a strategic partnership.
US regulators will no longer approve booster shots to prevent Covid infections for healthy adults and children without new clinical trials showing they are still safe and effective, adding a costly new requirement that could ultimately limit who gets the vaccines.
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary and Vinay Prasad, who leads the agency’s vaccine division, outlined the approach the agency intends to take with the Covid shots in an article published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Qatar defended its decision to gift a Boeing Co. 747 jumbo jet to the US as a routine transaction between partners, calling criticism of the deal a misguided view of the country as an Arab state trying to gain political influence.
“I don’t know why people consider it as bribery or Qatar trying to buy influence with this administration,” Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said on Tuesday during a panel at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha. “We need to overcome this stereotype.”
“Many nations have gifted things to the US,” he said, invoking the Statue of Liberty, which was presented to the US government by France in the 19th century.
Elon Musk said he would significantly pull back from political spending, a likely blow to US President Donald Trump and Republicans ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
“I’m going to do a lot less in the future,” Musk said during a discussion at the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday. Asked why he was shifting his approach, Musk responded, “I think I’ve done enough.”
UBS recommends staying invested going forward, even in the face of ongoing uncertainty.
“We expect volatility ahead as investors contend with uncertainty on several fronts,” the bank wrote in a Tuesday note. “Still, we recommend staying invested, along with various strategies to manage volatility, as we expect the S&P 500 to edge higher over the next 12 months and the 10-year Treasury yield to fall.”
UBS added that that besides stocks, investors should consider buying bonds, golds and hedge fund for diversification.
The UK announced a series of measures to punish Israel over its actions in Gaza, joining the international campaign to ratchet up pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government said it planned to pause free-trade talks with Israel and announced sanctions against a handful of individuals and entities it said were engaged in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. The government also said it has summoned Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely to express its opposition to the expansion of military activities in Gaza.
While Foreign Secretary David Lammy reaffirmed his support for Israel’s right to defend itself in the wake of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas, the latest escalation was the escalation is “morally unjustifiable.”
Wall Street’s rally took a breather on Tuesday, with stocks falling as traders awaited fresh catalysts after a six-day run that put the S&P 500 up almost 20% from the April lows.
The US equity benchmark lost steam following an $8.6 trillion surge that drove the index to “overbought” levels. Without relevant economic data, traders geared up for a slew of Federal Reserve speakers.
Treasury yields climbed on bets officials won’t cut rates before September or October as they confront a murky outlook. Meanwhile, Donald Trump downplayed the importance of the state and local tax deduction to passage of his giant tax bill.
Alphabet Inc.’s investors are looking to this week’s developer conference to see if the company can reset the narrative amid fears that its long-standing market dominance is on shaky ground.
The Google I/O event, which begins Tuesday, is expected to showcase the company’s latest advancements in artificial intelligence. Positive updates could help ease concerns about the rivals nipping at its heels and eating away at its dominant position in web search, even as the company spends heavily on AI.
The S&P 500 slipped on Tuesday, as investors digested strong gains from recent sessions. The broad market index slipped 0.3%, while the Nasdaq Composite dipped 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average hovered just below the flatline.
Tech was the worst-performing S&P 500 sector, losing around 0.9%. Nvidia lost 1%. Meta Platforms, Apple and Microsoft were also lower on the day.
Victoria’s Secret & Co. announced a shareholder rights plan after an investor began acquiring a substantial amount of stock in the lingerie retailer.
BBRC International Pte Limited, an entity controlled by Brett Blundy, has increased its position to about 13% of outstanding shares and has a history of acquiring controlling interests in retailers, Victoria’s Secret said in a statement.
The plan, which is often called a poison pill, will issue one right for each share at the close of business on May 29 and be triggered if an investor acquires 15% of outstanding common stock. It wasn’t adopted in response to a proposal to acquire control of the company, Victoria’s Secret said.
Malaysia declared it’ll build a first-of-its-kind AI system powered by Huawei Technologies Co. chips, only to distance itself from that statement a day later, underscoring the Asian nation’s delicate position in the US-Chinese AI race.
Deputy Minister of Communications Teo Nie Ching said in a speech Monday her country would be the first to activate an unspecified class of Huawei “Ascend GPU-powered AI servers at national scale.”
Malaysia would deploy 3,000 units of Huawei’s primary AI offering by 2026, she said in prepared remarks reviewed by Bloomberg News. Chinese startup DeepSeek would also make one of its AI models available to the Southeast Asian country, the official added.
Canadian inflation eased to its slowest pace since September on the elimination of the consumer carbon tax and lower oil prices.
The consumer price index rose 1.7% from a year ago in April, down from 2.3% in March, Statistics Canada data showed Tuesday. The median projection in a Bloomberg survey of economists saw the headline rate rising by only 1.6%.
The index fell 0.1% on the month, compared with economists’ projections of a 0.2% drop.
The average of the Bank of Canada’s two preferred core inflation measures accelerated to a 3.2% yearly pace, up from 2.9% in March and higher than economist estimates. The three-month moving average of the core rates rose to 3.4%, from 2.9% previously.
UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is under pressure from a new poll showing her party’s popularity dropping to the lowest in at least 24 years, sliding to fourth place behind the Liberal Democrats.
Only 16% of Britons would vote for the Conservatives in a general election, a two-point decline from a week ago, according to a poll of 2,222 adults conducted by YouGov between May 18 and 19.
That’s the party’s lowest level of support since YouGov’s records began in 2001 and the first time since 2019 that it has fallen so far behind its rivals, with the Liberal Democrats surpassing the Tories with 17% of the vote.
D-Wave Quantum’s latest quantum computing system has hit the market, the company said Tuesday. Shares popped more than 18%.
The quantum computer, known as Advantage2, marks the sixth iteration from the company and its most advance system, D-Wave said.
“It’s an engineering marvel, with substantial technical advancements that highlight D-Wave’s progress in scaling quantum technology to meet industry demands for growing computational processing power while maintaining energy efficiency,” said CEO Alan Baratz in a press release.
Russia’s oil exports are becoming increasingly difficult to track as the tankers moving the barrels disappear from digital tracking systems.
Moscow’s exports slipped slightly in the past four weeks, according to monitoring of those flows by Bloomberg. But keeping track is becoming harder because more and more ships are giving false locations — or no locations at all — to the industry’s Automated Information System, or AIS for short.
Ships hauling Russian crude are resorting to an increasing array of tactics to hide their activities while taking on cargoes. Automated position signals around export terminals in the Baltic, Black Sea and Arctic are disappearing more frequently than they did last year, or else showing vessels in impossible locations.
Paul Krugman, Economist and Nobel Laureate: The Trump administration is making China great again.
China is a more reliable negotiating partner than the US.
Unfortunately, China can be expected to keep their word far more than the US.
China is authoritarian and not trustworthy, but not as erratic as America.
Paul Krugman on Trump asking Walmart to eat tariffs: Retailers have a slim margin, and it’s not possible for them to absorb such tariffs
They may not raise price,s but may just stop selling some goods
This will make companies wary of not angering Donald Trump
Paul Krugman, Economist and Nobel Laureate: A 30% tariff on Chinese goods will cut trade with China by 65% and cause massive decoupling.
30% tariff on Chinese goods will still be a huge damage to both economies, and more so to America.
Policies are being made based on who spoke to the President last, and it gets posted on Truth Social.
God knows what the elevator operator will tell him to do next.
Paul Krugman, Economist and Nobel Laureate: Trump has shown that the US can elect people who can rip up trade agreements.
It will take many years of responsible governance to undo the damage done over the last four months.
Expect the dollar to weaken as people no longer see the US as a safe place to invest.
Trump’s policies are undermining the position of US capital markets.
Looks like we are getting into a sell America trade with people losing confidence in the dollar.
Paul Krugman, Economist and Nobel Laureate: See little or no growth for the US in 2025, higher unemployment and inflation.
Tariffs will add 2% to the CPI Index in 2025.
Moody’s Downgrade only means that investors are no longer sure about America.
The US does not look like a country which can be trusted to do the right thing.
The upcoming budget bill will blow up the deficit with tax cuts when the deficit is already sustainable.
Savage tax cuts will lead to a lack of healthcare for millions of people.
The tax bill does not make us look like a serious country anymore.
Paul Krugman: The US could get meaningful concessions from India through a trade deal.
Do not expect any major impact of the deal on either the US or the Indian economy.
India is not America’s neighbour and is a minor trading partner.
US businesses will not notice the trade deal with India.
Nobel laureate Paul Krugman: Trump’s tax bill will go through the US Congress.
Savage cuts mean 15 million people will lose healthcare.
Tax cuts will help the wealthy and ruin lives for millions of Americans.
Expect a tremendous backlash as Trump’s proposed tax cuts are a major act of cruelty.
Home Depot Inc. maintained its guidance for the fiscal year as US sales ticked up, a sign that consumer spending has held up despite economic turbulence.
While the world’s largest home-improvement retailer said comparable sales dropped 0.3% in the three months that ended May 4, marking a slowdown from the previous quarter, that same metric in US stores rose slightly, bolstered by smaller projects.
February sales weighed on the quarter due to weather conditions across the country, though demand improved in March and April, Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail said in an interview. Positive sales have continued through the first weeks of the current quarter.
Some Wall Street strategists are betting European stocks will enjoy their best performance relative to the US in at least two decades as the region’s economic outlook improves.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index is expected to end the year around 554 points, according to the average of 20 strategists polled by Bloomberg. JPMorgan Chase & Co. has one of the highest targets at 580, suggesting a record lead of 25 percentage points over the S&P 500 Index as the bank expects the US benchmark to slide.
Citigroup Inc. predicts a 4% rally to 570 points, the biggest outperformance since 2005. Overall, the surveyed strategists see the Stoxx 600 index gaining about 1% from Friday’s close as analysts dial back some of their pessimism around corporate earnings.
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