interest rate Tag

31 Mar Hong Kong faces shortfall of up to 59,500 beds for university students, creating opportunity for investors, hotel owners

Posted at 08:30h in Asia

The situation has led to several conversions of hotels into student spaces in the past two years, with more in the offing in 2024.Students walk on the campus of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology on October 26, 2023. Photo: May TseNon-local student enrolment...

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21 Mar Why Japan is forced to take baby steps to normalise monetary policy

Posted at 08:30h in Asia

Japan’s central bank ending its negative interest rate regime comes not a moment too soon, but that alone will not return the economy to its heyday. Uncertainty over the outlook for growth and inflation persists, and the internal issues that led to the adoption of...

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21 Mar Hong Kong stocks jump after US Federal Reserve’s dovish signals; Tencent gains after doubling share buy-back

Posted at 02:30h in Asia

Hong Kong stocks advanced after the US Federal Reserve reaffirmed its dovish outlook overnight while keeping its key rate unchanged. Tencent jumped after it unveiled plans to at least double the size of its share repurchases and the city’s property developers rallied on the prospects...

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17 Mar Opinion | Time to see ‘marketplace magic’ as the voodoo economics it really is

Posted at 01:30h in Asia

Even allowing for the long-standing tendency towards excess on the part of stock investors – which has all too often resulted in boom-and-bust cycles – the apparent inability of markets to see more than one step ahead is alarming. The latest manifestation of this is...

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04 Mar Opinion | Why Asian buyers’ love of Australia’s property market endures

Posted at 08:30h in Asia

Yet Australia’s appeal to many Asian buyers endures, and by some measures it is growing. While the heyday of Chinese investors pouring huge sums of money into Australian residential property is long gone, Chinese buyers are back.In the second quarter of last year, mainland China...

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29 Feb Opinion | Interest rates could stay higher for longer. Australia, New Zealand show why

Posted at 21:30h in Asia

At the end of last year, investors were convinced that interest rates in the world’s leading economies would come down sharply this year. Following the US Federal Reserve’s unexpected signal last December that its monetary tightening campaign was over and that it expected borrowing costs...

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22 Feb Opinion | Why Magnificent Seven US tech stocks are the bubble that won’t burst

Posted at 11:30h in Asia

It is hard to overstate the importance of this septet. With the exception of Tesla, all the companies figure among the world’s top seven firms by market capitalisation. Moreover, the group’s combined weighting in the S&P 500 is 29 per cent while its share of...

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21 Feb HSBC reports 56% profit jump in 2023 amid missing estimates, unveils US$2-billion new share buy-back programme

Posted at 04:29h in Asia

HSBC, the biggest of Hong Kong’s three currency-issuing banks, missed annual profit estimates as the impact of a higher interest margin was offset by bad-debt provisions related to mainland China’s real estate sector amid charges associated with its hedging strategy.Net profit rose 56 per cent...

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20 Feb Mainland Chinese customers spent US$7.6 billion on Hong Kong insurance policies last year, but sales to fall as ‘pent-up’ demand fades: watchdog

Posted at 00:30h in Asia

“This pent-up demand will fade, so demand will return to the average level seen during the years before the pandemic. It is unlikely to go back to a peak of HK$72.7 billion seen in 2016.”Last year’s tally is a significant jump on the three-year Covid-19...

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19 Feb Hong Kong’s luxury homes market shows signs of life as waves of price discounts entice some bottom fishing

Posted at 10:31h in Asia

Hong Kong’s luxury home segment which has been hit by a wave of deep discounts in the backdrop of soaring interest rates and macroeconomic turbulence, has shown early signs of stability as bottom fishing has emerged in one of the world’s priciest real estate market.The...

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