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Asian shares’ rise broadly cheered by US earnings, rally
Asian shares gained Friday as investors cheered a strong set of earnings from retailers that has sent U.S. shares higher.
Benchmarks were rising in early trading across the region, including Japan, China, Australia and South Korea.
“Improved risk sentiments in Wall Street, along with earnings outperformance from Alibaba and Baidu, may aid to fuel some upside for the Asia region into today’s session,” said Yeap Jun Rong, market strategist at IG in Singapore.
Shares of Alibaba and Baidu have surged after they reported better than expected results, easing some concerns about the negative impact from restrictions to curb COVID-19 infections. Both shares continued to rise in early trading.
Also Read: Asian stock markets higher after Wall St sinks further
Gauging Japan’s economic path will be on investors’ minds as data on manufacturing, housing and employment for April are set to be released next week. Some analysts expect the numbers to be dim because of a slowdown in exports to China during that period. But some optimism is also in the air, with Tokyo’s restrictions on tourists easing and the daily cap raising from 10,000 incoming people to 20,000 starting June 1. The Japanese government, led by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, is also set to push ahead in parliamentary discussions with a supplementary budget, another possible plus for investors.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 added 0.8% in early trading to 26,811.06. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.9% to 7,167.70. South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.0% to 2,638.92. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng surged 2.8% to 20,687.39, while the Shanghai Composite edged up 0.6% to 3,141.15.
Wall Street ended broadly higher after seven straight weeks of declines, the longest such stretch since 2001.
Bond yields rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which helps set interest rates on mortgages, rose to 2.75% from 2.74% late Wednesday.
Roughly 90% of the stocks in the S&P 500 rose, with technology companies, banks and retailers driving much of the rally. While trading has remained choppy this week, the market has mostly pushed higher, unlike the past five weeks, when the S&P 500 had a pullback of 2% or more at least one day each week.
“It’s nice to see a couple days in the green, and this might actually end up being the first week when we don’t have a humongous down day,” said Liz Young, head of investment strategy at SoFi. “But I wouldn’t declare premature victory and assume we’re in the clear.”
The S&P 500 rose 79.11 points, or 2%, to 4,057.84. The Dow added 516.91 points, or 1.6%, to 32,637.19, and the Nasdaq rose 305.91 points, or 2.7%, to 11,740.65. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies climbed 39.07 points, or 2.2%, to 1,838.24.
Retailers led the broader market higher Thursday. Macy’s surged 19.3% after it raised its profit forecast for the year following a strong first-quarter financial report. Dollar General vaulted 13.7% and Dollar Tree jumped 21.9% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500 after the discount retailers reported solid earnings and gave investors encouraging forecasts.
The retail sector is being closely watched by investors looking for more details on just how much pain inflation is inflicting on companies and consumers. Weak reports from the several big companies last week, including Target and Walmart, spooked an already volatile market.
“We’re not convinced that we’re completely out of the woods here,” said Philip Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Hermes. “There were a lot of negative reports last week and what those companies have talked about is what is going on through the economy.”
Inflation is at a four-decade high and businesses have been raising prices on everything from food to clothing to offset higher costs. The impact from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine worsened inflation pressures by fueling higher energy and key food commodity costs. Supply chain problems worsened in the wake of China’s lockdown for several major cities as it tried to contain COVID-19 cases.
Consumers have been resilient about spending, but the pressure from inflation remains persistent and could be prompting a pullback or shift in spending from more expensive things to necessities.
The broad gains on Thursday followed a late push for markets on Wednesday prompted by details from the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting, which confirmed expectations of more interest rate hikes.
Technology stocks also rose. TurboTax maker Intuit rose 4.6%. Companies in the sector, with their lofty stock values, tend to push the market harder up or down.
Airline stocks rallied on encouraging summer travel forecasts. Southwest Airlines rose 6% and JetBlue rose 3.4%.
In energy trading, U.S. benchmark crude added 36 cents to $114.45 a barrel. U.S. crude oil prices rose 3.4% Thursday, and are up more than 55% for the year. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 45 cents to $117.85 a barrel.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar inched down to 126.79 Japanese yen from 127.10 yen. The euro cost $1.0763, up from $1.0733.
Pran to collect 65,000 tonnes of mangoes in 2022
Pran is set to collect 65,000 tonnes of mangoes this year to manufacture drinks, juices and other food items which are exported to some 145 countries.
The agro-processor started collecting and pulping mangoes in its plants in Natore and Rajshahi Thursday.
Sarowar Hossain, general manager of Barind Industrial Park in Rajshahi, said: "We are collecting mangoes from Rajshahi, Natore, Chapai Nawabganj, Naogaon, Dinajpur, Meherpur and Satkhira. In the first phase, we will buy the Guti variety. After that, we will collect the Ashwani variety."
Read: Serbia keen to invest in food storage industry in Bangladesh: FBCCI
Kamruzzaman Kamal, marketing director of Pran-RFL Group, said, "We collected more than 40,000 metric tonnes of mangoes last year."
"Pulp is being produced in our plants following aseptic technology. It helps preserve the pulps for two years while maintaining their taste and freshness without freezing. We are manufacturing mango juices and drinks throughout the year from these pulps."
Read: Govt mulls amnesty to bring back laundered money: Finance Minister
BB to set uniform exchange rate to stabilize volatile dollar
Bangladesh Bank (BB) has decided to set a uniform exchange rate of US dollar with taka for all banks to follow to tame the volatile forex market.
The central bank asked the banks and foreign exchange dealers to recommend a uniform rate by Sunday on which it can take a decision.
This emerged from a tripartite meeting the central bank held on Thursday with the Association of Bankers, Bangladesh (ABB), an association of banks’ CEOs-MDs, and Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Dealers Association (BAFEDA).
Also read: Dollar rate: BB governor to hold meeting with bank MDs Thursday
The meeting also warned banks to stay away from any manipulation in destabilize the forex market amid a fall in the reserve.
Md Serajul Islam, executive director and spokesperson of BB told reporters after the meeting it also discussed ways to increase remittance, curb unnecessary import and some other banking issues.
The BB governor Fazle Kabir assured liquidity support and dollar supply to the banks to meet the dollar demand and bring back stability in the market.
Also read: BB depreciates taka by Tk 0.40 against US dollars
Besides, the BB decided to stop selling export bills from a bank to any other bank.
ABB Chairman and BRAC Bank Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Selim RF Hussain told UNB, several decisions have been taken in the meeting to ensure discipline and transparency in the foreign exchange market.
OECD delegation interested in FBCCI's Innovation Centre
A visiting delegation of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Development Centre has shown interest in the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FBCCI) Innovation Centre – to be set up to meet Bangladesh's post-LDC challenges.
The FBCCI will set up an innovation centre for skill upgradation, research and innovation to deal with the new situation after 2026, the trade organisation's leaders told the delegation during a meeting Wednesday.
Read: Serbia keen to invest in food storage industry in Bangladesh: FBCCI
They sought the OECD's support for the initiative.
Annalisa Primi, head of the Economic Transformation and Development Division at the Development Center, expressed her interest in the FBCCI centre and hoped to learn more about it.
Serbia keen to invest in food storage industry in Bangladesh: FBCCI
Serbian Foreign Affairs Minister Nikola Selakovic has expressed his country’s interest in investing in the food storage industry of Bangladesh.
The visiting minister expressed his interest during a courtesy call on FBCCI senior vice-president Mostofa Azad Chowdhury Babu on Thursday.
Selakovic said his country's storage companies are one of the best in the world and Bangladesh can also benefit from Serbia's investment in this sector.
“ Serbia has free trade agreements with Europe, the Eurasian Economic Union and Turkey. Bangladesh may benefit by establishing joint ventures and export at zero duty to those free trade countries,” he said.
Read: Govt mulls amnesty to bring back laundered money: Finance Minister
He also expressed interest in signing two agreements on double taxation and investment protection and promotion with the government of Bangladesh to increase bilateral trade.
Serbia is also keen to take skilled and semi-skilled manpower from Bangladesh for construction and agriculture sectors, the minister said.
At the same time, the minister urged Bangladeshi students to go to Serbia to study agricultural engineering as the country provides world best facilities of its kind.
In response, Mostofa Azad Chowdhury said that 30 percent of agricultural products are wasted in Bangladesh every year due to lack of packaging, transportation and storage.
The two sides also agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding between the Serbian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the FBCCI soon.
Read: Finance minister directs regulators to boost investment in stock market
The meeting also discussed import of sunflower seeds, contract cultivation of wheat in Serbia, and establishment of the Serbian Embassy in Dhaka.
Serbia's assistant minister for bilateral relations Vladimir Maric, Foreign Minister's Adviser Ivan Jaksic, FBCCI Vice-President Habib Ullah Dawn, Director Amzad Hossain, Shomi Kaiser, Dr. Nadia Binte Amin, Abul Kasem Khan and Secretary General Mohammad Mahfuzul Hoque, were, among others, present in the meeting.
World stocks lower after Fed confirms rate hike plans
Major global stock markets were mostly lower Thursday after notes from the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting confirmed expectations of more interest rate hikes but held no surprises to rattle investors.
London, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney declined. Frankfurt and Shanghai gained. Oil prices rose.
Investors are uneasy over the impact of interest rate hikes in the United States and other Western economies to cool surging inflation. Wednesday’s Fed release showed board members support 0.5-percentage-point hikes at their next two meetings. That will weigh on economic activity but already was factored into stock prices.
There were no “hawkish or dovish surprises” or mentions of a bigger increase, Anderson Alves of ActivTrades said in a report.
In early trading, the FTSE 100 in London lost 0.1% to 7,516.42 while Frankfurt’s DAX gained 0.4% to 14,057.88. The CAC in Paris advanced 0.3% to 6,320.42.
On Wall Street, the future for the benchmark S&P 500 index was off 0.1% and that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was little-changed.
Also Read: Asian stock markets higher after Wall St sinks further
On Wednesday, the S&P 500 index rose 0.9% after from this month’s Fed meeting showed board members agreed half-point rate hikes “would likely be appropriate.” That would be double the usual margin of increases.
In Asia, the Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.5% to 3,123.11 while the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo lost 0.3% to 26,604.84. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong sank 0.3% to 20,116.20.
The Kospi in Seoul declined 0.2% to 2,612.45 after the South Korean central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 1.75%.
“With price pressures set to remain elevated in the near term, we expect the Bank to continue hiking in quick succession over the coming months,” Alex Holmes of Capital Economics said in a report.
Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 ended 0.7% lower at 7,105.90.
India’s Sensex gained 0.8% to 54,173.63. New Zealand declined while Southeast Asian markets rose.
Investors also are worried about the impact of Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine and an unexpectedly sharp Chinese economic slowdown.
They hope the Fed can cool inflation that is running at a four-decade high without tipping the biggest global economy into recession.
The Fed raised its key interest rate by 0.5 percentage points at its May meeting in its most aggressive move in two decades. It indicated more hikes were to come.
The S&P 500 is coming off of a seven-week series of declines that came close to ending the bull market for stocks that began in March 2020.
In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude 70 cents to $111.03 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the price basis for international oils, gained 43 cents to $111.55 per barrel in London.
Govt mulls amnesty to bring back laundered money: Finance Minister
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has said that the government is contemplating amnesty for bringing the laundered money back into the country.
“We’re thinking of announcing amnesty for bringing the smuggled money back,” he told reporters in briefing after the two consecutive meetings of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) and Cabinet Committee on Public Purchase on Thursday.
Also read: Finance minister directs regulators to boost investment in stock market
He said Bangladesh Bank will make more announcements in this regard before the national budget is placed in Parliament.
He said the issue of amnesty will be reflected in the national budget.
"The initiative will be taken by the Bangladesh Bank and announced by it through circulars. But we don’t want to make any announcement in this regard before placing the national budget in parliament”, he said.
The finance minister’s remarks came in response to the reporters’ questions on the government’s initiative as Bangladesh Bank recently announced that any person will be allowed to bring in upto $5000 from abroad without any prior declaration and no question will be asked about the source of the money.
Such an announcement from the central bank came to encourage people to bring more US dollars against the backdrop of its prevailing crisis.
Recently, the greenback gained strength against the local currency as the dollar rate went up to Tk 100 in the kerb market while officially Bangladesh Taka (BDT) was depreciated on a number of occasions.
Kamal said the initiative is being taken mainly to bring back that money which was laundered from the country.
He, however, did not give any detail of the amount as to how much money was laundered. “I can’t give you any idea how much money was laundered. But we collect information from the media and other official and non-official sources”, he said.
Also read: Finance minister hints at hard decisions due to Russia-Ukraine war
He said different countries are announcing amnesty like tax exemption. “We’re also thinking so”.
The finance minister said he believes that the people who laundered money will take advantage of the government’s amnesty as it is a good scope for them.
Responding to a question on the issue, he said there is a dollar crisis. “But it’s not at a level that would hamper our import. We have enough dollars in our reserves to run the import business”, he said.
DCCI invites Indian investors to invest in EZs in Bangladesh
Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) has invited Indian entrepreneurs to invest in the Economic Zones in Bangladesh that are already ready for operation.
A 47-member DCCI delegation led by its President Rizwan Rahman had an industry interactive meet with the Calcutta Chamber of Commerce at a hotel in Kolkata on Wednesday.
During the meeting, DCCI President Rizwan Rahman, also the leader of the Business delegation, said pharmaceuticals, footwear, energy, food processing, light engineering, ICT are some of the areas where Indian investors can tap the opportunities.
Also read: DCCI urges Philippines to invest in Bangladesh’s healthcare, tourism sectors
Besides, initiative of signing comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) between India and Bangladesh will usher a win-win situation for both end businesses, he added. Later, he also sought joint collaboration on different non-tariff issues which hinders our business scopes.
Meanwhile, President of Calcutta Chamber of Commerce Shailja Mehta said India is the biggest trade partner of Bangladesh in South Asia. “Toward achieving advantageous trade figures, both the nations need to diversify trade with active industry participation.”
Better market access, improved physical connectivity and transit and energy trade between India and Bangladesh are important instruments for unlocking bilateral trade potential, she added.
She also termed tourism as one of the important area where there are huge potential to tap into.
The bilateral trade between Bangladesh and India hovers within USD 9.87 billion having a potential of USD 16.4 billion forecast by the World Bank, DCCI said in a press release.
Also read: DCCI president tries to woo Sri Lankan investment, as envoy drops in
Deputy High Commissioner of Bangladesh in Kolkata Andalib Elias was also present on the occasion and he said there is a deficit between the bilateral trades but it is decreasing day by day.
During the last five to six years, the bilateral trade has multiplied about 2.5 times, he added.
Later, an interactive B2B match-making was organised where DCCI business delegation and Calcutta Chamber of Commerce took part.
India to export wheat to friendly, needful countries
Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday said that India will continue to allow wheat export for countries which are in serious need and are friendly and also have the letter of credit.
Goyal said this during the ongoing World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, reports NDTV.
“India wheat exports are less than 1 per cent of world's trade and our export regulation should not affect global markets. We continue to allow exports to vulnerable countries and neighbours,” the minister said.
He said that though 7 per cent to 8 per cent of wheat production was expected during the year, due to the severe heat waves there was early harvest and and also production loss.
Also Read: India open to exporting wheat to needy nations despite ban
“Given this situation, what we are producing is about enough for domestic consumption,” Mr Goyal added.
He made it clear that India was never a traditional player in the international wheat market and export of wheat only began about two years ago.
Speaking at Davos Summit, the Commerce Minister said that last year 7 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of wheat was exported and majority was done within the last two months when the war between Russia and Ukraine erupted.
BCI seeks German GIZ cooperation to create skilled manpower in industrial sector
Bangladesh Chamber of Industries (BCI) sought German cooperation in providing training to create skilled manpower in the industrial sector.
Such cooperation was sought when a five-member delegation, led by BCI President Anwar-ul Alam Chowdhury (Parvez) met GIZ country director Dr. Angelika Fleddermann at her office at Gulshan in the city on Tuesday.
GIZ is the main German development agency headquartered in Bonn and Eschborn that provides services in the field of international development cooperation and international education work.
Read Factory committees: BGMEA, GIZ, Particip to work on participation, safety, anti-harassment
The BCI leaders said they want to conduct Training of Trainers (ToT) training by bringing trainers from Germany, which is a country rich in workmanship, technology and technical knowhow said a BCI press release.
BCI President seeks co-operation from GIZ in the field of building trainers, preparing course curriculum and training manual, achieving efficiency in using latest technology, building skilled manpower in light engineering and agro-processing sectors, creating new entrepreneurs and promoting exporters.
The GIZ country director appreciated the BCI leaders for their interest in building the skilled manpower in the industrial sector in Bangladesh.
READ: BCI delegation meets Germany envoy; seeks cooperation for micro, small industries
Other members of the BCI delegation were Senior Vice President of BCI Priti Chakraborty, Vice president Shahidul Islam Niru, director K.M. Rifatuzzaman and Secretary General Dr. Ardhendu Shekhar Roy and Thomas Hubner, Business Scout for Development of GIZ and Dr. Michael Klode, Project Manager was also present at the meeting.
The BCI President said that BCI is the sole and exclusive chamber of the industrial community which represents all sorts of industries of both the public and private sector and endeavours to contribute to the industrialization as well as economic development of the country.
It also plays an important role in generating new entrepreneurs in the field of small and micro industry fields. Furthermore, BCI always works for the interest of the industries and tries to remove all kinds of obstructions and impediments.
Read GIZ discusses areas of cooperation with BGMEA
He mentioned that cottage, micro, and small industries in the country are sectors with immense potential but lacking skilled manpower. So the chamber thinks that to be a developed country and to achieve the vision 2041 there is no other option other than building skilled manpower.