Asian shares rally ahead of US-China trade talks
HONG KONG, June 9, (AP): Shares rose in Asia on Monday ahead of a new round of trade talks between Washington and Beijing, due later in the day in London. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 gained 0.9% to 38,088.57 as the government reported that the Japanese economy contracted by 0.2% in the January-March quarter.
In South Korea, the Kospi added 1.6% to 2,855.77. Chinese markets rose even though the government reported that exports slowed in May, growing 4.8% from a year earlier after a jump of more than 8% in April. Exports to the United States fell nearly 10% compared with the same month in 2024. China also reported that consumer prices fell 0.1% in May from a year earlier, marking the fourth consecutive month of deflation.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng picked up 1.1% to 24,044.90 while the Shanghai Composite Index climbed 0.4% to 3,397.63. Australia's market was closed for a holiday. On Friday, stocks gained ground on Wall Street following a better-than-expected report on the US job market. The gains were broad, with every sector in the S&P 500 rising.
That solidified a second consecutive winning week for the benchmark index, which has rallied back from a slump two months ago to come within striking distance of its record high. The S&P 500 rose 1% to 6,000.36. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1% to 42,762.87 while the Nasdaq gained 1.2% to 19,529.95. Technology stocks, with their outsized values, led the broad gains.
Chipmaker Nvidia jumped 1.2% and iPhone maker Apple rose 1.6%. Tesla rose 3.7%, regaining some of the big losses it suffered on Thursday when Trump and Musk sparred feverishly on social media. Circle Internet Group, the US-based issuer of one of the most popular cryptocurrencies, rose 29.4%. That adds to its 168% gain from Thursday when it debuted on the New York Stock Exchange.
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Kuwait Times
2 hours ago
- Kuwait Times
Tesla to build its first grid-scale power plant in mainland China
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Kuwait Times
2 hours ago
- Kuwait Times
Europe seeks ‘digital sovereignty' as US tech firms embrace Trump
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Digital sovereignty The search for alternative providers accompanies a debate in Europe about 'digital sovereignty' - the idea that reliance on companies from an increasingly isolationist United States is a threat to Europe's economy and security. 'Ordinary people, the kind of people who would never have thought it was important they were using an American service are saying, 'hang on!',' said UK-based internet regulation expert Maria Farrell. 'My hairdresser was asking me what she should switch to.' Use in Europe of Swiss-based ProtonMail rose 11.7 percent year-on-year to March compared to a year ago, according to Similarweb, while use of Alphabet's Gmail, which has some 70 percent of the global email market, slipped 1.9 percent. ProtonMail, which offers both free and paid-for services, said it had seen an increase in users from Europe since Trump's re-election, though it declined to give a number. 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But with modern life driven by technology, 'completely divorcing US tech in a very fundamental way is, I would say, possibly not possible,' said Bill Budington of US digital rights nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Everything from push notifications to the content delivery networks powering many websites and how internet traffic is routed relies largely on US companies and infrastructure, Budington noted. Both Ecosia and French-based search engine Qwant depend in part on search results provided by Google and Microsoft's Bing, while Ecosia runs on cloud platforms, some hosted by the very same tech giants it promises an escape from. Nevertheless, a group on messaging board Reddit called BuyFromEU has 211,000 members. 'Just cancelled my Dropbox and will switch to Proton Drive,' read one post. Mastodon, a decentralized social media service developed by German programmer Eugen Rochko, enjoyed a rush of new users two years ago when Musk bought Twitter, later renamed X. But it remains a niche service. Signal, a messaging app run by a US nonprofit foundation, has also seen a surge in installations from Europe. Similarweb's data showed a 7 percent month-on-month increase in Signal usage in March, while use of Meta's WhatsApp was static. Meta declined to comment for this story. Signal did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment. But this kind of conscious self-organizing is unlikely on its own to make a dent in Silicon Valley's European dominance, digital rights activist Robin Berjon told Reuters. 'The market is too captured,' he said. 'Regulation is needed as well.'— Reuters
Arab Times
9 hours ago
- Arab Times
Japan and South Korea mark 60 years of ties
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