China announced a series of policy measures to demonstrate “goodwill” toward Taiwan on Sunday, following a landmark meeting between President Xi Jinping and Taiwan opposition leader Cheng Li-wun . The measures include facilitating the sales of Taiwan’s agricultural and fishery products and investment into mainland China, and promoting the resumption of certain outbound travel to the island, accord...
China announced a series of policy measures to demonstrate “goodwill” toward Taiwan on Sunday, following a landmark meeting between President Xi Jinping and Taiwan opposition leader Cheng Li-wun . The measures include facilitating the sales of Taiwan’s agricultural and fishery products and investment into mainland China, and promoting the resumption of certain outbound travel to the island, according to a statement released by Xinhua News Agency. The steps are aimed at promoting the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, it said. The moves come as Cheng concludes her visit to China, marking the first such trip by a Kuomintang chairperson in nearly a decade. The measures are consistent with Beijing’s broader strategy of engaging Taiwan’s opposition figures, while maintaining pressure on the ruling administration led by Lai Ching-te . China said Sunday it will also explore the establishment of a “regularized communication mechanism” between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party, according to the statement. Taiwan’s government has reiterated that any cross-strait political negotiations require official authorization. Lai, who presides over the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, has said Taiwan is open to exchanges with China but not at the expense of democracy and national interests. Beijing, for its part, has refused to engage directly with Lai and the DPP, which it views as favoring Taiwan independence. This has contributed to a continued freeze in formal cross-strait communication. The latest measures come against the backdrop of long-standing disruptions to people-to-people exchanges, particularly in tourism. Travel between China and Taiwan has been curtailed since 2019 and the Covid-19 pandemic, with Beijing halting most individual travel permits and group tours. Both Taipei and Beijing have traded blame over those disruptions. Taiwan maintains that reopening should proceed in a healthy and orderly manner through official consultation m...
Japan will work closely with Asian countries where essential petroleum-based products including medical equipment are produced, economy minister Ryosei Akazawa said in a Sunday debate program on broadcaster NHK. Many goods are made in Asia and exported to Japan, and so securing the crude oil needed to supply these is critical Japan has amply oil reserves but is facing supply chain bottlenecks Dist...
Japan will work closely with Asian countries where essential petroleum-based products including medical equipment are produced, economy minister Ryosei Akazawa said in a Sunday debate program on broadcaster NHK. Many goods are made in Asia and exported to Japan, and so securing the crude oil needed to supply these is critical Japan has amply oil reserves but is facing supply chain bottlenecks Distribution networks have become more complex, making it more difficult for the government to know where bottlenecks may emerge The authorities are collecting information, using AI tools and other means, to pinpoint constraints and prioritize fixes until the situation stabilizes Japan must brace for a prolonged period of elevated prices, as the cost of oil is unlikely to return to levels of $60-$70 a barrel any time soon Gasoline subsidies will continue for now to cushion consumers, but Japan has no intention of maintaining them indefinitely
In his strongest words yet, Pope Leo on Saturday denounced the “delusion of omnipotence” that is fuelling the US-Israel war on Iran and demanded political leaders stop and negotiate peace. Leo presided over an evening prayer service in St Peter’s Basilica on the same day the US and Iran began face-to-face negotiations in Pakistan and as a fragile ceasefire held. History’s first US-born pope did no...
In his strongest words yet, Pope Leo on Saturday denounced the “delusion of omnipotence” that is fuelling the US-Israel war on Iran and demanded political leaders stop and negotiate peace. Leo presided over an evening prayer service in St Peter’s Basilica on the same day the US and Iran began face-to-face negotiations in Pakistan and as a fragile ceasefire held. History’s first US-born pope did not mention the United States or President Donald Trump in his prayer, which was planned before the...
Chun han/E+ via Getty Images Oil prices soared in March following the onset of the conflict in Iran. The prompt-month contracts of both WTI and Brent crude oil neared $120 per barrel at various times, but later-dated futures didn’t jump quite as much. The market-implied reality is that the war in the Middle East may be short-lived, with the Strait of Hormuz reopening within weeks (maybe months). S...
Chun han/E+ via Getty Images Oil prices soared in March following the onset of the conflict in Iran. The prompt-month contracts of both WTI and Brent crude oil neared $120 per barrel at various times, but later-dated futures didn’t jump quite as much. The market-implied reality is that the war in the Middle East may be short-lived, with the Strait of Hormuz reopening within weeks (maybe months). So, shares of energy services companies might have a narrow window to thrive with near-triple-digit oil prices. Today, I’m downgrading the State Street SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Equip & Serv ETF ( XES ). I had a buy rating on the product back in December of 2024 . Shares are up 40% since then, dividends included, outperforming the S&P 500 by 27 percentage points. With a higher P/E multiple but an improved chart, taking some profits is prudent. XES: Up More Than 100% YoY, Beating the Oil ETF StockCharts.com According to the issuer , XES seeks to provide exposure to the oil and gas equipment and services segment of the S&P Total Market Index, which comprises the Oil & Gas Drilling sub-industry and the Oil & Gas Equipment & Services sub-industry. The fund employs a modified equal-weighted approach, which offers the potential for unconcentrated industry exposure across large-, mid-, and small-cap stocks. XES has grown substantially since my previous analysis. Total assets under management are now $496 million, up from just $223 million in late 2024. The annual expense ratio is low to moderate at 35 basis points, while the trailing 12-month dividend yield is also modest at 1.18%—near that of the S&P 500. Share-price momentum has been stellar this year, earning the product a pristine A+ ETF Grade in that category by Seeking Alpha’s quantitative scoring system. But XES is also highly risky , as evidenced by a weak D- Grade. Its historical realized standard deviation is elevated, while tight concentration on a segment of the Energy sector means the fund’s holdings will largely move in unis...
'I Have A Dream'... Authored by 'no01' via Gold and Geopolitics substack, I have a dream where politicians live next door to you... Not metaphorically. Literally... The man who voted to rezone your street works three doors down. His kids go to the same school as yours. When he raises the local tax rate and the potholes don’t get fixed, he drives over those same potholes every morning. And when the...
'I Have A Dream'... Authored by 'no01' via Gold and Geopolitics substack, I have a dream where politicians live next door to you... Not metaphorically. Literally... The man who voted to rezone your street works three doors down. His kids go to the same school as yours. When he raises the local tax rate and the potholes don’t get fixed, he drives over those same potholes every morning. And when the community has had enough, they let him know. Loudly. Personally. The way humans have held each other accountable for most of history, before we invented the beautiful abstraction of “institutional distance”. I know. It sounds naive. Let me explain why I don’t think it is... We live in an era that treats political monopoly as completely normal while losing its mind over market monopolies. Regulators drag Google into congressional hearings for owning search. They fine Microsoft for bundling browsers. They write entire legislative frameworks to prevent one company from becoming too dominant in any given market because we all understand, instinctively, what monopoly does: it kills accountability, it kills innovation, it raises prices, and it entrenches mediocrity. The monopolist has no reason to improve because you have nowhere else to go. And then we hand the same monopoly structure to the people who control our laws, our taxes, our foreign policy, our money supply, and we call it “democracy”. The irony is immaculate. The European Union is the cleanest example of what happens when you take this logic to its conclusion. The European Commission - the body that actually initiates legislation - is not elected. The Parliament, which is elected, cannot propose laws. It can only approve or reject what the Commission puts in front of it. The commissioners are appointed by national governments, serve five-year terms, and answer to a structure so opaque that most Europeans couldn’t name a single one of them without Googling. This isn’t a flaw in the design. It IS the design. Unaccounta...