Enormous spending on artificial intelligence and the global energy transition are likely to cause inflationary pressures for decades to come, according to the chief executive of global infrastructure money manager IFM Investors . “Inflation is an issue that investors should be a little more worried about, not just because of the spike that we’ve had in energy prices,” David Neal said in a Bloomber...
Enormous spending on artificial intelligence and the global energy transition are likely to cause inflationary pressures for decades to come, according to the chief executive of global infrastructure money manager IFM Investors . “Inflation is an issue that investors should be a little more worried about, not just because of the spike that we’ve had in energy prices,” David Neal said in a Bloomberg TV interview on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Financial and Innovation Symposium in Melbourne on Thursday. While the recent surge in energy prices was a “wake up call,” Neal said there were also other structural pressures at play. There is “the enormous amount of capital that’s getting drawn into things like AI and the energy transition and other things,” he said. “And that is an inflationary pulse in itself, which will go on for decades.” The A$264 billion ($183 billion) investment manager is owned by more than a dozen Australian pension funds — including AustralianSuper , the nation’s largest — along with UK pension fund Nest . About half of its portfolio is invested in infrastructure, including data centers in the US and Switzerland. Four of the biggest US technology companies together have forecast capital expenditures that will reach about $650 billion in 2026 — money that is earmarked for new data centers and all the gear housed within them. The spending is planned by Alphabet Inc. , Amazon.com Inc. , Meta Platforms Inc. and Microsoft Corp. , who are all looking for the edge in the still-nascent market for AI tools. Neal cited “governments running fiscal deficits” as another pressure point. Read More: Picking AI Winners Proves Tougher for Australia’s Pension Funds }
Distressed developer China Vanke Co. has begun reaching out to bondholders about delaying payment on a note due next month, while telling them that it is also weighing a broader restructuring, people familiar with the matter said. Company representatives held meetings last week with selected holders of its yuan bond that matures on April 23, according to the people, who asked not to be identified ...
Distressed developer China Vanke Co. has begun reaching out to bondholders about delaying payment on a note due next month, while telling them that it is also weighing a broader restructuring, people familiar with the matter said. Company representatives held meetings last week with selected holders of its yuan bond that matures on April 23, according to the people, who asked not to be identified as the matter is private. During those talks, Vanke told creditors that it was considering a larger plan that would include longer-term extensions of debt, the people said, in what could be one of China’s biggest-ever restructuring. While Vanke has been working on a debt plan at the request of authorities for months, this was the first time it had disclosed these moves to those selected bondholders. Vanke is one of the few major Chinese property developers to so far avoid default, even as its liquidity has been strained by the country’s yearslong real estate crisis. The company faces more than 11 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) of bond maturities in the coming months, with five onshore notes and two put options that could be exercised before the end of July. Delaying payment on the April 23 bond would allow Vanke to again avoid that fate while awaiting guidance from regulators on the broader restructuring. To secure the extension, Vanke must win the backing of holders of more than 90% of the notes, according to the prospectus. Dates Bond Ticker Principal Amount (Yuan) Maturity Type April 23 VANKE 3.11 04/23/26 2 billion Maturity May 12 VANKE 3.1 05/12/26 2 billion Maturity May 20 VANKE 3.7 05/20/28 566 million Put Option June 15 VANKE 3.07 06/15/26 2 billion Maturity July 7 VANKE 3.07 07/07/26 2 billion Maturity July 24 VANKE 3.1 07/24/26 2 billion Maturity July 26 VANKE 3.49 07/26/28 700 million Put Option Earlier this year, Vanke got bondholder approval to extend three of its other yuan bonds after offering to repay 40% of the principal on the notes. That deal is likely to lo...
Professor Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University has repeatedly warned that the US dollar is approaching a crisis of legitimacy. Having written extensively on the global recession in the late 2000s, Rogoff has turned his focus to the US currency’s increasingly unstable place at the top of the world’s financial hierarchy. A former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and a chess grandma...
Professor Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University has repeatedly warned that the US dollar is approaching a crisis of legitimacy. Having written extensively on the global recession in the late 2000s, Rogoff has turned his focus to the US currency’s increasingly unstable place at the top of the world’s financial hierarchy. A former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and a chess grandmaster, he published Our Dollar, Your Problem in May last year. In this interview, Rogoff elaborates...
matejmo/iStock via Getty Images Key takeaways 1 Fund performance Invesco Rochester® AMT-Free New York Municipal Fund Class A shares at net asset value (NAV) underperformed its style-specific index, the S&P Municipal Bond New York 5+ Year Investment Grade Index. 2 Seeking attractive opportunities through collaborative management Invesco Municipal Bond team uses a collaborative management approach. ...
matejmo/iStock via Getty Images Key takeaways 1 Fund performance Invesco Rochester® AMT-Free New York Municipal Fund Class A shares at net asset value (NAV) underperformed its style-specific index, the S&P Municipal Bond New York 5+ Year Investment Grade Index. 2 Seeking attractive opportunities through collaborative management Invesco Municipal Bond team uses a collaborative management approach. Relying on our size and experience, we seek to identify the best opportunities to achieve potentially better outcomes for shareholders. 3 Analysis focused on creditworthiness Our team uses a bottom-up fundamental credit process focused on creditworthiness of individual issuers with an overlay of macroeconomic factors to capitalize on market inefficiencies. Our process has been time tested over full market cycles. Manager perspective and outlook In the fourth quarter, investment grade, high yield and taxable municipals delivered positive returns of 1.42%, 1.11% and 1.05%, with annual returns of 4.25%, 2.46% and 7.89%, respectively. 1 Despite a lengthy federal government shutdown, long-duration municipal bonds performed well during the quarter, bolstering market strength. 1 New municipal issuance reached $143 billion for the quarter and a record $584 billion for the year, surpassing last year's record $509 billion. Shifting interest rate policies, higher costs and political uncertainty likely encouraged more issuers to come to market. 1 Net flows for municipal mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were strong, totaling approximately $17.5 billion for the quarter and $52.4 billion for the year. 2 The US Federal Reserve (Fed) cut the federal funds rate twice, by 0.25% in October and 0.25% in December. The Fed reiterated its commitment to balancing maximum employment and a 2% inflation target. 3 We believe state and local municipal budgets remain healthy. While credit rating upgrades have moderated, upgrades outpaced downgrades in 2025, demonstrating to us strong fundame...
From mid- to late 2025, shares in Kohl's Corporation (NYSE: KSS) were on a tear. At first, this was due to meme stock-related speculation. Then, it was due to increased bullishness about the discount retailer's ability to successfully pull off a turnaround. But starting in November, at the start of the holiday shopping season, Kohl's rebound began to reverse. After an incredible surge from under $...
From mid- to late 2025, shares in Kohl's Corporation (NYSE: KSS) were on a tear. At first, this was due to meme stock-related speculation. Then, it was due to increased bullishness about the discount retailer's ability to successfully pull off a turnaround. But starting in November, at the start of the holiday shopping season, Kohl's rebound began to reverse. After an incredible surge from under $8.50 per share to $25, the stock has given back most of its gains, falling back to around $12. The latest sell-off occurred two weeks ago, following the company's latest earnings release. The earnings release suggests that the Kohl's turnaround remains a work in progress. Will we see the retailer take more aggressive steps, including a new round of store closures? Let's take a closer look at this consumer discretionary stock and find out. Continue reading
Shares of computer memory and storage products slumped on concerns over demand after Google researchers touted a new compression technique. But it may be a hiccup rather than an existential threat. SK Hynix Inc. , a key maker of memory chips for artificial intelligence applications, fell as much as 6% on the Korea Exchange. Flash memory manufacturer Kioxia Holdings Corp. dropped 4.4% in Tokyo. Tha...
Shares of computer memory and storage products slumped on concerns over demand after Google researchers touted a new compression technique. But it may be a hiccup rather than an existential threat. SK Hynix Inc. , a key maker of memory chips for artificial intelligence applications, fell as much as 6% on the Korea Exchange. Flash memory manufacturer Kioxia Holdings Corp. dropped 4.4% in Tokyo. That followed similar losses by Micron Technology Inc. and Sandisk Corp. Wednesday in New York. The Alphabet Inc. unit said its new TurboQuant technology can reduce memory size for large language models and vector search engines. Bulls tracking the blistering rally in global memory shares, however, say that improved efficiency will increase rather than reduce demand — an old theory known as the Jevons Paradox . The 19th century premise was cited in a note from the trading desk at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Its analysts said that investors may take profits on the news, but there’s no near-term threat to memory consumption. Memory and storage product prices have climbed in recent months amid shortages due to ravenous demand tied to the AI boom. That’s driven exponential moves in related stocks, such as Kioxia’s 700% surge since the end of August. The Google news spurred some caution that demand could be reduced, but some analysts pushed back on this idea saying the opposite is actually true. Jevons Paradox is an English economist’s theory about coal production, stating that the more efficient it becomes, the more the demand will rise. The idea was brought up last year when China’s low-cost DeepSeek AI model sparked fear of reduced demand for advanced technology. The Google development may make “little difference to demand given the extreme supply constraints,” Ortus Advisors analyst Andrew Jackson wrote in a note on Smartkarma. For Kioxia, “after such massive gains it makes sense we see a bit of profit-taking creep in.”
(Bloomberg) -- Shares of computer memory and storage products slumped on concerns over demand after Google researchers touted a new compression technique. But it may be a hiccup rather than an existential threat.SK Hynix Inc., a key maker of memory chips for artificial intelligence applications, fell as much as 6% on the Korea Exchange. Flash memory manufacturer Kioxia Holdings Corp. dropped 4.4% ...
(Bloomberg) -- Shares of computer memory and storage products slumped on concerns over demand after Google researchers touted a new compression technique. But it may be a hiccup rather than an existential threat.SK Hynix Inc., a key maker of memory chips for artificial intelligence applications, fell as much as 6% on the Korea Exchange. Flash memory manufacturer Kioxia Holdings Corp. dropped 4.4% in Tokyo. That followed similar losses by Micron Technology Inc. and Sandisk Corp. Wednesday in New