Rolling coverage of the UK’s new GDP report, and the latest economic and financial news Good morning. We’re about to get a report card on the Labour government’s first calendar year in power. Growth data for the British economy in December, and for the fourth quarter of 2025, will be released at 7am UK time “We can expect to see annual economic growth of about 1.5% in 2025 for the UK economy. It i...
Rolling coverage of the UK’s new GDP report, and the latest economic and financial news Good morning. We’re about to get a report card on the Labour government’s first calendar year in power. Growth data for the British economy in December, and for the fourth quarter of 2025, will be released at 7am UK time “We can expect to see annual economic growth of about 1.5% in 2025 for the UK economy. It is like that activity rebounded in the fourth quarter as a cyber-attack at a major auto manufacturer halted operations, sharply impacting the transport equipment sector in the quarter prior. Looking ahead, we’re more positive on the UK’s growth outlook, with the Autumn budget proving less of a headwind to near-term economic activity than we’d originally anticipated. Notwithstanding, economic growth appears set to soften sequentially in 2026, consistent with the BoE’s still restrictive policy stance and weakening labour market conditions.” 7am GMT: UK GDP report for December and Q4 2025 7am GMT: UK trade report for December 9am GMT: IEA oil market report 1.30pm GMT: US initial jobless claims report Continue reading...
Ambev press release ( ABEV ): Q4 Non-GAAP EPS of R$0.28 in-line. Revenue of R$24.81B (-8.2% Y/Y) beats by R$210M . In 4Q25, consolidated volumes declined by 3.6%. In 4Q25, Normalized EBITDA grew by 1.3%. In 4Q25, cash flow from operating activities declined by 4.8% compared to R$ 13,914.3 million in 4Q24. FY26 outlook: "Looking ahead, we continue to be positive about the beer category. The continu...
Ambev press release ( ABEV ): Q4 Non-GAAP EPS of R$0.28 in-line. Revenue of R$24.81B (-8.2% Y/Y) beats by R$210M . In 4Q25, consolidated volumes declined by 3.6%. In 4Q25, Normalized EBITDA grew by 1.3%. In 4Q25, cash flow from operating activities declined by 4.8% compared to R$ 13,914.3 million in 4Q24. FY26 outlook: "Looking ahead, we continue to be positive about the beer category. The continued strength of our portfolio and the success of our innovations reinforce our confidence that there are meaningful opportunities to grow the category, both by expanding our consumers’ base and the number of occasions where beer is present. We start 2026 with a stronger foundation and we are excited about the opportunity to further connect to our consumers during the FIFA World Cup. While the operating environment may remain dynamic, and assuming current FX and commodity prices, we expect our Cash COGS per hectoliter (“Cash COGS/hl”) in Brazil Beer (excluding non-Ambev marketplace products) to increase between 4.5% and 7.5%,with our average BRL/USD hedge rate for 2026 at 5.50 (+2.4% vs LY)." More on Ambev Ambev: Valuation And Dividend Yield Remain Compelling Despite Near-Term Pressure Ambev: Stable Performance And Great Potential For 2026 Ambev Q4 2025 Earnings Preview Seeking Alpha’s Quant Rating on Ambev Historical earnings data for Ambev
The son and former partner of fugitive Hong Kong tycoon Joseph Lau Luen-hung sold a three-bedroom luxury home in the upscale neighbourhood of Mid-Levels for HK$100 million (US$12.8 million), clearing about HK$40 million after holding the property for nearly two decades, according to official filings. The 1,948 sq ft flat on a high floor at The Albany sold to Dragon Mind International in a deal reg...
The son and former partner of fugitive Hong Kong tycoon Joseph Lau Luen-hung sold a three-bedroom luxury home in the upscale neighbourhood of Mid-Levels for HK$100 million (US$12.8 million), clearing about HK$40 million after holding the property for nearly two decades, according to official filings. The 1,948 sq ft flat on a high floor at The Albany sold to Dragon Mind International in a deal registered on Tuesday, according to Land Registry records and information from agents. The previous...
Gary Yeowell/DigitalVision via Getty Images AECOM ( ACM ), a multinational infrastructure consulting and professional services company, posted its first quarter earnings for 2026. The company beat analyst estimates on top and bottom lines. With this report, I am adding AECOM to my coverage, discussing the earnings and the price target for the stock. AECOM is a Diversified Infrastructure Consulting...
Gary Yeowell/DigitalVision via Getty Images AECOM ( ACM ), a multinational infrastructure consulting and professional services company, posted its first quarter earnings for 2026. The company beat analyst estimates on top and bottom lines. With this report, I am adding AECOM to my coverage, discussing the earnings and the price target for the stock. AECOM is a Diversified Infrastructure Consulting Company AECOM AECOM is a Dallas-based company operating in over 150 countries with around 51,000 employees and annual revenues around $16.1 billion. The company is diversified in several aspects. The first one is the geographic diversification with a strong presence in North America and meaningful exposure in Europe, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. The company is also diversified by the end market, providing services to infrastructure products in transportation, water & wastewater, environmental remediation, buildings, energy and power, and government & defense related infrastructure. This also means that the company has commercial, government, and defense exposure. The final axis of the company’s diversified setup is the services portfolio, providing advisory and planning services, engineering & design, environmental consultancy, program & construction management, and asset optimization. The Opportunities and Risks for AECOM The opportunity for AECOM is expansion of infrastructure. There is structural demand driven by deferred maintenance, climate adaptation, energy transition including grid hardening, urbanization, and aging assets. Infrastructure projects can take years to complete, and in some bad cases, even decades. AECOM, however, is shielded from that as it monetizes the early-cycle work. Furthermore, the company does not actively carry out construction but provides construction management, which shields the company from inflation in construction costs and substantial financial impact from construction delays. The company is not fully shielded, so there is a risk of...
Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare? Welcome to the Thursday quiz, 15 questions designed to see whether you’re the one asking the questions this week, or whether you’ve been happily swaying along to someone else’s melody – or about to be yeeted out of Downing Street like an inept contestant on The Traitors. You will be tested on...
Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare? Welcome to the Thursday quiz, 15 questions designed to see whether you’re the one asking the questions this week, or whether you’ve been happily swaying along to someone else’s melody – or about to be yeeted out of Downing Street like an inept contestant on The Traitors. You will be tested on topical news, general knowledge and pop culture. There are no prizes, but you can let everybody know how you got on in the comments. Allons-y! The Thursday news quiz, No 234 Continue reading...
The Trump administration on Wednesday expressed concern that China was costing Peru its sovereignty after a Peruvian court ruling restricted a local regulator's oversight of a Chinese-built mega port. (Image credit: Guadalupe Pardo)
The Trump administration on Wednesday expressed concern that China was costing Peru its sovereignty after a Peruvian court ruling restricted a local regulator's oversight of a Chinese-built mega port. (Image credit: Guadalupe Pardo)
Maximusnd/iStock via Getty Images We believe frontier markets remain attractive in 2026, supported by resilient fundamentals, high real yields, and ongoing foreign-exchange (FX) adjustments. While the scope for further rate cuts is generally limited following aggressive easing in 2025, select countries - including Egypt, Ghana, Zambia, and Kenya - retain room for additional monetary easing as infl...
Maximusnd/iStock via Getty Images We believe frontier markets remain attractive in 2026, supported by resilient fundamentals, high real yields, and ongoing foreign-exchange (FX) adjustments. While the scope for further rate cuts is generally limited following aggressive easing in 2025, select countries - including Egypt, Ghana, Zambia, and Kenya - retain room for additional monetary easing as inflation moderates and external balances improve. Elsewhere, although the potential for additional easing is more constrained, strong carry, improving fiscal dynamics, and robust external accounts - particularly among commodity exporters - should continue to support investor interest. Despite tighter spreads and more concentrated positioning in a handful of markets, we believe the risk/reward profile remains favorable, with most frontier debt offering meaningful spread pickup over sovereign and developed market peers and systemic risks contained by resilient fundamentals. Below, we show our top exposures, followed by some highlights of our thinking. Source: William Blair, as of December 2025. Beta buckets are based on the team’s qualitative and quantitative analysis. Risk buckets are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not intended as investment advice or as projections of future returns. Overweights/underweights may vary between vehicles. Hard Currency Positions We remain focused on selective hard currency sovereign exposures where improving policy credibility and fiscal discipline support resilient carry and potential spread compression. In Angola, our overweight to hard currency debt is supported by the government’s commitment to fiscal discipline and conservative oil-price assumptions in the 2026 budget. This “belt-tightening” approach signals a prudent approach to managing external vulnerabilities, particularly amid moderating oil revenues. Angola’s consistent budget surpluses and Fitch’s affirmation of its B- rating with a “stable” outlook also give us confid...
Philip Steury/iStock via Getty Images What's on Our Minds For most of the past 15 years, US equities didn't just outperform, they made their outperformance feel inevitable. Many called this "US exceptionalism," but it came to signify not only exceptional earnings growth but also exceptional valuations (which didn't matter), and eventually, exceptional concentration of market returns. Which has inc...
Philip Steury/iStock via Getty Images What's on Our Minds For most of the past 15 years, US equities didn't just outperform, they made their outperformance feel inevitable. Many called this "US exceptionalism," but it came to signify not only exceptional earnings growth but also exceptional valuations (which didn't matter), and eventually, exceptional concentration of market returns. Which has increasingly narrowed to a heavy bet on AI. A whole generation of investors has been weaned on US stock-market exceptionalism. On a rolling three-year basis, the most recent stretch of US outperformance has lasted approximately 193 months, or more than 15 years—more than two-and-a-half times longer than any prior episode. Such investors may assume that the underperformance of US equities in 2025 was an aberration soon to be reversed, but market structure has changed from 15 years ago. While valuations of US and international markets were once similar, the US now trades at nearly twice the multiples of foreign stocks. The valuation gap has widened, in part, due to the rising market values of the largest "AI plays" in the US that represent a larger proportion of the overall market. By year-end 2025, the top 10 US stocks by market capitalization represented roughly 40% of the broad MSCI ACWI Index (which includes both developed and emerging markets), up from about 18% in 2009. Outside the US, however, concentration rose only modestly, with the top 10 members of the MSCI ACWI ex US moving from roughly 10% to 13% of the index's value. That widening gap in valuations and market diversity matters because it changes what US investors are currently pricing in and ultimately betting on. At today's starting point, continued US market leadership increasingly depends on a single premise: that AI will produce an extended expansion of growth and profitability, most of it captured by a select few US companies. But AI isn't a monolithic trade; it's a capital-expenditure regime with two distinc...
The following is an extract from the “Iveco Group 2025 Full Year and Fourth Quarter Results” press release (*) . The complete press release can be accessed by visiting the media section of the Iveco Group corporate website: https://www.ivecogroup.com/media/corporate_press_releases or consulting the accompanying PDF:
The following is an extract from the “Iveco Group 2025 Full Year and Fourth Quarter Results” press release (*) . The complete press release can be accessed by visiting the media section of the Iveco Group corporate website: https://www.ivecogroup.com/media/corporate_press_releases or consulting the accompanying PDF:
(RTTNews) - German conglomerate Siemens AG (SIEGY.PK) reported Thursday lower profit in its first quarter, hurt by the absence of prior year's hefty gain, while revenues and orders increased from last year.
(RTTNews) - German conglomerate Siemens AG (SIEGY.PK) reported Thursday lower profit in its first quarter, hurt by the absence of prior year's hefty gain, while revenues and orders increased from last year.