Hong Kong recorded a 13 per cent surge in visitors from mainland China during the Lunar New Year holiday, with the influx boosting jewellery sales by 10 per cent during the period despite a sharp rise in gold prices. Industry representatives said on Sunday that festive business had outperformed last year’s, though the recovery remained uneven across sectors and not always directly tied to the surg...
Hong Kong recorded a 13 per cent surge in visitors from mainland China during the Lunar New Year holiday, with the influx boosting jewellery sales by 10 per cent during the period despite a sharp rise in gold prices. Industry representatives said on Sunday that festive business had outperformed last year’s, though the recovery remained uneven across sectors and not always directly tied to the surge in mainland visitors. Immigration figures showed 1.02 million mainlanders visited the city between...
A man has reported the loss of Pokemon trading cards worth about HK$8,000 (US$1,023) after a burglary at a shop in Hong Kong – the second reported criminal case involving the collectors’ items in two months. Police said they received a report at about 2.50am on Sunday from a 25-year-old man that the 1,000 sq ft shop in Chung Mei Centre on Hing Yip Street, Kwun Tong, had been ransacked. He also fou...
A man has reported the loss of Pokemon trading cards worth about HK$8,000 (US$1,023) after a burglary at a shop in Hong Kong – the second reported criminal case involving the collectors’ items in two months. Police said they received a report at about 2.50am on Sunday from a 25-year-old man that the 1,000 sq ft shop in Chung Mei Centre on Hing Yip Street, Kwun Tong, had been ransacked. He also found that more than 10 security cameras had been sprayed with red paint. An initial count indicated...
Friedrich Merz to meet Xi Jinping in Beijing as China overtakes US as country’s leading export destination China has overtaken the US as Germany’s top trading partner, figures have shown, as the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, prepares for his first visit to Beijing since taking office. Merz will head to China on Tuesday and will be welcomed with military honours on Wednesday in Beijing by the prime m...
Friedrich Merz to meet Xi Jinping in Beijing as China overtakes US as country’s leading export destination China has overtaken the US as Germany’s top trading partner, figures have shown, as the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, prepares for his first visit to Beijing since taking office. Merz will head to China on Tuesday and will be welcomed with military honours on Wednesday in Beijing by the prime minister, Li Qiang, before later meeting the president, Xi Jinping, for talks over dinner, his spokesperson, Sebastian Hille, said. Continue reading...
Grupa Azoty SA seeks to settle just about 17% of debt taken to build the biggest propylene and polypropylene complex in central and eastern Europe. Poland’s state-controlled fertilizer manufacturer said in a statement it has filed a restructuring plan, asking creditors to agree to a substantial debt writedown on the 6.1 billion zloty ($1.7 billion) in liabilities of its Polyolefins SA unit. The pr...
Grupa Azoty SA seeks to settle just about 17% of debt taken to build the biggest propylene and polypropylene complex in central and eastern Europe. Poland’s state-controlled fertilizer manufacturer said in a statement it has filed a restructuring plan, asking creditors to agree to a substantial debt writedown on the 6.1 billion zloty ($1.7 billion) in liabilities of its Polyolefins SA unit. The proposal aims to clear the way for the sale of the troubled plant to Orlen SA , following a 1.02 billion-zloty offer from the country’s energy giant last year. The facility, designed to diversify Azoty’s portfolio into plastics used in packaging and automotive industries, has been beset by overspending and a legal standoff with its contractor and part-owner Hyundai Engineering Co. Ltd . The investment hasn’t been fully completed and still operates with a limited capacity. “The plan is fundamental to the company’s future operations, as it will allow us to stabilize our financial standing, achieve necessary debt relief, and fully prepare the unit for the transaction with Orlen,” Malgorzata Krolak, head of Polyolefins unit said in an email. “Without debt restructuring, completing the transaction with the investor is impossible.” Struggling with net debt reaching 4.3 billion zloty Azoty has spent two years negotiating the potential deal with group of lenders including Bank Pekao SA and the European Investment Bank . High prices of natural gas as well as fierce fertilizer competition from neighboring Russia and Belarus added to the challenges. Beyond the disposal of its 65% stake in Polyolefins, Azoty aims to secure 600 million zloty via a share sale to the State Treasury to bolster its balance sheet after three consecutive years of losses.
We're now 13 months into Donald Trump's second presidential term. To say that it's been a wild ride so far is an understatement. The president's immigration and trade policies have been at the forefront. However, his administration has taken action on multiple other priorities. What has President Trump done about Social Security so far? Here are four things you should know. President Trump at Whit...
We're now 13 months into Donald Trump's second presidential term. To say that it's been a wild ride so far is an understatement. The president's immigration and trade policies have been at the forefront. However, his administration has taken action on multiple other priorities. What has President Trump done about Social Security so far? Here are four things you should know. President Trump at White House podium. Official White House Photo by D. Myles Cullen. Continue reading
Listen on the go! A daily podcast of Wall Street Breakfast will be available by 8:00 a.m. on Seeking Alpha , iTunes , Spotify . Douglas Rissing/iStock via Getty Images Seeking Alpha News Quiz Up for a challenge? Test your knowledge on the biggest events in the investing world over the past week. Take the latest Seeking Alpha News Quiz and see how you stack up against the competition. Nvidia ( NVDA...
Listen on the go! A daily podcast of Wall Street Breakfast will be available by 8:00 a.m. on Seeking Alpha , iTunes , Spotify . Douglas Rissing/iStock via Getty Images Seeking Alpha News Quiz Up for a challenge? Test your knowledge on the biggest events in the investing world over the past week. Take the latest Seeking Alpha News Quiz and see how you stack up against the competition. Nvidia ( NVDA ) earnings will be the highlight of the coming week as concerns about capex spending for megacaps grow. But analysts are bullish going into the print with 36 upward EPS revisions and just one downward revision. Salesforce ( CRM ), Intuit ( INTU ), and Zoom Communications ( ZM ) also report earnings this week. On the economic front, February consumer confidence figures are due Tuesday, while Friday brings wholesale inflation numbers for January and the February Chicago PMI. Analysts and investors will also be busy resetting expectations on nearly every sector after the Supreme Court ruling on President Trump's sweeping tariff policies. Earnings spotlight: Monday, February 23: Dominion Energy ( D ). See the full earnings calendar . Earnings spotlight: Tuesday, February 24: Home Depot ( HD ), HP Inc. ( HPQ ). See the full earnings calendar . Earnings spotlight: Wednesday, February 25: Salesforce, Nvidia, Zoom Communications. See the full earnings calendar . Earnings spotlight: Thursday, February 26: Intuit, Baidu ( BIDU ). See the full earnings calendar . Earnings spotlight: Saturday, February 28: Berkshire Hathaway ( BRK.A ) ( BRK.B ). See the full earnings calendar . Insider Watch Check out the week's top insider trades , highlighting significant purchases and sales by investors, directors, and executives. Notable transactions took place at Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Disney ( DIS ). Seeking Alpha Analysis To Watch In The Week Ahead Nvidia Q4: Why Even A Record 'Beat' Could Sink The Stock Hims & Hers Health: 5 Key Questions Ahead Of Critical Q4 Earnings Salesforce: The Most Impo...
Soho Theatre Walthamstow, London She draws us in with bursts of manic physical expression and never stops poking fun at her own quirks and compulsions ‘Why did Americans decide to elect a dictator for a second time?” a freshly post-somersaulted Maria Bamford asks her audience. One word: money. In her new show, soon to embark on a tour around North America, she digs into the seductions, benefits an...
Soho Theatre Walthamstow, London She draws us in with bursts of manic physical expression and never stops poking fun at her own quirks and compulsions ‘Why did Americans decide to elect a dictator for a second time?” a freshly post-somersaulted Maria Bamford asks her audience. One word: money. In her new show, soon to embark on a tour around North America, she digs into the seductions, benefits and complications of cash for herself, her friends and the anxious culture that surrounds them. Despite inheriting what she calls “generational wealth” after the early deaths of both her parents, longtime presences in her act, Bamford still approaches the world with a fundamentally economic mindset. That’s the idea on paper. In practice, Bamford has never been one for clean narrative arcs. Instead, she draws us in with bursts of manic physical expression: she runs in tiptoed circles before dropping fully outstretched to the floor, all while holding the mic. Bamford is a comedian in complete command of every joke, every step. Continue reading...
You may have heard that building multiple streams of income increases your financial flexibility and security. For most people, their jobs are their primary source of income. Some also generate passive income through real estate or other types of investments. One of the best alternatives to real estate is to invest in stocks that pay attractive dividends. Here are three high-yield dividend stocks ...
You may have heard that building multiple streams of income increases your financial flexibility and security. For most people, their jobs are their primary source of income. Some also generate passive income through real estate or other types of investments. One of the best alternatives to real estate is to invest in stocks that pay attractive dividends. Here are three high-yield dividend stocks to power your income stream in 2026. Image source: Getty Images. Continue reading
Colab Tower, London Get lucky with your arrival time in this expansion of Aeschylus’s Oresteia and you’ll witness a fight or a sacrifice – but there are long dull patches Egg yolk is being mixed up to make gold paint when I arrive at Ritual, an eight-hour-long performance installation in a windowless basement posing as a Mycenaean palace. I’ve just missed Orestes (a committed Charlie MacRae-Tod, i...
Colab Tower, London Get lucky with your arrival time in this expansion of Aeschylus’s Oresteia and you’ll witness a fight or a sacrifice – but there are long dull patches Egg yolk is being mixed up to make gold paint when I arrive at Ritual, an eight-hour-long performance installation in a windowless basement posing as a Mycenaean palace. I’ve just missed Orestes (a committed Charlie MacRae-Tod, in a hoodie and three-stripe trackies) fighting off a janitor with a knife, an audience member whispers to me, before being sternly shushed. Chastened, we return to watching paint dry. In this ambitious but under-resourced production from immersive company Witness, first performed in New York, this former prince is in exile, waiting for communication from the gods before taking revenge for the murder of his father. For as long or as little as we like, we are invited to wait with him. Continue reading...
JuSun/iStock via Getty Images Introduction & Investment Thesis Just when we thought that the cybersecurity industry, measured by the Global X Cybersecurity ETF ( BUG ), was better positioned than generic Enterprise SaaS companies in the Agentic AI era, the whole industry was hit by a rock when Anthropic ( ANTHRO ) announced Claude Code Security yesterday, sending the ETF down 5% as well as several...
JuSun/iStock via Getty Images Introduction & Investment Thesis Just when we thought that the cybersecurity industry, measured by the Global X Cybersecurity ETF ( BUG ), was better positioned than generic Enterprise SaaS companies in the Agentic AI era, the whole industry was hit by a rock when Anthropic ( ANTHRO ) announced Claude Code Security yesterday, sending the ETF down 5% as well as several stocks within that dropped even lower, such as CrowdStrike ( CRWD ), Cloudflare ( NET ), Rubrik ( RBRK ), and Zscaler ( ZS ). Since the start of 2026, the entire software space has been in turmoil. It started with Anthropic launching Cowork and a set of specialized plugins to automate organizational tasks and OpenAI ( OPENAI ) launching its Frontier, which is positioned to become the AI operating system for agentic AI, thus redefining the entire software tech stack and challenging the predictable “seat-based” pricing model of SaaS businesses. While cybersecurity businesses have also been dragged lower in this SaaSpocalypse meltdown, I had claimed earlier that the fears were misplaced, as cybersecurity companies should see demand for their solutions steepen as agentic AI exponentially expands the attack surface area. However, with the launch of Claude Code Security, investors are suddenly worried that demand for cybersecurity solutions from CrowdStrike, Cloudflare, Zscaler, and Rubrik will fall off a cliff if vulnerabilities can be addressed at the application codebase. But that is not how it works. “It’s like saying your apartment has a smoke detector, so cities don’t need fire departments.. the smoke detector beeps but you still need the fire department to put out the fire and save the building,” as Shay Boloor from Futurum Equities pointed out . What is also important to note is that cybersecurity is not a standalone solution but a full-stack solution, with companies like Palo Alto Networks ( PANW ) and CrowdStrike increasingly benefitting from vendor consolidation, whil...
Defence minister rebuffs US president’s claim that Arctic islanders are ‘not being taken care of’ Greenland does not need medical assistance from other countries, Denmark has said, after Donald Trump said he was sending a hospital ship to the autonomous Danish territory that he wants to acquire. “The Greenlandic population receives the healthcare it needs. They receive it either in Greenland, or, ...
Defence minister rebuffs US president’s claim that Arctic islanders are ‘not being taken care of’ Greenland does not need medical assistance from other countries, Denmark has said, after Donald Trump said he was sending a hospital ship to the autonomous Danish territory that he wants to acquire. “The Greenlandic population receives the healthcare it needs. They receive it either in Greenland, or, if they require specialised treatment, they receive it in Denmark. So it’s not as if there’s a need for a special healthcare initiative in Greenland,” the country’s defence minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, told the Danish broadcaster DR on Sunday. Continue reading...
Some lucky Hong Kong fans of K-pop star G Dragon pocketed at least HK$320 (US$41) from the record HK$200 million Lunar New Year Mark Six draw after they chose lottery numbers he suggested. G Dragon fans took to social media to share news of their earnings after the winning numbers were announced on Saturday. During a fan meeting earlier this month in Seoul, the star was asked by a South Korean fan...
Some lucky Hong Kong fans of K-pop star G Dragon pocketed at least HK$320 (US$41) from the record HK$200 million Lunar New Year Mark Six draw after they chose lottery numbers he suggested. G Dragon fans took to social media to share news of their earnings after the winning numbers were announced on Saturday. During a fan meeting earlier this month in Seoul, the star was asked by a South Korean fan to name some lucky lottery numbers. After glancing at a countdown timer for the segment at the...
Nvidia chips for laptop computers are set to hit the market this year in products from Dell, Lenovo and others, a return to the consumer PC market for the leader in artificial-intelligence chips. The world’s most valuable company by market capitalization, Nvidia isn’t expecting big profit soon from getting its chips into everyday PCs, but analysts said it wanted to keep a connection with consumers...
Nvidia chips for laptop computers are set to hit the market this year in products from Dell, Lenovo and others, a return to the consumer PC market for the leader in artificial-intelligence chips. The world’s most valuable company by market capitalization, Nvidia isn’t expecting big profit soon from getting its chips into everyday PCs, but analysts said it wanted to keep a connection with consumers in an era when every device will be AI-enabled. Nvidia and its partners hope to make PCs lighter and thinner while keeping long battery life.
After a three-year love affair with anything related to artificial intelligence, U.S. investors are flocking to the factory owners, fast-food restaurants and commodity companies that have seemingly strong odds of surviving the technological revolution intact. The winners include McDonald’s Exxon Mobil and tractor maker Deere Left behind are the perceived potential victims of the AI revolution, a l...
After a three-year love affair with anything related to artificial intelligence, U.S. investors are flocking to the factory owners, fast-food restaurants and commodity companies that have seemingly strong odds of surviving the technological revolution intact. The winners include McDonald’s Exxon Mobil and tractor maker Deere Left behind are the perceived potential victims of the AI revolution, a list that has ranged from wealth managers to software firms. In the past month, the S&P 500 sectors for industrials, materials, utilities and consumer staples have surged ahead of the overall index, while information technology has slid and the Magnificent Seven tech giants— Alphabet Amazon Apple Meta Microsoft Nvidia and Tesla —have languished.
Getty Images Investment Thesis Friday’s Supreme Court ruling invalidated the current US administration’s global trade tariff policy framework introduced last year. The immediate list of beneficiaries are companies whose supply chains reside in ex-US locations, especially locations like China, India, and Vietnam. For most of last year, the US had levied >20% tariffs on companies importing component...
Getty Images Investment Thesis Friday’s Supreme Court ruling invalidated the current US administration’s global trade tariff policy framework introduced last year. The immediate list of beneficiaries are companies whose supply chains reside in ex-US locations, especially locations like China, India, and Vietnam. For most of last year, the US had levied >20% tariffs on companies importing components and materials from these Asian locations, which would eventually add up to the COGS line item in American companies' balance sheets. The Supreme Court’s ruling invalidates this tariff framework, potentially providing some relief, although the Trump administration has already announced a new 15% tariff regime, which will create confusion about how to now price in tariff headwinds. For Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ), these tariff whipsaws should not matter at all. Apple has reported outstanding growth in its profitability so far, surpassing an accelerating top-line growth obliterating previously revealed $3B tariff headwinds. The Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate US tariffs is obviously good, but there will be confusion about how this plays out. But my analysis shows that despite these tariff whipsaws, Apple will be a winning stock. I reiterate my bullishness on Apple’s shares. Apple Margins Muscle Will Flex Through Tariff Confusion Apple’s iPhone 17 has been received extremely well in the smartphone market worldwide, including in geographies like China, where sales jumped 38% y/y to $25.5B. Compared to China, Apple’s overall iPhone sales grew 23%, the fastest they've ever grown since 2022. Even in the North American market, Apple’s iPhones were a smash hit, with iPhone sales accelerating to 11.2% y/y growth, $58.5B in revenues, compared to the 4-6% growth Apple’s North American market had been delivering through most of CY25. This is what I explained in my previous post on Apple, where it noted strong market share gains by Apple in the smartphone market. It’s not the growth ac...
Getty Images Investment Thesis Friday’s Supreme Court ruling invalidated the current US administration’s global trade tariff policy framework introduced last year. The immediate list of beneficiaries are companies whose supply chains reside in ex-US locations, especially locations like China, India, and Vietnam. For most of last year, the US had levied >20% tariffs on companies importing component...
Getty Images Investment Thesis Friday’s Supreme Court ruling invalidated the current US administration’s global trade tariff policy framework introduced last year. The immediate list of beneficiaries are companies whose supply chains reside in ex-US locations, especially locations like China, India, and Vietnam. For most of last year, the US had levied >20% tariffs on companies importing components and materials from these Asian locations, which would eventually add up to the COGS line item in American companies' balance sheets. The Supreme Court’s ruling invalidates this tariff framework, potentially providing some relief, although the Trump administration has already announced a new 15% tariff regime, which will create confusion about how to now price in tariff headwinds. For Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ), these tariff whipsaws should not matter at all. Apple has reported outstanding growth in its profitability so far, surpassing an accelerating top-line growth obliterating previously revealed $3B tariff headwinds. The Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate US tariffs is obviously good, but there will be confusion about how this plays out. But my analysis shows that despite these tariff whipsaws, Apple will be a winning stock. I reiterate my bullishness on Apple’s shares. Apple Margins Muscle Will Flex Through Tariff Confusion Apple’s iPhone 17 has been received extremely well in the smartphone market worldwide, including in geographies like China, where sales jumped 38% y/y to $25.5B. Compared to China, Apple’s overall iPhone sales grew 23%, the fastest they've ever grown since 2022. Even in the North American market, Apple’s iPhones were a smash hit, with iPhone sales accelerating to 11.2% y/y growth, $58.5B in revenues, compared to the 4-6% growth Apple’s North American market had been delivering through most of CY25. This is what I explained in my previous post on Apple, where it noted strong market share gains by Apple in the smartphone market. It’s not the growth ac...