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Asia stocks sluggish, plenty of event risk ahead

Asian shares got off to a sluggish start on Monday ahead of a week packed with geopolitical risk, Chinese economic data and earnings reports from major US banks. A holiday in the United States made for thin trading, but at least there was progress on averting an imminent government shutdown as congressional leaders agreed on another stopgap spending bill. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dipped 0.1 per cent after losing 0.8 per cent last week. Japan's Nikkei held steady near 34-year highs, having enjoyed stellar gains of 6.6 per cent last week. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures were both down around 0.1…

China’s relentless quest for growth is a toxic feedback loop of its own making

One cardinal fact governs the world economy today. China produces 31 per cent of global manufactured goods: it accounts for 13 per cent of total consumption. The rest of us must absorb China’s increasing excess capacity. If the country is to meet the Communist Party’s growth target of 5 per cent over the next decade with the current hyper-investment model, it can do so only by eating further into the industrial core of Europe, America and India. Chinese President Xi Jinping. Credit: AP “Other major economies must be willing to reduce investment and manufacturing shares to accommodate China. Needless to say, this is very unlikely,”…

Asia stocks sluggish, plenty of event risk ahead

Asian shares got off to a sluggish start on Monday ahead of a week packed with geopolitical risk, Chinese economic data and earnings reports from major US banks. A holiday in the United States made for thin trading, but at least there was progress on averting an imminent government shutdown as congressional leaders agreed on another stopgap spending bill. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dipped 0.1 per cent after losing 0.8 per cent last week. Japan's Nikkei held steady near 34-year highs, having enjoyed stellar gains of 6.6 per cent last week. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures were both down around 0.1…

RMI Has Fallen Into The Hydrogen For Energy Pit Again

The Rocky Mountain Institute is a respected organization that has done great work since its founding in 1982. Amory Lovins, its founder and long its leader, is a tremendous thought leader who was ahead of his time. He’s been proven right on many things. And he’s been proven wrong on a couple. In 2003 he was strongly supportive of hydrogen as the next major carrier of energy and fuel cell cars as a clear winning solution. For his proposed ultra-efficient Hypercar, he made it clear that in the medium to long-term, hydrogen was the best choice. The complete failure of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and the continued failure of hydrogen…

Brands threw away $6 billion in wasted digital ad spend, Next&Co reports

Digital advertising wastage was up more than 17% on last year’s figures to $6.149 billion in 2023, according to Next&Co’s annual Digital Media Wastage report. The wasted digital advertising spend was the highest on record and represented nearly half (43%) of the $14.1 billion invested in digital advertising nationally this year. The figure is significantly up on last year’s overall ad spend wastage, which hit $5.46 billion, comprising 41% of the overall $13.9 billion spent across the year. The data from the quarterly Digital Media Wastage report represents the billions of advertising dollars that failed to further digital…