Japan's Trade Negotiator Cancels US Visit To Finalise Investment Pact

Israel carried out multiple airstrikes on the outskirts of Syria’s capital, Syrian state media said, as efforts to ease tensions between the neighboring countries showed little progress.The strikes Wednesday hit in the vicinity of Al-Kiswah City, south of Damascus, where Israeli drones had earlier killed six Syrian soldiers, the state-run news agency Sana reported.In Tuesday’s attack, soldiers were killed after discovering surveillance equipment. Israeli drones kept the site inaccessible until the next day, when Syrian troops used “appropriate” weapons to enter and recover the bodies, Sana said, citing a government source. Additional Israeli strikes followed.

At least 15 Israeli airstrikes took place Wednesday in different parts of the countryside of Damascus, targeting military sites, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). In the southwestern province of Suwayda, the epicenter of sectarian violence that broke out last month, Israeli helicopters landed, Syria TV reported without providing details.

Israel Defense Forces have not issued a statement on the strikes.

US-mediated talks between Syrian and Israeli officials took place in Paris earlier this month, in an effort to stabilize the region. In July, a flare-up of violence against the Druze — a minority group in Syria that Israel vowed to protect — prompted Israeli strikes on Damascus and Suwayda.

The SOHR group said Wednesday’s airstrikes were nearly 10 kilometers (6 miles) away from the venue of Damascus International Fair, which President Ahmed Al-Sharaa inaugurated on the same day, hoping to attract investment. Representatives of more than 800 local and foreign companies attended the event, which was unaffected by the attacks.Sharaa, a former Al-Qaeda commander whose Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group led the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad in December, is keen to revitalize his country’s economy, which has been devastated by civil war since 2011.

Source: Bloomberg Europe

China’s state oil majors are racing to keep up with the nation’s breakneck energy transition, shifting operations from loss-making gasoline and diesel to alternative fuels and high-end chemicals.Over the past week, both PetroChina Co. and Sinopec have reported first-half earnings blunted by weaker international oil prices and crumbling demand for fossil fuels at home. Their response, according to executives, will be to revamp downstream businesses and extend their reach to more specialized, higher-value products.

Sinopec’s 36% drop in net income was led by a 59% tumble in operating profit at its mainstay refining business and deepening losses at its chemicals unit. PetroChina fared better only because it’s less dependent on those segments, which still saw a combined decline of 19% compared to last year.More broadly, oil processing is among the worst performing industries in China and has lost money over the first seven months of the year, according to government data. The rapid electrification of cars, trucks and trains means demand for traditional transport fuels has almost certainly peaked.

Chinese gasoline consumption will “face quite a lot of pressure” in the second half, PetroChina’s Chief Financial Officer Wang Hua said at an earnings briefing in Hong Kong on Wednesday. He cited electric charging and the use of natural gas as a fuel as key threats to demand.

Chemicals makers, particularly bulk suppliers to industries like plastics, have also struggled this year with overproduction relative to demand. Indeed, the whole downstream sector is now bracing for a sweeping overhaul as the government campaigns against the involutionary pressures burdening the economy.That will put a lot of capacity on the chopping block. Sinopec will speed up the elimination of outdated facilities and control investment in chemicals during the government’s next five-year plan that begins in 2026, President Zhao Dong said at an earnings briefing in Hong Kong last week.

High-end chemicals will be a “critical investment direction” to feed substantial demand growth from aircraft, drones, robotics, batteries and new energy vehicles, Chairman Hou Qijun said at the same briefing.PetroChina’s prescription for the second half also involves turning to more specialized compounds. Those include relatively mundane items like paraffin and lubricants, to low-sulfur marine fuel, carbon fibers and materials that insulate high-voltage cables, according to its earnings report.

Both companies are also leaning into cleaner-burning gas and electric vehicles to loosen oil’s grip on their profits.PetroChina said its liquefied natural gas refueling stations saw volumes rise 59% in the first half. For electric charging stations, the jump was 213%. Growing both will be a focus for the company in the second half, it said. The firm’s proposal to buy its parent’s gas storage businesses for $5.6 billion will only cement its lead in that market.

Sinopec, meanwhile, has worked to become an integrated energy provider in the first half, developing its EV battery networks and ranking No. 1 in the retail LNG market, Chief Financial Officer Shou Donghua told the briefing in Hong Kong.For all of the recalibration downstream, both companies remain firmly committed to upstream growth in line with Beijing’s energy security goals. Offshore driller Cnooc Ltd., the third of China’s oil majors, which also reported earnings this week, has typically led those efforts. In practice, that has meant keeping oil output at least steady while raising gas production.

Indonesian sovereign wealth fund Danantara has signed a $1.42 billion heads of agreement with Chinese company GEM Co. to invest in battery-grade nickel plant.Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., the listed unit of the world’s top steel producer, says China’s efforts to rein in overcapacity will start to show results this half.China’s industrial companies saw their profits fall at a slower pace in July, in a potential sign that efforts to curb overcapacity are starting to ease the strain from aggressive competition among producers.

Source: Bloomberg Europe

South Korea's central bank kept its policy rate unchanged at 2.5% for its second straight meeting despite an uncertain trade environment for the country.The move was also in line with expectations of economists polled by Reuters.

In its previous meeting, the BOK had held rates, citing a need to assess the impact of recent measures aimed at cooling Seoul's housing market.The central bank decision came just days after South Korean President Lee Jae Myung met U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this week, which led to a series of agreements between both sides.These include multibillion-dollar investment pledges from South Korean companies, record $50 billion aviation purchases by Korean Air, and cooperation in areas such as shipbuilding and energy.

Under a July trade deal, Seoul would invest $350 billion in the U.S., including $150 billion for shipbuilding. Seoul then saw its so-called "reciprocal" tariffs for its exports to the U.S lowered to 15% from 25%, including for automobiles.The country had seen net exports power its growth in the April to June period to a better-than-expected showing, with GDP expanding 0.6% quarter over quarter and 0.5% from a year ago.

Exports of goods and services make up about 44% of South Korea's GDP in 2023, according to the latest figures from the World Bank, with the U.S. as its second-largest export market, after China.A note by Bank of America analysts said that with "easing trade headwinds," the BOK is expected to revise its GDP growth projection to around 1.0% for 2025, up from 0.8% previously.

The analysts forecast that the BOK would be open to cutting its policy rates in the next three months, with a possible rate cut in October.They also expected another cut in the first half of 2026 to keep rates stable at 2%.Inflation in South Korea, however, seems supportive of a rate cut, coming at 2.1% in July and just above the BOK's target of 2%.

— This is breaking news, please check back for updates.

Source: CNBC

The dollar started Thursday on the back foot as traders added to bets for a Federal Reserve interest rate reduction next month after New York Fed chief John Williams signaled a cut was possible.

The U.S. currency has also come under renewed pressure from President Donald Trump's ramped-up campaign to exert more influence over monetary policy decisions, as he attempts to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook and replace her with a loyalist.

The dollar weakened against the euro even as France's prime minister unexpectedly called a confidence vote for next month, which is likely to result in the fall of his minority government.

The dollar index, which gauges the currency against six major peers, was steady at 98.135, following two days of declines.

The euro added 0.07% to $1.1646, and sterling edged up 0.03% to $1.3504.

The dollar slipped 0.11% to 0.8017 Swiss franc, although it ticked up 0.05% to 147.47 yen.

Kyodo News reported Japan's chief trade negotiator Ryosei Akazawa had canceled a trip to Washington, which ostensibly was aimed at ironing out details of Japanese investment in the United States as part of its tariff deal.

The government said the reason was that administrative matters still needed to be confirmed, according to the report. Akazawa was due to have boarded a flight on Thursday.

On the U.S. monetary front, the Fed's Williams said in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday that "every meeting is, from my perspective, live."

"Risks are more in balance," he said. "We are going to just have to see how the data play out."

Key among data releases ahead of the Fed's September 16-17 policy meeting is the PCE price index on Friday - the Fed's preferred inflation measure - and the monthly payrolls report a week later.

Traders currently lay around 84% odds of a quarter-point rate cut next month, and have priced in a cumulative 56 basis points of easing by year-end.

That helped send two-year Treasury yields, which are extremely sensitive to policy expectations, sliding to the lowest since May 1 overnight, adding to pressure on the dollar.

President Trump's push to add hand-picked dovish-leaning candidates into the central bank's decision-making committee also pulled short-term yields lower, even though his attack on Governor Cook could spark a protracted legal battle after she sued to keep her job.

Source: Yahoo Finance

reported second-quarter fiscal 2026 results for the period ended July 28, 2025, delivering record total revenue of $46.7 billion, a 56% year-over-year increase in data center revenue, and a 98% year-over-year jump in networking revenue to $7.3 billion. Management emphasized rapid adoption of Blackwell and Blackwell Ultra platforms, a robust product cadence, and a path toward $600 billion in annualized AI infrastructure investment for calendar year 2025. The following insights highlight transformative product cycles, platform leadership, and evolving regulatory and commercial risks shaping the long-term investment case.

Blackwell platform accelerates NVIDIA growth

Sequential growth in the GB200 and GB300 platforms was driven by major customers such as OpenAI, Meta, and Mistral deploying the architecture at data center scale. Factory throughput reached approximately 1,000 GB300 racks per week, with production expected to accelerate as additional capacity comes online.

"We began production shipments of GB300 in Q2. Our full stack AI solutions for cloud service providers, Neo Clouds, enterprises, and sovereigns are all contributing to our growth. We are at the beginning of an industrial revolution that will transform every industry. We see $3 to $4 trillion in AI infrastructure spend by the end of the decade."-- Colette Kress, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

This rapid manufacturing scale and full-stack AI integration reinforce NVIDIA’s central role in the global AI infrastructure build-out, supporting both near- and long-term demand for its compute and networking technologies.

NVIDIA ecosystem drives competitive advantage

NVIDIA’s platform is adopted across all major cloud providers, edge, and robotics, leveraging a unified CUDA programming model and supporting rapid industry-wide innovation. The company’s approach contrasts with application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) competitors, which often lack the flexibility and integration required for evolving AI model architectures.

"One of the advantages that we have is that NVIDIA is available in every cloud. We are available from every computer company. We are available from the cloud to on-prem to edge to robotics. On the same programming model. And so it is sensible that every framework in the world supports NVIDIA. When you are building a new model architecture, releasing it on NVIDIA's most sensible. And so the diversity of our platform both in the ability to evolve into any architecture, the fact that we are everywhere, and, also, we accelerate the entire pipeline."-- Jensen Huang, President and Chief Executive Officer

NVIDIA’s entrenched position in global compute supply chains and its ecosystem-driven approach uniquely position it to outpace single-purpose competitors, supporting durable margins and customer stickiness as AI model complexity and infrastructure scale accelerate over time.

China market presents risk and opportunity

China revenue was a low single-digit percentage of data center sales, and $650 million in H20 was shipped to an unrestricted non-China customer. Management estimated an unrealized China opportunity worth over $50 billion in 2025, growing roughly 50% annually, intensifying the strategic imperative to access this market despite U.S. government export controls.

"The China market, I have estimated to be above $50 billion of opportunity for us this year. If we were able to address it, with competitive products and if it is $50 billion this year, you would expect it to grow say, 50% per year. As the rest of the world's AI market is growing as well. It is the second-largest computing market in the world, and it is also the home of AI researchers. About 50% of the world's AI researchers are in China. The vast majority of the leading open-source models are created in China."-- Jensen Huang, President and Chief Executive Officer

Ongoing regulatory hurdles present material uncertainty for NVIDIA’s largest unrealized market, with potential approval of next-generation Blackwell or H20 platforms in China representing a significant future revenue driver but also exposing the company to ongoing geopolitical volatility and regulatory risk.

Looking Ahead

Management issued revenue guidance of $54 billion plus or minus 2%, excluding any H20 shipments to China, and forecasts gross margins of 73.3% GAAP and 73.5% non-GAAP, plus or minus 50 basis points. Capital spending among the top four hyperscalers doubled over two years to $600 billion annually, and NVIDIA expects annual operating expenses to grow in the high 30s percentage range year-over-year, reflecting accelerated investment in new platforms and the Rubin ramp-up. No explicit approval or timeline for resumed large-scale China shipments was disclosed, and all forward-looking guidance excludes uncertain China contributions.

Source: The Motley Fool

Source: CNBC