Investors are watching as the world’s two largest economies dance around a trade war.

Tensions appeared to ease Thursday as Beijing held off retaliating against additional tariffs of $200 billion on Chinese imports proposed this week by President Donald Trump. Stocks rallied, with the S&P 500 Index closing at its highest since February…

How the Trade War Affects Investors

Apple Inc., expanding its environmental efforts, announced a $300 million fund to promote clean energy in China.

The iPhone maker said it’s creating the fund to boost the use of renewable energy in its supply chain, which is primarily spread across regions in China. The company and 10 of its key suppliers and manufacturing partners, including Corning Inc., Pegatron Corp., Wistron Corp. and Luxshare Precision Industry Co., will contribute to the fund over the next four years, the Cupertino, California-based company said Thursday in a statement…

Apple Announces $300 Million China Clean Energy Fund

Johnson & Johnson was ordered by a jury to pay $4.69 billion to women who claimed asbestos in the company’s talc products caused them to develop ovarian cancer, marking the sixth-largest product-defect verdict in U.S. history.

The award of $4.14 billion in punitive damages on top of the $550 million meant to compensate each of 22 women and their families for their losses sent the company’s shares down by as much as 1.4 percent in after-hours trading…

Not everyone is losing faith in the yen as a haven.

While the Japanese currency is the worst performer this month among its Group-of-10 peers, Russell Investments is bucking the trend. The asset manager, which oversees $300 billion, has upped the level of yen assets it holds compared to Treasuries, with the currency hitting the lowest level against the dollar since January…

For Mark Mobius, there may be worse to come even after the U.S. fired new shots in its trade war with China: a further 10 percent drop in emerging-market stocks and a global financial crisis.

“There’s no question we’ll see a financial crisis sooner or later because we must remember we’re coming off from a period of cheap money,” the veteran investor in developing nations said in an interview in Singapore. “There’s going to be a real squeeze for many of these companies that depended upon cheap money to keep on going.”…

With the Federal Reserve driving up dollar borrowing costs and China’s deleveraging campaign stoking fears of default among fixed-income investors, Chinese debtors are increasingly turning to the loan market for funding.

Chinese companies have some $76 billion of dollar bonds to repay in the coming year, and face the both higher yields and a weaker exchange rate, thanks in part to U.S.-China trade tensions that brought an end to five straight quarters of gains for the yuan. High-yield issuers are especially vulnerable, with authorities recently looking at cracking down on a loophole that let them sell dollar debt with less than one-year maturity without pre-approval…

If the end of easy money, a trade war and myriad geopolitical dangers weren’t enough, a U.S. yield curve poised to invert is adding to the risks for investors. But there’s one asset class that’s less of a worry: emerging markets.

Every time the yield curve has flipped in the past three decades, sending shorter-term interest rates above longer-term ones, the U.S. economy has entered a recession within 12 to 24 months. While that correlation makes the inverted curve a risk-off signal, it’s been a different story with emerging-market assets…

Comcast Corp. increased its takeover bid for Sky Plc to $34 billion, topping an offer from Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox Inc. and escalating a global standoff between the media giants.

Comcast, the largest U.S. cable company, is now offering 14.75 pounds a share for Sky, valuing Britain’s top pay-TV provider at 26 billion pounds, according to a statement Wednesday. That’s 5.4 percent above a 14 pound-a-share proposal from Fox, which already owns a stake in the European broadcaster. Fox acknowledged the increased bid in a statement late Wednesday…

This year’s cryptocurrency sell-off has done nothing to dent the optimism of Fundstrat Global Advisors head of research Thomas Lee. Already one of Wall Street’s most outspoken Bitcoin bulls, Lee is sticking with his year-end forecast of $25,000, more than 270 percent above current levels. The rosy outlook is based on Bitcoin historically trading at 2.5 times its mining cost, which will rise to $9,000 by year end, he said during an interview in Taipei. Lee has at times been overly enthusiastic: his December call for the digital currency to reach $20,000 by mid-2018 missed the mark by about $14,000…

With interest rates on the rise, exchange-traded fund investors are increasingly embracing risk, pulling cash out of defensive utilities and piling into more volatile financials.

Traders yanked almost $330 million from the Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund, or XLU, Monday after three straight weeks of inflows. Meanwhile, the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund, known as XLF, saw $368 million of inflows after four consecutive weeks of outflows…

ETF Investors Pick Riskier Financials Over the Safety of Utilities

Convene, a New York-based real estate startup that specializes in flexible meeting and working space, has raised $152 million from investors including Revolution Growth, Brookfield Property Partners LP and the Durst Organization, its co-founders said.

The Series D round values the company at more than $500 million, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be named. Revolution, RXR Realty, David Rubenstein’s Declaration Capital and QuadReal Property Group are among the company’s new investors, while existing investor ArrowMark Partners led the round and was joined by other earlier Convene investors including Brookfield, Durst, Conversion Venture Capital LLC and Elysium Management. BlackRock Inc. is another returning investor, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Edward Sweeney, a BlackRock spokesman, declined to comment…

Republicans remain eager to gut the Affordable Care Act, but some health plans say there’s no time like the present to be in the Obamacare business.

Rising premiums in the marketplaces created by the health law are enticing insurers, who are looking past the political turbulence and a curveball this weekend from the Trump administration. More than a dozen insurers plan to enter new Obamacare markets for 2019, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation…

Startups Lead a New Rush Into Obamacare’s Now-Profitable Markets

Investors pulled a total of about $580 million from Bill Gross’s bond fund in the first half of this year and he turned in the worst performance among his peers during the period.

June marked the fourth straight month of withdrawals for Gross’s Janus Henderson Global Unconstrained Bond Fund and the outflows dragged assets down to $1.48 billion, according to Bloomberg estimates. The go-anywhere fund declined 6.3 percent this year through June…

Bill Gross’s Slumping Fund Sees $580 Million of Outflows This Year

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan named his son-in-law as economy czar in a new administration and removed the last member of an investor-friendly financial team that’s been gradually pushed to the sidelines. The lira plunged the most since a failed coup in 2016.

Berat Albayrak, a former energy minister who entered parliament for the first time in 2015, will be in charge of a new ministry of treasury and finance, combining what used to be the two most powerful economic jobs. He’ll replace Mehmet Simsek as holder of the most senior economy portfolio…

If a U.S. or global recession is looming, it’s time to own the Swiss franc, Singapore dollar, U.S. dollar and Japanese yen — and ditch emerging market currencies, according to analysts from JPMorgan Chase & Co.

“Recessions are when creditors get to ask for their money back,” analysts including Paul Meggyesi said in a note dated July 6. “Three of the top four currencies to own during a recession are those of countries that boast extremely strong external positions.”…

When Japan’s Denso Corp. issued 40 billion yen ($362 million) of bonds in a recent offering, its underwriters said the notes sold out. Investors weren’t so sure that was true.

That’s a reflection of a peculiar practice in Japan: underwriters keep it to themselves who the investors buying bonds are, unlike in the U.S. and Europe, where managers usually share information about the bidders. In Japan, if a sale doesn’t attract enough demand, bankers can keep the unsold portion themselves but still declare that everything was sold…

SIX, the owner of Switzerland’s securities exchange in Zurich, is creating platform for trading digital assets, boosting a nascent industry that some countries are trying to suffocate. The new platform will offer a “fully integrated, end-to-end trading, settlement and custody service,” the world’s first to do so, the bourse said in a statement Friday. The parent exchange, regulated by Finma and the Swiss National Bank, intends that the new SIX Digital Exchange will enjoy the same standard of oversight and regulation.

Investment bankers in Hong Kong are catching biotech fever.

At least seven senior bankers and analysts from top-tier securities firms have quit to join biotechnology companies in the city since December, responding to the industry’s growing demand for financial expertise after rule changes at Hong Kong’s stock exchange smoothed the path for biotech initial public offerings…

Bankers Quit Goldman, Citigroup for Biotech Riches in Hong Kong

Britain’s financial-services industry is battling a drop in foreign investment while some of its European counterparts enjoy big gains, according to a new study that displays the starkest indication yet of Brexit’s impact on the sector.

Investment in Britain’s financial-services firms from abroad fell 26 percent last year, EY said in a report released Monday. During the same period, Germany experienced a 64 percent increase, while the figure for France more than doubled. London remains the most attractive EU city for investment in financial services, but the gap with Paris, Frankfurt and Dublin is narrowing, EY said…

The pace of wage gains in Japan is accelerating markedly, thanks to the exceptionally tight labor market.

Earnings jumped in May as the results of spring wage talks came in and the jobless rate hit a quarter-century low. To-be sure, stronger and sustained raises are needed for the Bank of Japan to hit its 2 percent inflation goal, and higher incomes have yet to boost consumer spending…

Japan’s Wage Gains Finally Take Off as Labor Shortage Bites

Central banks are ramping up their risk taking.

The days of plain old bonds and gold are over as central banks bet some of their trillions of dollars of foreign reserves on mortgage-backed securities, corporate debt, equities and emerging-market debt…

Central Banks Are Ramping Up Their Risk Taking

Among business leaders in Myanmar, would-be investment from the U.S. and Europe is known by the wry acronym NATO.

“No Action, Talk Only,” Sean Turnell, special economic consultant to Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi, said in an interview, underscoring the country’s history of missed opportunities and unfulfilled potential…

Myanmar’s Waiting for the Western Investment That Never Came

European stocks followed advances across Asia and U.S. futures gained as investors set aside concern about escalating trade tensions to focus instead on the upcoming earnings season. The dollar fell against major peers.

Miners and energy companies were among the biggest winners in the Stoxx Europe 600 Index as the benchmark gauge headed for a fifth consecutive advance, the longest winning streak since March. Contracts on the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq all pointed higher and the MSCI Asia Pacific Index was on course for the biggest jump in a month. Commodities and emerging-market equities found support from the weakening greenback, while Treasuries fell. The Chinese yuan rose and the British pound climbed even as the government lurched into yet another crisis…

Those hoping the upcoming earnings season will give some respite to tumultuous Asian stock markets might be in for disappointment.

Analysts and strategists have been trimming their expectations for companies in the MSCI Asia Pacific Index, in direct contrast to firms from Europe and the U.S., where estimates are still rising. And the early results from South Korea and Japan are pointing to a bleak picture…

Earnings Season Another Reason for Asia Traders to Sell

U.S. President Donald Trump may have had an eye on his approval rating as he continues to complain over Twitter to OPEC about the high cost of gasoline.

“REDUCE PRICING NOW!,” Trump tweeted on Wednesday, accusing OPEC of “doing little to help” lower pump prices. OPEC’s de facto leader Saudi Arabia told the group it pumped 10.5 million barrels a day in June, about 500,000 more than the previous month, according to people familiar with the matter…

The U.S. might be the trigger for escalating trade tensions with China, but it turns out that its currency could still be the best place for global investors to find safety as the dispute comes to a fresh crossroads Friday with tariff increases set to take effect.

America’s escalating trade war is already hurting investment and threatens to undermine an otherwise strong business outlook, the Federal Reserve said, citing industry contacts from around the country.

“Many district contacts expressed concern about the possible adverse effects of tariffs and other proposed trade restrictions, both domestically and abroad, on future investment activity,” according to minutes released Thursday of the Fed’s June 12-13 policy meeting in Washington. “Contacts in some districts indicated that plans for capital spending had been scaled back or postponed as a result of uncertainty over trade policy.”…

Trump’s Trade War Is Already Hurting U.S. Investment, Fed Says

A bear market, the yuan’s worst month since 1994, and a looming U.S.-China trade war all suggest one thing to John Pearce. Buy Chinese equities.

The selloff in the Shanghai Composite Index, down more than 20 percent from its January high, is overdone, and investors have read too much into the yuan’s depreciation, said the chief investment officer of UniSuper Management Pty, which controls A$67 billion ($50 billion) of assets primarily for Australia’s higher education and research sector…

A Chinese court’s preliminary injunction stopping Micron Technology Inc.from selling 26 products may not pose as big of an obstacle as investors think, analysts say, noting that the disruption could drive up industry prices. Stifel called the injunction a possible “paper tiger.”

Micron shares rose 4 percent in pre-market trading after the company reiterated quarterly sales guidance Thursday and said it only expects the injunction to hurt revenue by about 1 percent. RBC wrote earlier that the chipmaker would only face limited downside…

Micron’s China Woes May Not Be the Disaster Investors Thought

International Business Machines Corp. has secured a A$1 billion ($740 million) agreement to become a central technology partner of the Australian government over the next five years.

The contract will see services such as automation and blockchain provided to federal departments including defense and home affairs, IBM’s Asia Pacific head, Harriet Green, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Thursday. The “youth of the technology” and the employment of Australians to support and help the implementation would be hallmarks of the new partnership, she said…

Teraco Data Environments Pty Ltd. plans to invest about 1 billion rand ($73 million) as Africa’s largest data-center operator expands infrastructure to meet rising demand.

The closely-held business will have spent 4.5 billion rand on building data-services centers in South Africa when the current investment cycle ends in 2019, Chief Financial Officer Jan Hnizdo said in an interview Tuesday. Funding has come from a debt facility provided by Barclays Africa Group Ltd., also known as Absa, which is lending as much as 1.8 billion rand…

China National Petroleum Corp plans to help complete a refinery in Rio de Janeiro that already cost Brazil’s state-controlled oil company Petrobras $14 billion before it was halted amid a widespread graft investigation.

CNPC, as the Chinese producer is known, signed a letter of intent adding the Comperj refinery to a partnership the two companies signed last year. The agreement also includes evaluating investments in some of Brazil’s largest legacy fields at the offshore Marlim cluster…

Thailand intends to set up a second infrastructure fund worth as much as 50 billion baht ($1.5 billion) in early 2019, following the launch of the long-delayed Thailand Future Fund this September to finance road building.

The fund due this year, expected to have assets of about 45 billion baht, is likely to attract strong demand from the public given it offers potential annual returns of about 5 percent, Prapas Kong-led, director general of the State Enterprise Policy Office, said in an interview…

The Philippines’ largest pension fund is holding off on buying local shares after the selloff in emerging-market assets pushed the nation’s equities into a bear market last month.

The Government Service Insurance System “has no appetite” to invest, President Jesus Clint Aranas said in a forum in Manila. “And I think that is the common consensus among equity investors.”…

Top Philippine Fund Loses Appetite for Manila Stocks After Rout

India’s wealth managers had a bumper year in 2017, with the 20 largest firms growing assets under management by 63 percent to $169 billion, according to a report by Asian Private Banker.

The wealth unit of Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. retained the top slot, nearly doubling assets to $30 billion in 2017 and extending its lead over runner-up IIFL Wealth Management Ltd. to almost $12 billion, the publication said…

Kotak Retains Top Slot in Bumper Year for India Wealth Firms

When it comes to Asian sovereign bonds it’s better being at the epicenter of a U.S.-China trade war than on the fringes of the quake radius.

Chinese and South Korean notes are climbing as the rise in protectionism batters their stock markets, drives a flight to safety and, in China’s case, prompts a more dovish monetary policy. Indonesia, India and the Philippines, by contrast, are more removed from the turbulence but are suffering from currency vulnerability due to current-account deficits…

With all the focus on the shape of the U.S. yield curve recently, fixed-income traders could be forgiven for not concentrating so much on the growing tumult in the fed funds rate…

Forget the Yield Curve. The Debt-Market Action Is in Fed Funds

Venezuela’s distressed oil sector may get some much needed financing from China, Finance Minister Simon Zerpa said after meetings with officials from China Development Bank and China National Petroleum Corporation.

China Development Bank will invest more than $250 million to boost Venezuela oil production in the Orinoco Belt, Zerpa, who is currently in Beijing for bilateral talks, said in a ministry statement…

Venezuela Says China Investing $250 Million to Boost Oil Output

China’s central bank is caught in a bind, as it seeks to tighten monetary policy for some parts of the economy while loosening it for others.

Already engaged in the mammoth task of wringing bad debts out of China’s $40 trillion-plus financial system, the People’s Bank of China is now attempting to achieve that while simultaneously being asked to bolster flagging growth and rescue falling stock markets…

China’s Central Bank Faces Policy Bind Over Debt, Growth Goals

Just getting to the Hamptons can make you feel like a VIP, but once the chopper has landed, there are so many higher rungs of status to attain — club membership, an invite to that dinner party, employing the private pastry chef whose confections undo the skinniest guests.

On Saturday night, another kind of VIP gathered at the Nature Conservancy on Long Island’s annual benefit — one seeking to protect the most basic pleasures of the East End’s air, water and soil…

A one-time payday-loan mogul was indicted on federal charges that he made up millions of fake debts and sold them to bill collectors, victimizing people across the country.

Joel Tucker, 49, was able to pull off the scheme because he already had his victims’ personal information from loan applications, according to an indictment unsealed June 29 in Kansas City, Missouri. But many of those people never took loans, let alone failed to pay them back, and Tucker didn’t own the loans anyway, prosecutors said. From 2014 to 2016, he earned $7.3 million from packaging and selling the information to collectors, they said…