Global Pulse

分类： business

  • How activists pushed the UK’s largest pension megafund to divest from Israel

    How activists pushed the UK’s largest pension megafund to divest from Israel

    A years-long campaign for pro-Palestine divestment has scored a quiet, consequential victory: the United Kingdom’s largest public sector pension pool, Border to Coast Pensions Partnership, secretly sold off all its Israeli government bond holdings in 2025 following months of escalating grassroots pressure, an investigation by Middle East Eye can exclusively reveal.

    Headquartered in Leeds, Border to Coast manages close to £120 billion ($160 billion) in retirement assets on behalf of roughly two million local government public sector workers across 18 regional UK pension funds. What has not been reported publicly until now is that between September 2024 and March 2025, the fund acquired $29.2 million in Israeli government bonds through its third-party asset manager, PIMCO—the world’s largest active bond manager, based in Newport Beach, California and owned by German financial giant Allianz. The purchases came months after the International Court of Justice issued a landmark ruling finding it plausible that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, at a time when grassroots divestment pressure was already building across multiple UK local government pension schemes.

    This purchase made Border to Coast the largest buyer of Israeli government bonds among UK public institutions tracked in an exclusive dataset compiled by Amsterdam-based research firm Profundo, which documents Israeli bond acquisitions between 2024 and 2026. It ranked third among all UK investors, behind only British corporate giants Aviva and HSBC.

    When pro-Palestine campaigners in South Yorkshire, one of the regions whose pension assets are managed by Border to Coast, uncovered the bond purchases through freedom of information-style requests, they launched a sustained public pressure campaign. In June 2025, the South Yorkshire Pensions Divest for Palestine Campaign delivered a 7,500-signature petition to the South Yorkshire Pensions Authority (SYPA), calling for an immediate sale of the holdings. Protesters gathered outside a key SYPA meeting, with chants so loud attendees inside struggled to conduct business. The campaign won further backing when Sheffield City Council passed a unanimous “Not In Our Name” motion calling for action on divestment that September.

    Sue Owens, a spokesperson for the South Yorkshire campaign, told Middle East Eye that the discovery of the bond purchases was deeply alarming for local pension holders. “When we found that Border to Coast held Israeli bonds we were appalled to think that pensioners’ money was directly helping to fund genocide, apartheid, occupation, incarceration and torture,” Owens said. “We were even more shocked when we realised the bonds had been bought while the genocide was ongoing.”

    The layered structure of the UK’s public pension system created unique barriers to action. SYPA, which represents South Yorkshire’s local government workers, could not directly order Border to Coast to sell the bonds. Border to Coast, which delegated day-to-day bond management to PIMCO, could pressure the asset manager but could not unilaterally override PIMCO’s investment decisions. For months, SYPA pushed Border to Coast for answers, which in turn pressed PIMCO, which initially defended the purchases as based on Israel’s strong credit rating and macroeconomic fundamentals.

    At a public meeting in early September 2025, Border to Coast CEO Rachel Elwell acknowledged shared frustration with PIMCO’s lack of transparency, but framed divestment from Israeli bonds as far more complex than divestment from Russian assets following the invasion of Ukraine. Unlike Russia, she noted, there was no clear international consensus or UK government sanctions on Israel, creating regulatory uncertainty for institutional investors. Andrew Strone, SYPA’s assistant director of investment strategy, echoed that point, saying the UK government’s refusal to impose sanctions on Israel, as it did on Russia, left institutions without clear policy guidance to justify a sale.

    Weeks after that meeting, in late September 2025, PIMCO sold off all of Border to Coast’s Israeli bond holdings. No public announcement was made, and no official explanation for the sale has been issued. Behind closed doors ahead of the sale, campaigners who met Border to Coast leadership at the fund’s annual general meeting reported that executives privately admitted concerns over reputational damage and did not reject the ethical arguments for divestment, but declined to publicly endorse the campaign’s position.

    When contacted by MEE, a Border to Coast spokesperson confirmed the sale, but would not confirm whether activist pressure had driven the decision. The spokesperson alluded to environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk considerations, saying: “We continue to monitor the impact of the Israel-Gaza conflict on investment portfolios in line with our consideration of ESG issues and our responsible investment policies.” The fund also confirmed it has hired Dutch asset manager Robeco, a pioneer in ESG due diligence for Israeli-Palestinian investments, to conduct human rights reviews of its holdings.

    Border to Coast’s quiet divestment is a significant milestone: only a small number of major UK institutional investors have sold Israeli assets in recent years, despite mounting allegations of Israeli war crimes in Gaza. The Universities Superannuation Scheme, the UK’s largest private pension fund, previously divested following pressure from academic unions, while London’s local government pension vehicle sold £6.7 million in Israeli bonds in 2024 but remains under pressure over other Israel-linked holdings. In all of these cases, institutions have declined to explain their decisions publicly, often only citing vague “financial risk management” when pressed.

    This pattern suggests that pro-Palestine activist pressure, paired with growing ESG scrutiny of human rights risks, is shifting institutional investment decisions even as institutions avoid public debate to escape political and regulatory backlash. The case of Border to Coast also lays bare the contradictory legal and political landscape that has forced UK institutions into silence on Palestinian human rights, even as they have spoken out publicly and acted quickly on divestment from Russian assets following the invasion of Ukraine.

    The UK’s Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), of which Border to Coast is the largest constituent pool, has 6.9 million members nationwide. The Scheme Advisory Board (SAB), which oversees the LGPS, wrote to UK Local Government Minister Alison McGovern last October asking for explicit guidance on whether holding Israeli conflict-linked investments creates legal liability for pension funds, pointing out that the UK government had issued clear guidance on Russian investments following the invasion of Ukraine.

    McGovern only responded seven months later, and her answer offered little clarity for campaigners. She wrote that divestment and boycott decisions fall under central government foreign policy, and that it “is not appropriate for local authorities to adopt investment policies that go beyond or differ from UK Government sanctions or foreign policy positions.” Since the UK has not imposed sanctions on Israel, this guidance effectively discourages divestment—though McGovern added that institutions can adjust strategies for financial reasons related to fiduciary duty, leaving a narrow legal opening for divestment framed around risk rather than politics. The response did, however, mark a rare acknowledgement at the ministerial level that pro-Palestine activist pressure has become a consequential force shaping institutional investment decisions.

    The divestment by Border to Coast comes as pressure on European financial institutions to cut ties with Israeli investments is accelerating. In August 2025, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund divested from 11 Israeli companies and excluded Caterpillar and five major Israeli banks over their links to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. In September 2025, the Central Bank of Ireland paused its approval of Israeli bond prospectuses, while a Danish academic pension fund formally excluded Israel and Israeli state-controlled companies from its portfolio.

    Despite the sale of its Israeli government bonds, Border to Coast still holds investments in three companies listed on the UN database of businesses operating in illegal Israeli settlements: Airbnb, Booking.com and Bank Leumi. The fund told MEE it has been engaging with these companies to address ESG concerns since 2025, and the South Yorkshire divestment campaign says it will continue to press for full divestment from all Israel-linked assets tied to human rights abuses.

  • Musk eyes Wall Street record with SpaceX IPO

    Musk eyes Wall Street record with SpaceX IPO

    Elon Musk’s aerospace and technology conglomerate SpaceX has taken the first formal step toward a public listing, filing an initial public offering (IPO) prospectus with U.S. regulators this Wednesday that is poised to shatter all previous Wall Street records if brought to fruition.

    The confidential filing, already under review by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), outlines plans to raise up to $75 billion in public capital, which would value the company at as much as $1.75 trillion. Trading on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker symbol SPCX could launch as early as June 2026, according to industry media reports. If completed, the listing would surpass every IPO in U.S. history in terms of capital raised, cementing Musk’s reputation as one of the most transformative entrepreneurs of the 21st century.

    This IPO marks a watershed moment for SpaceX, which was founded 24 years ago and has never publicly disclosed its detailed financial performance until now. The S-1 prospectus— the regulatory document required for all public listings that lays out financials, risk factors and strategic plans—revealed that SpaceX generated $18.7 billion in total revenue in 2025, but recorded an operating loss of $2.6 billion driven by massive investments in next-generation rocket technology and artificial intelligence development.

    Starlink, the company’s satellite internet division, stands out as its core revenue driver, pulling in $11.4 billion in 2025 revenue, a nearly 50% increase year over year. By contrast, the company’s combined AI segment— which includes Musk’s xAI and the social platform X, formerly Twitter—posted $3.2 billion in 2025 revenue but a staggering $6.4 billion operating loss, as the company pours capital into building AI training data centers to compete with industry giants Google, Meta and Amazon. Capital expenditure for the AI segment hit $12.7 billion in 2025 alone, and grew to $7.7 billion in just the first quarter of 2026, reflecting the enormous cost of staying competitive in the global AI arms race.

    In a surprising business deal disclosed in the filing, SpaceX has agreed to lease excess capacity at its COLOSSUS and COLOSSUS II data centers to leading rival AI firm Anthropic for $1.25 billion per month through May 2029. The IPO filing comes just days after Musk suffered a major legal defeat in his long-running public feud with OpenAI, another top AI competitor that is also preparing for its own public listing. With Anthropic also targeting an IPO in 2026, this year is on track to become one of the most high-profile years for tech public offerings in recent Wall Street history.

    A key detail of the listing plans confirms that Musk will retain near-total control of SpaceX after it goes public via a dual-class share structure, a setup designed to avoid the kind of corporate governance battles that have repeatedly disrupted his leadership at electric car maker Tesla, where shareholders have repeatedly challenged his massive compensation packages and the independence of Tesla’s board. Under the proposed structure, Musk will hold roughly 42% of the company’s total equity but control approximately 79% of all shareholder voting power. SpaceX explicitly warned outside investors in the filing that this arrangement creates inherent risks, noting Musk “will have the power to control the outcome of matters requiring shareholder approval, including election of all our directors.”

    The prospectus also laid out SpaceX’s extraordinarily ambitious long-term strategic roadmap: building AI data centers in orbit, arguing that solar power captured directly from space is “the only truly scalable solution” to meet the exponentially growing energy demand of global AI computing. The company plans to begin launching purpose-built AI computer satellites as early as 2028, with a long-term goal of deploying 100 gigawatts of orbital compute capacity annually. Achieving that goal will require thousands of rocket launches per year and moving roughly one million metric tons of payload into orbit annually— a challenge SpaceX says no other company on Earth is positioned to tackle at commercial scale.

    In a projection that underscores the company’s massive growth ambitions, SpaceX calculated its total addressable market—the maximum potential revenue opportunity across all its business lines, excluding the Chinese and Russian markets—at a staggering $28.5 trillion.

  • James Murdoch, media scion, strikes deal for New York Magazine and Vox

    James Murdoch, media scion, strikes deal for New York Magazine and Vox

    In a transformative move that reshapes the modern digital media landscape, media industry scion James Murdoch has closed a definitive agreement with Vox Media to take ownership of one of America’s most iconic magazine brands, New York Magazine, along with Vox’s flagship editorial brand and its high-growth podcast network.

    The deal marks a pivotal step for 53-year-old James, the younger son of legendary late media magnate Rupert Murdoch, as he builds an independent media portfolio separate from his family’s conservative-leaning legacy. Notably, Rupert Murdoch himself previously owned New York Magazine from 1976 to 1991, adding a layer of full-circle history to this transaction. The acquisition comes less than 12 months after the Murdoch family finalized a succession agreement for the 95-year-old mogul’s global media empire following his passing, which locked in James’ older brother Lachlan Murdoch as the head of conservative cable giant Fox News, fulfilling Rupert’s long-stated succession plan.

    Per the terms of the agreement, which is on track to close within the next several weeks, James Murdoch’s private media investment firm Lupa Systems will take control of the three acquired divisions, which collectively make up roughly half of Vox Media’s current business operations. Neither company has publicly disclosed the exact purchase price, but anonymous sources familiar with the negotiations told The New York Times the valuation exceeds $300 million. Following closing, the acquired assets will operate as an independent subsidiary under the Lupa umbrella, retaining the Vox Media name.

    The transaction splits Vox Media’s portfolio of digital brands: major properties including Eater, Popsugar, SB Nation, The Dodo, and The Verge will remain under the ownership of the existing Vox Media parent company. Joining New York Magazine in the sale are all of its popular vertical digital publications, including lifestyle and fashion platform The Cut, culture and entertainment outlet Vulture, political news hub Intelligencer, product recommendation site The Strategist, real estate and urban living publication Curbed, and food and dining site Grub Street.

    Also included in the acquisition is the Vox Media Podcast Network, home to chart-topping hit shows such as the true crime series *Criminal* and the industry-leading tech and business podcast *Pivot* hosted by Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. In an official statement, Vox Media noted the podcast network has been the company’s fastest-growing division, and the acquisition will immediately position Lupa Systems as a major top-tier player in the global podcast market.

    James Murdoch, who previously served as CEO of 21st Century Fox before resigning from the News Corporation board in 2020 over ideological disagreements about the company’s content and strategic direction, has long been publicly identified with more moderate political views than his father. As part of last year’s family succession deal, James and his two older sisters Prudence MacLeod and Elisabeth Murdoch ceded all claims to control of Fox Corp. in exchange for stock holdings valued at $3.3 billion at the time of the agreement. The resulting trust structure formalized Lachlan Murdoch’s control of Fox Corp. alongside his younger sisters Grace and Chloe.

    In his official statement on the new acquisition, James Murdoch emphasized that the purchase aligns with Lupa’s existing investment strategy and core values. “This acquisition aligns well with our existing holdings and investments and reflects both our interest in the forward edge of culture and our deep commitment to ambitious journalism and agenda-setting conversations,” he said. “It will allow us to apply new tools across the businesses we are building, adding substantial production, distribution, and editorial capability to our group.”

    Leadership continuity is planned for the newly formed subsidiary: current Vox Media Chairman and CEO Jim Bankoff will retain his role, stepping in as CEO of the new standalone Vox Media subsidiary once the deal closes. “We are incredibly proud to have built and scaled several of the leading media properties of this generation,” Bankoff said in a statement. “Together under Lupa’s stewardship we are primed to be the best home for talent and the most dynamic media company of this new era.”

    David Haskell, editor-in-chief of New York Magazine, informed subscribers in an email that Lupa Systems will become the magazine’s sixth owner since 1968. In the note, he reaffirmed the publication’s commitment to independent reporting. “We will continue with the fearless, independent journalism that you expect from us,” Haskell wrote. “We will continue to create news cycles, start conversations, contribute to the most important debates in politics and society, identify and explore what’s most interesting in contemporary culture, and always do our best to challenge our readers, surprise them, and help them make sense of the modern world.”

  • EU overcomes fierce internal debate to agree on tariff deal with the US

    EU overcomes fierce internal debate to agree on tariff deal with the US

    BRUSSELS – After marathon late-night negotiations to resolve bitter internal divisions, the European Union has formally signed off on a landmark tariff agreement with the United States that caps duties on most EU exports at 15%, narrowly averting a full-scale transatlantic trade war that was set to trigger ahead of President Donald Trump’s July 4 deadline.

    The path to final approval was far from smooth, with heated clashes between lawmakers and bloc leaders threatening to derail the hard-won agreement that governs more than $1 trillion in annual transatlantic goods and services trade between two of the world’s largest economic powers, both currently grappling with economic spillover from the ongoing conflict in Iran.

    The framework for the deal was first laid out 12 months prior, when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met Trump at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland to strike an initial handshake agreement, capping months of tense bargaining that followed the Trump administration’s sweeping global tariff offensive. That initial agreement sparked months of further technical negotiations between Washington and Brussels, even as European criticism of the deal surged after Trump made an unexpected public threat to seize control of Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory. Trump has since walked back that threat, at least temporarily.

    Following intense trilogue negotiations between the European Parliament, European Council, and European Commission that stretched into an “intensive night” of five hours of talks, the deal secured final EU approval. European trade chief Maroš Šefčovič announced the breakthrough after negotiations concluded, noting that once formally adopted by the full parliament in the coming weeks, the agreement “will reinforce stability in EU-U.S. trade and open the door even wider to constructive cooperation on many issues of strategic importance.”

    In a social media statement confirming the outcome, the EU executive branch reaffirmed its commitment to the deal, writing “A deal is a deal, and the EU honours its commitments.”

    Under the terms of the agreement, most European exports to the U.S. will be subject to a maximum 15% tariff, while U.S. industrial goods entering the EU will see tariffs eliminated entirely. While the arrangement raises the average tariff rate on covered goods from the previous 4.8%, creating added costs for consumers and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic, analysts credit the new framework with delivering long-term policy certainty that helped Europe avoid a projected recession in 2023.

    Amid skyrocketing energy and commodity prices driven by the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz amid Middle East tensions, and persistent high inflation and interest rates on both sides of the Atlantic, supporters of the deal argue that resolving long-running transatlantic trade tensions is a critical step toward shoring up global economic stability. The American Chamber of Commerce in Brussels shared that view in a post-approval statement, saying it was “relieved” to see the EU reach internal consensus. “The trilogue agreement is a sign that the EU is honouring its commitments under the deal,” the group said, adding that the approval will let both sides “move beyond tariffs” to address pressing shared challenges such as critical supply chain resilience.

    European lawmakers successfully pushed to add binding safeguard provisions to the final text that will allow the bloc to take swift retaliatory action if the U.S. backtracks on its commitments under the deal, according to Bernard Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee. “If there is something going wrong, of course, we are self-confident to act on that,” Lange said.

    Even with the deal now cleared through all EU internal processes, significant uncertainty remains about its future, amid growing concerns in Europe that the White House lacks clear legal authority to uphold the agreement. A series of recent U.S. court rulings have undermined the legal basis Trump used to impose the original tariffs in question. This year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the legal authority Trump relied on to enact the tariffs, forcing the administration to find alternative legal justifications for existing duties and move forward with new levies to replace lost tariff revenue. Just months ago, a U.S. federal court ruled that Trump had exceeded the tariff authority granted to the presidency by Congress, ruling that the administration’s new replacement tariffs were “invalid” and “unauthorized by law.”

    That legal cloud also hangs over long-threatened new tariffs on EU passenger and commercial vehicles that Trump has teased on social media, where he has also accused the EU of failing to uphold its end of the deal without providing specific evidence of non-compliance.

    With the EU having completed its domestic approval process, the ball is now in Washington’s court to respond, Lange said. “That’s, of course, a big question mark. I have not my crystal ball here with me,” he added.

  • China confirms it will buy 200 Boeing jets after Trump-Xi summit

    China confirms it will buy 200 Boeing jets after Trump-Xi summit

    A high-stakes diplomatic visit to Beijing by former U.S. President Donald Trump has delivered tangible breakthroughs on trade between the world’s two largest economic powers, headlined by a confirmed Chinese order for 200 Boeing commercial aircraft and a new push to expand a critical tariff truce.

    China’s Commerce Ministry made the order official in an announcement Wednesday, confirming that alongside the aircraft purchase, the United States has committed to providing long-term supply guarantees for jet engines and key aircraft components to Chinese operators. Beyond the aerospace deal, the two nations have also agreed to open negotiations aimed at extending the tariff truce first reached in October 2025, with plans to cut existing tariffs on at least $30 billion worth of mutual goods trade.

    The confirmation came as Chinese President Xi Jinping convened talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing, just days after Trump wrapped up his bilateral meetings with Chinese leadership. During his trip, Trump secured a slate of trade pledges that also included expanded market access for American agricultural producers into the huge Chinese consumer market.

    Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One shortly after departing China last Friday, Trump framed the agreements as a historic win for U.S. manufacturing. “We made a lot of great trade deals, including over 200 planes for Boeing, with a promise of 750 planes total, which would be by far the largest order ever,” he told journalists.

    The U.S. business delegation that accompanied Trump on the trip included Boeing Chief Executive Officer Kelly Ortberg, alongside other major U.S. business leaders such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Jensen Huang, head of leading artificial intelligence chip maker Nvidia.

    In a post-trip statement, Boeing hailed the visit as a turning point for its access to the Chinese market. “We had a very successful trip to China and accomplished our major goal of reopening the China market to orders for Boeing aircraft,” the company said. The 200-aircraft commitment marks the first tranche of a larger expected deal, with the manufacturer noting that “we expect further commitments will follow after this initial order.”

    The current tariff truce between Washington and Beijing dates back to October 2025, when negotiators from both sides reached an agreement on the sidelines of an international meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ahead of a previous Trump-Xi summit in South Korea. That earlier deal extended the pause on tit-for-tat tariffs until November 2026, and included a small reduction in U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports alongside a Chinese commitment to pause new restrictions on exports of rare earth minerals and specialized magnets—critical inputs for a wide range of U.S. manufacturing and tech sectors.

  • Samsung faces strike after pay talks with union fall apart

    Samsung faces strike after pay talks with union fall apart

    A high-stakes wage dispute at South Korea’s tech and manufacturing powerhouse Samsung Electronics has reached a breaking point, after last-ditch negotiations between company management and the worker’s union collapsed Wednesday, clearing the way for the first large-scale strike at the firm in decades that risks upending global semiconductor supply chains and rocking South Korea’s export-led economy.

    The dispute comes at a moment of historic profitability for Samsung, which has ridden the global AI boom to staggering gains. The company’s 74,000-member union argues that frontline and manufacturing workers have not seen their compensation keep pace with the record-breaking profits the firm has posted amid skyrocketing demand for AI-grade memory chips. Samsung and cross-town rival SK Hynix collectively control roughly two-thirds of the global memory chip market, making any production disruption at the firm a major concern for tech manufacturers and supply chain managers worldwide.

    Shortly after the final round of mediated talks ended without a breakthrough Wednesday, union leader Choi Seung-ho announced that unionized workers would launch an 18-day work stoppage starting Thursday. Both sides have traded blame for the collapsed negotiations: Choi said management rejected a compromise proposal brokered by South Korean government negotiators, declining to share specific details of the framework publicly. For its part, company management has pushed back against the union’s demands, arguing that the calls for sweeping changes to bonus structures are unreasonable, particularly for underperforming or loss-making business units outside Samsung’s core chip division.

    The union’s core demands center on a restructuring of performance compensation: leaders are pushing for Samsung to commit to allocating 15% of annual operating profit to employee bonuses, while eliminating the current bonus cap that limits incentive pay to 50% of a worker’s annual base salary. Management has pushed back on these demands, noting that the semiconductor industry is notoriously cyclical, with periods of massive boom often followed by steep downturns that require the company to retain capital to weather market contractions.

    South Korean government officials have already taken unprecedented steps to avert a widespread work stoppage that would cripple the national economy. Prime Minister Kim Min-seok, the country’s second-highest ranking official, warned in a recent televised address that a prolonged strike could disrupt Samsung’s precision semiconductor manufacturing processes, leading to as much as 100 trillion won ($66 billion) in total economic damage to South Korea’s trade-reliant economy. Officials have also threatened to invoke rarely used emergency mediation powers to force a binding resolution to the dispute if no voluntary deal is reached.

    Last week, the Suwon District Court partially granted an injunction requested by Samsung, ruling that the union must maintain minimum staffing levels at critical manufacturing facilities to prevent damage to sensitive production equipment and in-progress materials, and to ensure ongoing safe operations. The court also barred union members from occupying key production sites and corporate offices during the strike.

    Samsung reported last month that its operating profit for the first quarter of 2024 jumped eightfold year-over-year to a historic high of 57.2 trillion won ($38 billion), driven almost entirely by surging demand for advanced memory chips for AI data centers and new consumer electronics devices. While both sides have said they remain open to continuing negotiations to reach a last-minute settlement, it remains unclear when the two parties will return to the bargaining table to resume talks.

  • World shares track Wall Street’s retreat as bond markets crank up the pressure

    World shares track Wall Street’s retreat as bond markets crank up the pressure

    Global equity markets across Europe and Asia slid into negative territory on Wednesday, as a sharp upward climb in global bond yields intensified downward pressure on risk assets, erasing gains from the recent artificial intelligence-fueled tech stock rally. The upward trend in bond yields is being driven by persistent uncertainty stemming from the ongoing conflict in Iran, which has stoked widespread investor anxiety that inflation will remain elevated for far longer than previously projected.

    U.S. equity futures pointed to a mixed open following three consecutive days of losses for major domestic indexes that followed their recent record highs. S&P 500 futures gained 0.2% in early pre-market trading, while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures ticked 0.1% lower. On Tuesday, the benchmark S&P 500 closed 0.7% lower at 7,353.61, the Dow fell 0.6% to 49,363.88, and the Nasdaq composite dropped 0.8% to 25,870.71, extending the recent pullback from all-time peaks.

    In early European trading, benchmark indexes showed mild but uneven losses and gains. Germany’s DAX held nearly steady at 24,390.32, posting a marginal change that left it effectively flat. Paris’s CAC 40 inched up 0.1% to end the early session at 7,992.24, while the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 dropped 0.3% to 10,303.23.

    Across Asian markets, losses were more broadly consistent. Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.2% to close at 59,804.41, even as the yield on 10-year Japanese government bonds slipped slightly to just under 2.8%, holding near its highest level since 1997. Currency markets saw small shifts: the U.S. dollar edged down to 159.05 Japanese yen, from 159.09 yen on Tuesday evening, while the euro slipped modestly to $1.1591 from $1.1608.

    Other Asian benchmarks also closed in negative territory. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropped 0.6% to 25,656.12, while mainland China’s Shanghai Composite shed 0.3% to 4,162.10. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 1.3% to 8,496.60, and South Korea’s Kospi dropped 0.9% to 7,208.95, extending a broad sell-off from the prior session. Taiwan’s Taiex index also gave up 0.4% by the close of trading.

    The sell-off in equities comes as the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield has climbed to 4.66%, up from 4.61% late Monday and from less than 4% before the Iran conflict began. This sharp, rapid increase in sovereign bond yields is a global trend that pushes up borrowing costs for corporations and consumers, while also making stretched equity valuations look far less attractive relative to low-risk government debt. Higher yields also lift interest rates for mortgages and corporate loans earmarked for AI data center construction, one of the single largest drivers of U.S. economic growth in recent quarters.

    Tech stocks have been hit particularly hard in the pullback, after months of double-digit gains driven by investor excitement over artificial intelligence. Many market critics have warned for months that AI enthusiasm pushed tech valuations to unsustainable levels, leaving the sector vulnerable to a correction as borrowing costs rise. All eyes this week are on Nvidia, the leading AI chipmaker that has become the face of the AI boom, which is set to release its latest quarterly earnings results on Wednesday. The company has repeatedly smashed analyst earnings and growth forecasts quarter after quarter, and its performance this time around is widely expected to set the tone for whether the broader tech sector and U.S. stock market can resume their earlier rally. Nvidia already fell 0.8% on Tuesday, making it one of the largest single drags on the S&P 500 due to its massive market capitalization.

    Other U.S. stocks also moved on individual news on Tuesday. Cybersecurity and cloud computing firm Akamai Technologies dropped 6.3%, one of the steepest losses on Wall Street, after announcing plans to raise $2.6 billion through a convertible note offering. Home Depot outperformed, rising 0.9% after reversing an early loss following its quarterly report. The home improvement retailer posted profit and revenue that edged past analyst expectations, though its key metric for same-store sales, closely watched by retail analysts, came in below projections. Home Depot CEO Ted Decker noted that customer demand remained consistent with levels seen throughout last year, “despite greater consumer uncertainty and housing affordability pressure.”

    So far this earnings season, a large share of large U.S. companies have reported better-than-expected quarterly profits, a trend supported by continued resilient consumer spending even in the face of high gasoline prices and broader economic headwinds. This stronger-than-forecast earnings growth helped push U.S. stock indexes to record highs in recent weeks, but the sudden unrest in bond markets now threatens to derail that momentum.

    Oil prices, a key driver of inflation pressures, edged lower early Wednesday even as conflict continues to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint for global oil supplies. U.S. benchmark crude fell $1.15 to $103.00 per barrel, while international benchmark Brent crude dropped $1.29 to $109.99 per barrel. The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline in the U.S. currently sits at $4.51 per AAA data, around 43% higher than the average price at this time last year. Persistent uncertainty around how long the conflict will disrupt Hormuz shipping has kept oil prices volatile in recent weeks, amplifying broader inflation concerns that have pushed bond yields higher.

  • Virgin Australia relaunches holiday packages as research shows strong demand for bundled travel

    Virgin Australia relaunches holiday packages as research shows strong demand for bundled travel

    Five years after pausing its packaged travel offering amid the global travel collapse triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, Australian carrier Virgin Australia has announced its return to the bundled holiday booking market, launching a revamped service to meet booming post-pandemic consumer demand for seamless travel planning.

    Dubbed Virgin Australia Holidays, the new offering is built in partnership with global travel marketplace Hopper, and lets customers book both flights and accommodation in a single transaction, with a curated selection of domestic and international travel options to choose from. This relaunch revives a brand that first launched back in 2003, before being pulled from the market in 2020 when border closures and public health restrictions sent global travel demand plummeting.

    The move comes as Australia’s travel sector experiences unprecedented post-pandemic growth, with Australians taking holidays at record rates and transforming expectations around how trips should be booked and organized. New joint research from Virgin Australia and research firm YouGov underscores this shifting consumer landscape: half of all surveyed Australians reported a clear preference for simpler, more time-efficient trip planning tools, while three-quarters of respondents said they would be more likely to book a travel package through their preferred airline if the offering included competitive pricing.

    Libby Minogue, chief marketing officer at Virgin Australia, framed the relaunch as a strategic expansion of the airline’s core offering beyond standalone air travel. “Virgin Australia Holidays marks an important step in expanding our offering beyond flights and into a more complete travel experience,” Minogue said. “With more Australians seeking value and convenience, we’re bringing together flights, accommodation and Velocity benefits in one seamless booking experience, delivering greater value at a time when cost of living remains front of mind.”

    To kick off the new service, Virgin Australia is offering limited-time introductory promotional packages for travel between July 15, 2026, and March 16, 2027, with deals available across popular destinations including Bali and Cairns. The promotional window closes at 11:59 pm AEST on May 27. Introductory pricing starts at $745 per person for a Bali package, which includes return economy flights from Gold Coast to Denpasar and four nights of accommodation for two travelers. For Cairns, packages start at $820 per person, including return flights from Brisbane and four nights of accommodation.

    The service also includes additional perks for Virgin Australia’s Velocity Frequent Flyer members: customers with eligible package bookings can earn and redeem Velocity points, as well as accumulate Status Credits for their memberships.

    Industry data confirms that the relaunch aligns with broader travel trends across Australia. Outbound travel hit 11.6 million trips in 2024, with continued growth recorded through the first months of 2025. While forecasters expect this rapid post-pandemic growth to gradually stabilize through the second half of the 2020s as demand normalizes, projections show outbound travel will hit 14.9 million annual trips by 2030. Ongoing strong demand for short-haul leisure destinations including Japan, China, Vietnam and Thailand is expected to shape future travel patterns across the country. Major Australian airports are already reporting record-breaking activity, with Sydney Airport noting its strongest ever first quarter for international travel in 2026.

  • Under Trump pressure, EU seeks deal to end trade standoff

    Under Trump pressure, EU seeks deal to end trade standoff

    Facing mounting pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, European Union negotiators convened late-night closed-door talks on Tuesday in a high-stakes push to finalize a long-delayed transatlantic trade agreement, with a hard July 4 deadline hanging over the negotiations. If no deal is reached by the deadline, Trump has threatened to impose steep new tariffs that could reignite a full-blown transatlantic trade conflict.

    The framework for this trade pact was first struck nearly a year ago in Turnberry, Scotland, between Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. That initial agreement set a 15 percent tariff on most European goods exported to the U.S., but finalizing the binding legal text on the EU side has dragged on for months, drawing growing frustration from the White House.

    Negotiations between representatives of the European Parliament and EU member state capitals got underway just after 9 p.m. GMT, with discussions expected to extend through the night. The core goal of the talks is to hash out a compromise that will allow the bloc to meet Trump’s deadline and close out more than 12 months of disruptive trade tensions between the world’s two largest economic partners.

    Ahead of the negotiating session, the U.S. Mission to the EU issued a blunt reminder on social media platform X, writing that “A deal is a deal” and that the bloc must uphold the commitment struck between Trump and von der Leyen last year. If the EU fails to deliver, Trump has already warned that the bloc will face “much higher” tariffs, including a planned hike on duties for European passenger vehicles and heavy trucks from the current 15 percent to 25 percent.

    The initial wave of tariffs Trump imposed before the Turnberry framework agreement — including steep levies on European steel, aluminum and auto parts — pushed the EU to aggressively expand trade partnerships with other regions across the globe. But Brussels has long recognized that it cannot risk alienating its largest single trade partner: the EU-U.S. trade relationship is worth a staggering 1.6 trillion euros ($1.9 trillion), making it irreplaceable for European economies.

    Cyprus, which currently holds the rotating EU Council presidency, reaffirmed Tuesday that the bloc’s top priority remains the “swift implementation of the EU-U.S. joint statement” agreed last year. To get a deal across the finish line, the European Parliament is under heavy pressure from member states to roll back several controversial amendments it added to the text back in March, amendments that U.S. negotiators have already labeled unacceptable.

    Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee, struck an optimistic tone ahead of the talks, telling reporters he remained hopeful negotiators could reach a workable compromise. But even before the session began, Lange was still working to unify divergent positions across the parliament’s competing political factions, with internal haggling continuing right up to the start of negotiations.

    Delays in finalizing the accord have stemmed from multiple outside factors in recent months, including a diplomatic row sparked by Trump’s reported interest in purchasing Greenland, and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down broad portions of the president’s tariff authority. The European Parliament gave conditional preliminary approval to the text after those delays were resolved, but major sticking points remain between the institution, member states, and U.S. negotiators.

    The European People’s Party (EPP), the parliament’s largest political grouping and the party von der Leyen belongs to, has emerged as the most forceful backer of rapid implementation of the deal. EPP leaders argue that resolving the trade uncertainty has become critical for European businesses that have faced unstable market conditions for more than a year. Zeljana Zovko, an EPP lawmaker, told the Agence France-Presse she was “confident that we will get it done” by the deadline. The EPP already secured firm backing for the deal from the hard-right European Conservatives and Reformists group, but several smaller factions have not yet publicly announced their positions, leaving the size of the pro-deal majority and its willingness to compromise unclear.

    The Socialists and Democrats, the parliament’s second-largest political bloc, said it would approach negotiations “constructively” but would fight to add robust safeguards to protect European businesses and workers, guaranteeing long-term stability and predictability in trade relations. Two major sticking points remain on the EU side, even as negotiators work to find common ground. The first is a strengthened suspension clause added by parliament, which would revoke favorable tariff terms for U.S. exporters if Washington violates the terms of the agreement in the future. The second centers on “sunrise” and “sunset” provisions: the clauses would keep the EU’s side of the deal from taking effect until the U.S. meets all its existing commitments, and would automatically terminate the entire agreement in 2028 unless it is explicitly renewed by both sides.

    Anna Cavazzini, a Green Party lawmaker involved in the negotiations, noted that “the odds are good” for a last-minute compromise, but warned that EU member states would need to compromise on the parliament’s core priorities to get a deal done. “These past weeks have shown time and again that Trump is not to be trusted, so the EU needs stronger tools at hand,” Cavazzini said, in defense of parliament’s proposed safeguards.

  • Projected economic growth in NSW slashed by 1.5 per cent as Treasurer blames inflation, war in Iran

    Projected economic growth in NSW slashed by 1.5 per cent as Treasurer blames inflation, war in Iran

    Australia’s most populous and economically active state, New South Wales (NSW), has issued a sharp downward revision to its upcoming financial year economic growth projections, citing cascading risks from the escalating conflict in the Middle East as a key destabilizing factor, NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey confirmed Wednesday during an address to the Sydney-based McKell Institute.

    Previously projected to expand by 2.5% in the 2026-2027 financial year in forecasts published last December, the state’s economy is now expected to grow by just 1%, Mookhey revealed. The unexpected downgrade, released four weeks ahead of the official June state budget as an extraordinary pre-budget transparency measure, marks one of the clearest indicators of how Middle East tensions between the US, Israel and Iran are rippling through to the Australian economy.

    Mookhey emphasized that the impact of the conflict on global energy markets will be persistent, even if hostilities de-escalate immediately. “Even if the war in the Middle East ended today, petrol prices are not falling tomorrow. Oil markets will take time to normalise – if they ever do,” he told the audience.

    The slowdown is projected to hit NSW harder than any other Australian state, Mookhey explained, a gap driven largely by the state’s higher average mortgage sizes that leave households more exposed to elevated Reserve Bank of Australia interest rates. Higher inflation has forced central bank rate hikes to cool demand, which in turn has dragged down household consumption across the country. But in NSW, the burden is far heavier: the average working family taking out a new mortgage in the state borrows roughly $873,000, compared to just $677,000 for comparable households in Victoria, Australia’s second-largest state – a 28% difference. “That is why NSW fares better when interest rates fall. And fares worse when they rise,” Mookhey said.

    Beyond economic headwinds, the treasurer waded into growing state political tensions around climate policy, as the incumbent Labor government prepares for upcoming state elections early next year, where right-wing populist party One Nation is gaining traction. One Nation, led by Pauline Hanson, recently claimed the federal NSW seat of Farrer earlier this month and turned in strong results in the South Australian state election, signaling growing electoral support for the party in the region.

    Mookhey attacked the opposition for shifting alignment on net-zero policy, arguing that the federal Liberal Party has aligned with One Nation to oppose NSW’s legally binding net-zero emissions targets. The state Liberal-National coalition already faced a bitter internal split on the issue late last year, when then-opposition leader Mark Speakman reaffirmed the party’s commitment to net-zero, prompting a rupture with the rural NSW Nationals. Current opposition leader Kellie Sloane, who took over the role late last year, has faced mounting pressure from the increasingly right-leaning federal branch of the party to reverse the net-zero commitment.

    “I have no idea if the NSW Liberal Party agrees with the Federal Liberal Party, which agrees with the One Nation Party,” Mookhey said. “The Member for Vaucluse (Ms Sloane) could end this uncertainty by declaring whether she is for or against the state’s legislated net zero targets. To campaign against NSW’s net-zero targets is to campaign for a NSW recession.”

    Despite the sharp growth downgrade, Mookhey stressed that the state is well-positioned to avoid a full recession, pointing to the ongoing renewable energy investment boom driven by NSW’s early adoption of net-zero as an economic development strategy. The state is currently host to a large pipeline of renewable energy construction projects, paired with extensive upgrades to transmission infrastructure and grid connections that will drive sustained activity and investment through the slowdown. “NSW is home to this investment boom because NSW is (and was) the first state to truly have grasped that reaching net zero is a sound economic strategy,” he added.