BEIJING - Asian stock markets followed Wall Street higher Thursday after the Federal Reserve chairman said the U.S. central bank is in no hurry to withd.
Hong Kong Gives HK$120 Billion Boost to Economic Recovery
Bloomberg 2/24/2021 Eric Lam
(Bloomberg) Hong Kong gave consumers a boost with spending vouchers and loans for the unemployed, while hitting investors with a planned tax hike on stock trading.
Financial Secretary Paul Chan outlined HK$120 billion ($15.5 billion) of fiscal support in his budget Wednesday to spur consumption and ease joblessness in an economy that’s slowly recovering after two years of recession. To boost revenue, he proposed raising the stamp duty on trading to 0.13% from 0.1%, sparking a selloff in equities.
Chan said the focus of the budget is on stabilizing an economy hit by political and social unrest in 2019 and then the coronavirus pandemic last year. After a record contraction of 6.1% last year, the economy will grow in a range of 3.5%-5.5% in 2021, he said.
(Bloomberg) A year anticipated to be full of headwinds for Hong Kong’s stock exchange turned euphoric instead. The challenge is now to add to the momentum.Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. on Wednesday reported that profit rose 23% to a record HK$11.5 billion ($1.48 billion) in 2020.Incoming Chief Executive Officer Nicolas Aguzin is preparing to take the helm after a year when trading jumped 60%, the bourse saw the biggest initial public offering flood in a decade and inflows of cash through links to Shanghai and Shenzhen doubled. Political tension drove a bevy of high-profile Chinese firms to find a new home in Hong Kong on concern they would be booted off U.S. exchanges, their long-time source for funding.The boom has continued in 2021 and investors have cheered. The stock is up 150% in the past 11 months. The bourse is now the world’s biggest in terms of market value, far bigger than its London rival and four times as big as Nasdaq Inc., for example.The exchan
Stocks are off to a mixed start on Wall Street; yields accesswdun.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from accesswdun.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Stocks shook off a weak start and closed broadly higher Wednesday, nudging the Dow Jones Industrial Average to another all-time high. The S&P 500 rose 1.1% after having been down 0.6% in the early going. Gains in financial, technology and industrial stocks powered the comeback. Utilities fell. U.S. Treasury yields