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tv   Business Today  BBC News  August 2, 2024 11:30am-11:46am BST

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japan's financial markets plunge, suffering historic falls to stock prices. in the us, apple and amazon report mixed fortunes as the dowjones index sees its worst day of the year. welcome to business today. i'm mark lobel. we begin in asia, tojapan, where the country's stock market has sunk to record lows. financial markets in asia are largely tracking the declines seen on wall street overnight, which we'll hear about in just a moment. there are a few factors at play, including a strong yen and interest rate decisions.
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joining me now isjoshua mahony, chief market analyst at scope market. asian markets have suffered their worst day in many years this week, spurred by a sharp sell off in semiconductor shares and global market contagion. what's happened so suddenly? well, we are coming to the end of a back of week that has been massive for markets. sadly we solved the bank of japan for markets. sadly we solved the bank ofjapan interest for markets. sadly we solved the bank of japan interest rates decision catch people off—guard, raising interest rates. that is the same time that we saw the federal reserve planning to cut interest rates in september. the markets are fearful after the back of a manufacturing survey yesterday that we saw the collapse, that points towards a rough session coming around the corner, at the same time we see inflation pressures building within the manufacturing sector. the
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stories around the japanese market at the moment firmly planted in the reversal we are seeing in terms of the japanese yen. how much of this relates to tech stocks and how much to interest rate decisions going forward? every time we see earning seasons come people become very fearful because of the sky—high valuations we have attached a tech company is at the moment. it has been evident over the course of recent weeks when we see alphabet coming out with strong numbers, then the fall that happened with the coming out of that news. there are some questions around those valuations. thankfully we are over the hump, i would say. we have seen this so—called magnificent seven report on they've all done pretty well. i'm hoping to see some stability coming into play around the tech stocks going forward, but the jitters we are seeing at the moment really do revolve around the potential for economic weakness going forward.
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that would impact the economy as a whole and really put pressure on the federal reserve to act. is this an inflection point, somewhat expected, or a blip? exporters take a back—seat to more domestic focused companies? this is the big question. we have seen the japanese yen underperforming for year upon year and for traders this has been a great one because it has been very consistent, but now things are turning. we are looking towards the bank of japan turning. we are looking towards the bank ofjapan and they are hiking rates at the time when central banks around the world are cutting interest rates. that reversal for the japanese yen all of a sudden sees these companies are benefiting from a weak yen, suddenly the products will become less competitive as the yen strengthens. this does point towards the possibility of weakness for exporters in particular. we have seen text doc suffering, but really it is the manufacturers that have suffered the most of the course of the past week and that points
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towards if you are trading or investing in japanese stocks towards if you are trading or investing injapanese stocks in particular, certainly a desire to stick more with the domestic side of things rather than the companies that have been benefiting and relying heavily on those cheaper exports of the back of weak yen. how much volatility should we expect? probably a fair amount at the last week is anything to go by. today we have the us jobs week is anything to go by. today we have the usjobs report week is anything to go by. today we have the us jobs report coming week is anything to go by. today we have the usjobs report coming out. certainly in the past it means bad news is good news because it means the central bank is going to cut interest rates. yesterday it was not bad news was bad news, so if we see further weakness in the usjob market is the day we could see the equity markets take another leap lower. , .,, . equity markets take another leap lower. ., ., , ., ~ equity markets take another leap lower. ., ., , ., joshua maloney, thank you. so, as we touched on just there, thursday was an ugly day on wall street. the dow sliding nearly 500 points as recession fears re—emerged. both the s&p 500 and the tech—heavy
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nasdaq also closed in the red. with more on what sparked the sell off, here's our north america business correspondent michelle fleury. yes, not even amazon could lift wall street out of its funk. shares in the e—commerce giant fell more than 4% after it reported sales grew 10% to $148 billion. now that marked a slowdown from the prior quarter and it's forecast further weakening in the months ahead. it wasn't the only tech firm either whose results left investors with a sour taste. intel stock plunged after the chip maker said it plans to cut 15,000 jobs and announce disappointing results. sales sagged at social media company snap. the only bright spot was apple, which reported solid revenue despite a drop in iphone sales. now, wall street's jitters started even before big tech earnings came out. the dow fell nearly 500 points after weak economic data sparked fears that the fed won't act fast
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enough to avoid a recession. a key gauge of us manufacturing activity, the ism manufacturing index, fell to its lowest level since november. now, with markets reassessing the health of the us economy, the government monthlyjobs report, which is due out a few hours from now, could bring even more fireworks. one of the silicon valley giants that missed analysts expectations was the snapchat owner snap. it is grappling with stiff competition from larger rivals for advertising revenue. snap shares were down more than 16% to $10.73 in after—market trades. earlier i spoke to linn frost, co—ceo at the social element, a global social media agency. i asked her how snapchat was faring against its social media competitors. it's a brilliant question and i think it's staying true to they have always been the younger
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generation, and their generation is growing with them. if you think about they launched in 2011 to 13—year—olds, they are now 26. so they have a unique position in that they've got an audience that is growing. they're now going into a sweet spot for the for brands where they're making their sort of future longer term brand choices. they've also got great innovation in the sense of ai and experience. and yet their parent company missed their revenue expectations. if you compare it to meta's quarter two earnings, investors are rewarding them for a strong ad business performance. so they must be taking a hit. they are taking a hit, but it's still quite a positive story for them. i also think if you look at their investments in measurement, so they know again that small to mid businesses are looking for performance driven platforms. snap is a daily life platform for their users. it's how they look to connect on a daily basis. so looking at the investments
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with partnerships and really the path that they're planning will pay off for them, i think, in the next two quarters. and of course, the tiktok ban in the us will help them to win this fight for the younger market and advertisers looking to reach them. absolutely. and you can see that they are trying to move more into that entertainment space. so i think being fully us owned, they did a big, massive campaign around more love, less likes. i think a key thing here though is that empty, how empty is that? they seem to be trying to step away from the negativity that's surrounding social media, being seen as a positive platform. but a lot of their practices are still dubious in the sense of snap streaks and and disappearing messages. so what they're saying is good. i think we need to look at what they're actually doing as well. and did they draw in under 30s
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or those are those the legacy people that you said have stuck with snapchat as it's grown because they've got an incredible figures. is it 60% of under 30s in that use the platform? as a daily tool there's that they're growing and staying with them. and so if you think about that they're now 26 to 30. then you can see that they've got this fresh pool of younger generation coming in and using it. so it's a really interesting position to be from an audience perspective. holiday season is under way. you may be watching this from an airport, hotel or on your phone on the beach, or packing your suitcase right now. just in time we've heard from the owners of british airways and iberia, iag, on theirfinancial performance for the first half of the year. their profits before tax beat estimates driven by a strong north america market and they seemed pretty optimistic for the rest of the year. joining me now is one person not currently on holiday, john moore, senior investment
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manager at rbc brewin dolphin. takeaways about north america, latin america and intra—europe travel in the ascendancy but turbulence over corporate travel and luxury spends on holidays. the first takeaway is that iag has performed well in absolute terms and relative to some of its peers. it benefits from those routes that you have mentioned and it benefits disproportionately from that activity, as well. in the post—pandemic world you have seen a degree of abundance in travel simply because we had cash and the inclination having been restricted somewhat, but it is only reasonable to expect higher interest rates to curb the consumer demands in a way and the delay in those interest rates taking effect means that is
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to's but not for iag. they have performed pretty well relative to a lot their peers. travel demand remains high but seeing high levels of air traffic flow restrictions recently. yes, i think a lot of what iag has been able to do is try to navigate away from some of the industry problems. they have a range of different fleet. ryanair had some problems on that issue. they have flexibility in terms of the network, so that has been a meaningful advantage. they have also had a degree of capital discipline, so debt has fallen as a result of that they find themselves in quite a strong position. they are able to pay a dividend, but also walk away from deals like air europa. we saw ryanair and whizz air shares plunge — at the lower cost end of the market — so volatility remains and iag
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terminated its deal to acquire spanish carrier air europa blaming regulatory environment. iag has shown a discipline whereby if the finance doesn't work, if the remix in terms of expanding its network, if the metrics don't work it will walk away. that for me is really important because that is how they have built their advantage relative to peers who have expanded at any cost. it doesn't need to say they would return to the table at some point in time, but they have got options and financial strength so they don't need to do that. iag struck a landmark deal for sustainable aviation fuel — 28,000 tonnes of the fuel that reduces emissions by over 80% compared to traditionaljet fuel — how encouraging is that? i think it is a great start. the issue with sustainable fuel is that it is a premium cost product, but all the airlines recognise it is not required in terms of what their
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expectations are for corporate responsibility. we all want to see that. . ~ , ., ., , responsibility. we all want to see that. . ., ,,, ,, that. thank you. that is business toda , that. thank you. that is business today. you're _ that. thank you. that is business today. you're up _ that. thank you. that is business today, you're up to _ that. thank you. that is business today, you're up to date. -
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hello from the bbc sport centre. the debate over the criteria for participation in women's sport continues after italian boxer angela carini abandoned her 0lympic match against algeria's imane khelif inside 46 seconds. khelif is one of two boxers, along with taiwan's lin yu—ting, who fights later on friday, who have been cleared to compete in the women's boxing in paris, despite being disqualified from last year's women's world championships for failing to meet gender eligibility criteria. nicola adams, the first british female boxer to win gold at an 0lympics, said on social media: "that it was hard to watch another female fighter be forced to give up on her 0lympic dreams." here's the ioc spokesperson mark adams, speaking on friday:

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