tyb
epic last bred
China capex growth hits 3-year low as weak economy, trade war drag
BENGALURU/SHANGHAI, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Capital investment by Chinese firms has ground to its slowest pace in three years, as a weakening economy, tight credit and prolonged trade war with the United States dent sales growth and cash reserves, a Reuters analysis showed.
Companies are also spending more days to turn inventory into sales and eking out smaller profit gains, the analysis showed, in an economy growing at its weakest pace in nearly three decades, with many analysts expecting the slowdown to intensify. The outlook became even more uncertain on Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump said a trade deal with China might have to wait until after the U.S. presidential election in November 2020.
"Things will get much worse before getting better," economists at Macquarie said in a client note on Monday. Even positive economic data from China recently is volatile and vulnerable to one-off factors such as warm weather, they said. "After all, the so-called phase 1 deal is mainly about preventing things from getting worse, instead of making things significantly better," they said, referring to negotiations in a 16-month Sino-U.S. trade war punctuated by tit-for-tat import tariffs.
TIGHT CREDIT-Chinese firms raised capital spending by 1.6% in the three months through September versus the same period a year prior, the weakest growth in three years, showed a Reuters analysis of about 2,900 firms with market capitalization above $100 million.
"Overall credit conditions are still quite tight and credit growth is actually slowing … because, in particular, the non-bank forms of credit access have become much more restrictive in the shadow banking sector." Though the government has taken steps to encourage lending, bankers told Reuters they have little appetite to lend to small firms due to the trade war and uncertain economic outlook, as well as a years-long drive to cut risk in the financial system.
Cash reserves at surveyed firms grew 5.6% on year in the September quarter, the weakest since the first quarter of 2018. Moreover, the average number of days a company holds inventory before sale was 108 in the first nine months of the year, topping an annual average of 100 or less in the last four years. Revenue grew 6.7%, the weakest in at least three years - the earliest period for which data from a comparable number of firms is available - while net profit rose 7.8% versus nearly 22% two years earlier.
The consumer discretionary and communications services sectors were among the poorest performers, with revenue shrinking 1.4% and growing just 1% respectively.
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/china-capex-growth-hits-3-year-low-as-weak-economy-trade-war-drag-2019-12-03
o7
here's a bigger one. been doin' some re-orging of folders and moving from old pc to new.
o7
Institutions have subscribed for 5.9 billion shares of Aramco IPO - lead bankers
Riyadh (Reuters) - Saudi Aramco has received orders worth 189.04 billion riyals ($50.4 billion) for the institutional tranche of its planned initial public offering (IPO), its financial advisers said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
The institutional bookbuilding began on Nov. 17 and investors have until Dec. 4 to place orders. Aramco plans to sell 1.5% of its shares, in a deal which could raise up to $25.6 billion. The Saudi oil giant has received subscription orders from institutional buyers for around 5.9 billion shares so far, Samba Capital, NCB Capital and HSBC Saudi Arabia said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-aramco-ipo/institutions-have-subscribed-for-5-9-billion-shares-of-aramco-ipo-lead-bankers-idUSKBN1Y72HL
waited on this as the original article earlier today had bad maffs-they have issued a correction.
>the kek is powerful tonight.
(40) and throwing labels around?
guess i have to stay up for that