Weekly Market Update - 18 July 2022

Investors Turning Their Backs On China

Investors once enticed by China’s juicy yields and huge tech companies now say reasons to avoid the country outweigh incentives to buy. They cite everything from unpredictable regulatory campaigns to economic damage caused by strict Covid policies, risks stemming from a wobbly real-estate market and even President Xi Jinping’s coziness with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. China’s officials seem aware of the need to shore up growth: the central bank governor said the monetary authority will intensify the implementation of prudent monetary policy for stronger economic support. Officials, meanwhile, are censoring crowd-sourced documents tallying a widening mortgage boycott that’s deepening the property-sector crisis.

Source: Bloomberg

Blaze Leaves Trail Of Destruction Near Bordeaux

Thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes across Europe as deadly wildfires sparked by soaring temperatures burn down swathes of woodland and threaten to destroy homes. Blazes have devastated thousands of hectares near Bordeaux, in France’s Gironde wine region, as well as across southern and western Spain. While fires in Portugal were subsiding on Sunday, areas of Turkey, Croatia and Greece were also left scorched. Europe is in the throes of an extreme and deadly heatwave, and the UK is bracing for record-breaking heat of 40° Celsius (104° Fahrenheit) on Monday as the hot weather spreads north.

Source: Bloomberg

Binge Watching

Things may be looking up for Netflix. The leader in paid streaming TV lost 970,000 subscribers in the second quarter, less than half what Wall Street feared, thanks in large part to a new season of “Stranger Things,” the service’s most popular English-language series. This quarter, Netflix expects to sign up 1 million subscribers, reversing the losses of the first half. That cheered investors, who sent the stock up as much as 12% in extended trading.

Source: Bloomberg