Weekly Market Update - 5 September 2022

Apple’s New Releases

Apple unveiled a new lineup of devices with few surprises beyond one major one: It didn’t raise its US prices. The company unveiled the Phone 14, enhanced AirPods Pro earbuds and an Apple Watch upgrade that included a first-ever Ultra model. The new iPhone looks very similar to existing models. New features include satellite-messaging, and, on the higher-end models, a new notch interface called the Dynamic Island. It’s also done away with physical sim cards.

Source: Bloomberg

Meeting Face-To-Face

Xi Jinping will meet Vladimir Putin in-person for the first time since Moscow invaded Ukraine, as the authoritarian leaders push back against rising geopolitical pressure from the US. Xi will sit down with Putin at next week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, Russia’s ambassador to China, Andrey Denisov, said. Xi is also expected to travel to neighboring Kazakhstan on September 14 for a state visit. The news comes as a Chinese state-backed trade expo abruptly canceled an event hosted by Ukraine touting investment opportunities there, in a move that could fuel concerns that Beijing is tacitly backing Moscow in the conflict.

Source: Bloomberg

Going Green

Indian tycoon Gautam Adani, now the world’s third-richest person, offered new details on his $70 billion push to tap the global shift to clean energy, outlining plans for three giant factories to produce renewable power equipment. Adani’s conglomerate, which still relies heavily on profits from fossil fuels, will build major facilities to manufacture electrolyzers for making green hydrogen, wind power turbines and solar panels, he said. The billionaire called the plants “gigafactories,” a term usually used to describe EV battery facilities and implying they’d have gigawatt-scale capacities.

Source: Bloomberg