Business

Hasan Ayhan followed his wife's instructions last week and took their savings to buy gold at Istanbul's Grand Bazaar as Turks scooped up bullion worth $7 billion in a just a fortnight.

Chinese search engine giant Baidu Inc posted quarterly revenue a notch ahead of estimates, but its shares slid in extended trade after its streaming service iQIYI said it was being probed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

China's retail sales slipped in July, dashing expectations for a modest rise, as consumers in the world's secondlargest economy failed to shake off wariness about the coronavirus, while the factory sector's recovery struggled to pick up pace.

Asian shares fell on Friday and European stocks were set to open lower after lacklustre Chinese economic data and worries about a delay in U.S. fiscal stimulus discouraged some investors from taking on risk.

The Trump administration on Thursday rolled back regulations aimed at reducing emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane from oil and gas operations, its latest move to unwind environmental rules ahead of November's presidential election.

Malaysia's economy plunged into its first contraction since the 2009 global financial crisis in the second quarter as the coronavirus pandemic ravaged business activity, prompting the central bank to cut its GDP forecast for this year.

Asian shares were set for a largely flat start on Friday as markets weighed a pause in Wall Street's multimonth stock rebound and awaited the release of Chinese economic data later in the session.

Apple pushed the S&P 500 and Nasdaq higher on Thursday, with the benchmark index nearing an alltime high, as jobless claims fell below one million for the first time since efforts to curb the COVID19 outbreak in the United States began five months ago.

Policymakers, economists and investors are turning increasingly to socalled highfrequency data to get a more timely snapshot of the U.S. economy during the fastmoving coronavirus pandemic than traditional monthly and quarterly indicators can provide.

President Donald Trumps proposed payroll tax cut is a threat to Social Security no matter how he casts it.

Employers in Britain have posted the most job advertisements since the country went into its coronavirus lockdown but there were some warning signals about the economy's recovery prospects in the increase in demand for workers.

Japan's wholesale prices fell at a smaller annual pace in July than in the previous month as global and domestic demand rebounded, a sign the economy was gradually emerging from the damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.

Asia's stock markets followed Wall Street higher on Thursday, as investors returned to tech stocks, gold and selling dollars after steady virus figures and a surprising jump in U.S. inflation boosted sentiment.

Ford is recalling more than 558,000 midsize SUVs in North America because the brakes may not work properly.

Venezuela's government has negotiated an agreement with Chinese banks for a grace period until the end of the year on some $19 billion in loans that are paid off with oil shipments, according to three sources in Caracas with knowledge of the situation.

Shares of Moderna Inc rose 11% on Wednesday after the company signed a $1.5 billion deal with the U.S. government for the supply of its experimental coronavirus vaccine.