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On May 21, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee, in his address at the 9th World Finance Forum Annual Meeting and the Intercontinental Dialogue 2026 Annual Conference, stated that Hong Kong, under the "One Country, Two Systems" principle, is interconnected both domestically and internationally. Its common law system aligns with global financial centers, providing a first-class platform for global investors to achieve their goals. Hong Kong is the worlds third-largest and Asias largest international financial center. According to the latest assessment by the International Monetary Fund, Hong Kong banks maintain adequate capital, sound liquidity, and good profitability, and the linked exchange rate system is credible. Lee emphasized that in the current complex and volatile international environment, we must take proactive measures. Hong Kong will continue to leverage its unique advantages of being backed by the motherland and connected to the world, building bridges for dialogue, expanding multilateral cooperation, and sharing the fruits of stability and growth with the world.Jefferies: Raises its price target for Nvidia (NVDA.O) from $275 to $300.On May 21st, Alibabas large-scale speech models Fun-Realtime-ASR and Fun-Realtime-AudioChat topped the charts on Artificial Analysis, a globally authoritative AI evaluation platform, surpassing top international models such as GPT-Realtime-2. They achieved first place in three metrics: "Accuracy (word error rate)," "Understanding (speech reasoning)," and "Conversation fluency." As a new human-computer interaction gateway, Alibabas large-scale speech model family has been deeply integrated into applications such as Qianwen App, Gaode Maps, and DingTalk, providing services such as real-time speech-to-text conversion, intelligent navigation interaction, and meeting minutes generation.May 21 – Despite a sharp rise in Australias unemployment rate in April, the job market remains relatively tight. Ernst & Young Chief Economist Cheryl Murphy stated that the 5.8% underemployment rate is well below pre-pandemic levels, while labor demand appears to remain high, with businesses continuing to report difficulties finding suitable workers. Murphy added that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) recently warned of the risk of rapid price increases due to rising petrol prices. She indicated that the RBA may need to further tighten monetary policy.On May 21st, Goldman Sachs released a research report stating that Baidus (09888.HK) first-quarter results this year showed accelerated growth in cloud revenue, especially GPU-based cloud services. The bank expects Baidus AI-driven business to grow by over 30% year-on-year, primarily benefiting from the robust growth of its AI cloud infrastructure (over 50% year-on-year). The bank anticipates that by the end of 2026, the contribution of AI-driven business will surpass that of traditional/other businesses. Management revealed at an analyst conference that Baidu aims to outpace the market and major peers in cloud business growth in the coming quarters. The company observed that token usage is shifting from training to inference, which will help Baidu Cloud expand its customer reach. The report quoted management as saying that the Wenxin Yiyan model is currently lagging behind, and future R&D will focus on revitalizing model capabilities, prioritizing the development of Wenxin Yiyan to drive MaaS (Model as a Service) revenue. Goldman Sachs expects a mid-term gross margin target of 35% to 40% for the GPU cloud business, while the gross margin for traditional CPU and memory services will be 25% to 30%. Management aims to reduce the holding company discount by having AI-driven businesses account for more than 50% of total revenue and by rapidly growing core cloud/chip revenue.

Oil Prices Remain Stable As Investors Anticipate Fed Reserve Remarks

Charlie Brooks

Feb 22, 2023 14:06

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Oil prices remained unchanged on Wednesday as investors awaited remarks from the U.S. Federal Reserve in response to recent data indicating the prospect of more interest rate rises, which may slow economic growth and reduce global fuel consumption.


Brent oil futures for April delivery rose 2 cents to $83.07 a barrel at 02:42 GMT on Wednesday, following a 1.2% decline on Tuesday. April West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil futures decreased one cent to $76.35 a barrel. On Tuesday, the March WTI contract expired 18 cents lower.


The U.S. Federal Reserve will release the minutes of its most recent meeting on Wednesday, giving traders a view of how high policymakers expect interest rates to rise in the wake of recent job and inflation figures that exceeded expectations.


But, other economic statistics from the United States, the world's largest oil consumer, revealed some concerning trends. In January, existing home sales reached their lowest level since October 2010, marking the twelfth consecutive monthly decline, the worst since 1999.


"Oil prices came under pressure... as dismal economic data prompted worries about demand in advanced nations," ANZ Bank senior commodity analyst Daniel Hynes wrote in a report. Further rate increases might reduce oil consumption.


Rising interest rates tend to increase the value of the dollar, making oil priced in dollars more costly for holders of other currencies. 


Recently, oil prices have been bolstered by expectations of tighter global supply and growing Chinese demand. Experts anticipate that China's oil imports will reach a record high in 2023 due to rising demand for transportation fuel and the introduction of new refineries.


ANZ's Hynes remarked that PetroChina and Unipec, the trading arm of Sinopec (OTC:SHIIY), Asia's largest oil refiner, had reserved 10 supertankers to import oil from the U.S. next month, equivalent to around 20 million barrels of crude.