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Real-time News
August 18th - BHP Billitons annual profit rose by nearly a third, driven by higher commodity prices, and for the first time, its copper revenue surpassed its iron ore revenue. BHP Billiton announced on Tuesday that its underlying profit for the fiscal year ending in June reached $13.2 billion, a 30% increase year-on-year, exceeding analysts expectations. The company also announced a final dividend of 99 cents, equivalent to a 72% payout ratio. Copper prices surged to record highs during the past fiscal year, and iron ore, another core product of BHP Billiton, continued its strong performance. BHP Billiton expects global copper demand to increase from approximately 34 million tons currently to 50 million tons per year by 2050. However, with declining grades and aging mines, BHP Billitons copper production at its Chilean mines is currently declining, prompting the company to invest billions just to maintain production.[Compiled by: Daily Tech News Roundup (August 18)] Artificial Intelligence: 1. Anthropics annualized revenue surpassed $65 billion before its IPO. 2. ByteDance signed an agreement with the Motion Picture Association of America to strengthen copyright protection for its AI models. 3. Nvidia partnered with SB Energy to develop an 8-gigawatt hyperscale AI data center in Ohio, USA, and invested $1.5 billion in SB Energy. 4. Nvidia: OpenAI pledged to deploy Nvidias AI infrastructure on a large scale by 2030, corresponding to a computing business scale of approximately $600 billion. Other: 1. Metas exorbitant lawsuit will begin its trial on Tuesday. 2. Jiuguang released a humanoid robot capable of lifting a 50-kilogram barbell. 3. CITIC Capitals acquisition of Alibabas Lingxi Interactive Entertainment has officially taken effect. 4. Xiaomi Auto: Xiaomi SU7 series deliveries surpassed 500,000 units in 28.5 months. 5. Unitree Robotics achieved a 2-meter high jump and a top speed of 12.66 m/s, surpassing the world records for both standing high jump and running speed. On August 18th, Scottish company DataVita secured £300 million (approximately $407 million) in financing from ING, ABN AMRO, and other European banks to expand its existing data center in Scotland and build a new one. The UK government facilitated the financing by guaranteeing 80% of the £252 million provided by two Dutch banks and Santander. The remaining funds will be provided unsecured by the Scottish National Investment Bank and Siemens Financial Services. Computing giant Dell will relocate its Scottish headquarters to the site. This investment is a key signal of a significant revival for the UKs so-called "AI growth zones" under the leadership of new Prime Minister Burnham. Former Prime Minister Starmer had identified these areas as a crucial pillar of the Labour governments AI policy.On August 18th, the State Financial Supervision and Administration Bureau released key regulatory indicators for the banking and insurance industries in the second quarter of 2026. Data showed that the net interest margin (NIM) of commercial banks was 1.41% in the second quarter, a slight increase of 0.01 percentage points from 1.40% in the first quarter, marking the first quarterly increase since 2022. However, different types of banks showed divergent trends. State-owned banks, city commercial banks, rural commercial banks, and private banks all saw their NIMs increase quarter-on-quarter, while joint-stock banks remained flat, and foreign banks experienced a decline. Industry analysts believe the core driver of this NIM stabilization is on the liability side: the concentrated maturity and repricing of high-interest deposits, coupled with banks proactive optimization of their liability structure, effectively reduced interest costs. Under regulatory guidance, the interest rate self-regulation mechanism played a role in curbing irrational price competition in lending rates, helping to stabilize asset pricing and supporting the NIM.August 18th - Foreign investors holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds declined in June, primarily due to reductions in holdings by Japan and China. According to data released by the U.S. Treasury Department on Monday, foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds decreased by $72.1 billion month-on-month to $9.3 trillion in June. Foreign holdings have declined in three of the past four months since reaching a record high in February. During this period, U.S. Treasury bonds fell as investors worried about the massive fiscal deficit and above-target inflation. Japan, the largest holder of U.S. Treasury bonds, saw the largest reduction in June, decreasing its holdings by approximately $26.4 billion to $1.12 trillion. The yen has been under continued pressure in recent months, prompting Japan to intervene to stabilize its exchange rate. The U.S. also participated in intervention at the end of July. Some market observers believe the underlying reason is concern that Japan might sell U.S. Treasury bonds to defend the yen, thereby pushing up U.S. borrowing costs. "Japans actions are clearly driven by the need for foreign exchange intervention," said Paresh Upadhi, a strategist at Vanguard Investments. He pointed out that U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessant not only intervened in July but also suggested that Japan might utilize the Federal Reserves tools to avoid directly selling its government bonds. It goes without saying that we will not see Japan selling U.S. Treasury bonds again.
