News

SYDNEY (Reuters) -New Zealand will allocate more budget funds to give rebates to foreign studios for filming movies in the country - a move which follows U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement of 100% tariffs on films made outside the United States. New Zealand, where the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy was shot, has become a popular filming location for Hollywood movies due to lower costs and government incentives. When announcing the 100% tariffs this month, Trump said Hollywood was dying a "very fast death" due to incentives offered by other countries.

The latest developments in the U.S.-China trade dispute favored the company. On positive developments in the China-U.S. trade dispute, investors piled into the stock, sending it to a more than 26% gain week to date as of early Thursday night, according to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Japan's economy shrank for the first time in a year in the March quarter, data showed on Friday, underscoring the fragile nature of its recovery now under threat from U.S. President Donald Trump's trade policies. Real gross domestic product (GDP) contracted an annualised 0.7% in January-March, preliminary government data showed, much bigger than a median market forecast for a 0.2% drop. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the economy shrank 0.2% compared with market forecasts for a 0.1% contraction.

The United Nations on Thursday forecast slower global economic growth this year and next, pointing to the impact of the surge in U.S. tariffs and increasing trade tensions. U.N. economists also cited the volatile geopolitical landscape and threats of rising production costs, supply chain disruptions and financial turbulence. “These days, there’s so much uncertainty in the air,” said Shantanu Mukherjee, director of the Economic Analysis and Policy Division at the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Commerce Department is considering placing more Chinese companies, including ChangXin Memory (CXMT), on its restricted export list, a person familiar with the matter said. The Bureau of Industry and Security is also looking at adding subsidiaries of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation and Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. to the "Entity List", the person said.

First Solar (FSLR) jumped nearly 20% after news that U.S. House GOP lawmakers proposed a budget with softened credit cuts for renewables.

What do central banks know that the rest of us don’t?