China Sets Conservative Economic Growth Target of Above 6%

1 / 2

China Sets Conservative Economic Growth Target of Above 6%

Bloomberg News
·3 min read

(Bloomberg) --

China set a conservative economic growth target of above 6% for the year, well below what economists forecast, and outlined ongoing fiscal support to keep the recovery going.

The government will narrow the budget deficit to 3.2% of gross domestic product this year, Premier Li Keqiang said Friday at the opening of the National People’s Congress. While that’s lower than last year’s 3.6% of GDP, it’s above the 3% expected by many analysts, signaling Beijing still sees a need for expanded fiscal policy to support growth this year.

“In 2021, China will continue to face many development risks and challenges, but the economic fundamentals that will sustain long-term growth remain unchanged,” said Li. “A target of over 6% will enable all of us to devote full energy to promoting reform, innovation, and high-quality development.”

China’s economy was the only major one in the world to expand last year, aided by the central bank’s injections of liquidity to support businesses, extra fiscal spending on infrastructure and the quick control of coronavirus outbreaks domestically. Economists predict the economy will expand 8.4% this year, partly due to the low base from 2020.

“The tone is very conservative,” said Raymond Yeung, chief economist for Greater China at Australia and New Zealand Banking Group in Hong Kong. The fiscal targets suggest “2021 is a year of tapering.”

China’s CSI 300 Index of stocks fell as much as 2%, poised to enter a technical correction, before paring. Traders blamed the initial losses on a global rout overnight, rather than any negative headlines out of the NPC. China’s government bonds were little changed, while the onshore yuan weakened less than 0.1%.

The quota for local government bond sales is higher than the 3.5 trillion yuan forecast by analysts as the government continues to pursue proactive fiscal policy. On monetary policy, the government reiterated that it would be prudent, and would keep the yuan basically stable at a reasonable level.

China’s V-shaped recovery alongside a recession in the U.S. and elsewhere puts it on course to become the world’s largest economy by 2028, two years earlier than expected, according to projections by several banks including Nomura Holdings Inc.

What Bloomberg Economics Says...

This is a low bar for this year. Bloomberg Economics forecasts GDP will expand 8.2% this year, reflecting continued progress in the recovery and a low base of comparison last year, when growth slumped to 2.3%.

-- Chang Shu, chief Asia economist

For the full report, click here

Alongside that recovery has been a build-up in debt and worries about asset bubbles, fueling expectations that policy makers will withdraw the monetary and fiscal stimulus unleashed during the pandemic last year.

This year’s meeting of the NPC, China’s main legislature, has added significance because of the release of a new five-year plan covering 2021-2025. Some of the key goals already outlined include strengthening consumer demand, investing in hi-tech industries, and addressing long-term challenges such as an aging population.

(Updates with comment from economist and market reaction)

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Recommended Stories

  • Oil extends gains on OPEC+ supply restraint

    Oil prices rose early on Friday, adding to big gains overnight after OPEC and its allies agreed to not increase supply in April as they await a more solid recovery in demand from the coronavirus pandemic. Both contracts soared more than 4% on Thursday after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, together called OPEC+, extended oil output curbs into April, with small exemptions to Russia and Kazakhstan. "It just goes to show how much of a surprise the OPEC+ discipline is," said Michael McCarthy, chief market strategist at CMC Markets.

  • Australia Housing to Rise 10% in 2021, Risks Ahead, Goldman Says

    (Bloomberg) -- Australian house prices will advance 10% this year, fueled by low interest rates and improved sentiment, but there are risks ahead including a potentially more hawkish Reserve Bank, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said.The outlook for residential construction and turnover has also strengthened in recent months, Goldman said in a research note released Friday. Combined with positive wealth effects, it estimates the housing industry’s “overall impulse to annual GDP will be around +1 percentage point” over the next few years.“This outlook assumes that immigration normalizes to pre-Covid levels in 2022 and the RBA does not hike the cash rate until 2H2024,” wrote Andrew Boak, Goldman’s chief economist for Australia. “More prolonged border restrictions or an earlier-than-expected tightening in monetary policy pose downside risks.”Further out, Goldman sees house prices rising 5% in 2022 and 3% in 2023.Australia’s housing market has gathered strength as the economy recovered, with February recording the biggest monthly price gain in 17 years. While property is also surging from Singapore to Canada and the U.S., a return to boom times Down Under threatens to swell already elevated household debt.Boak is “particularly mindful” of the potential for RBA Governor Philip Lowe to turn hawkish over the next few years “amid renewed concerns around housing debt levels and ‘macro-stability’ risks,” the note said. “For now, however, we expect the RBA to remain dovish and focus on achieving its targets for inflation and unemployment, and to de-emphasize risks around rising house prices.”Read More: Housing Booms in Australia as Prices Surge Most in 17 YearsAustralian housing took off after the central bank slashed rates to a record low and said they’re likely to stay there for at least three years. The boom makes it harder for young people to get a foot on the property ladder, with Sydney the world’s third-least affordable market, and Melbourne the sixth, a report last week showed.There is also the potential for tighter macroprudential policies “beyond the next year or two if investor mortgage growth picks up materially,” Boak said, citing other risks.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Nasdaq Sinks to Two-Month Low as Bond Yields Jump: Markets Wrap

    (Bloomberg) -- The renewed bout of Treasury volatility spurred a surge in bond yields on Wednesday, dragging down stocks as investors grappled with concern over stretched valuations.A selloff in high-flying giants such as Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. outweighed gains in banks and energy producers. The Nasdaq 100 slumped to a two-month low, bringing its losses from a February peak to about 8%. The S&P 500 extended its slide into a second day, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average outperformed. Benchmark U.S. government yields approached 1.5%, with bonds pricing in the highest five-year inflation expectations since 2008. Traders also assessed data pointing to a slow and uneven economic recovery from the depths of the pandemic.The rout in Treasuries has rattled nerves across the globe amid warnings of excessive optimism among equity investors after the S&P 500 surged 70% in 11 months, notching the best start for a bull market in nine decades. While there haven’t been any signs of panic, concerns over lofty valuations have emerged. The stock benchmark’s earnings yield was about 1.7 percentage points above 10-year rates: the smallest advantage in three years.“Volatility has picked up a little bit, we’ve had bigger up days and down days,” said James Ragan, director of wealth management research at D.A. Davidson. “The focus is still on rising interest rates and how that’s impacting valuations on some of the higher multiple sectors.”Data Wednesday showed that growth at U.S. service providers slowed to a nine-month low in February, when severe winter weather gripped much of the nation and limited activity. Meanwhile, the number of employees at U.S. businesses rose by less than expected, underscoring the jobs market’s struggle to recover despite a decline in Covid-19 infections in recent weeks.The U.S. economy expanded modestly in the first two months of the year and sentiment among business owners is picking up as vaccinations bolster the prospects for growth, according to the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book. President Joe Biden has agreed to moderate Democrats’ demands to narrow eligibility for stimulus checks, but party leaders in the Senate are resisting a push to trim extra unemployment benefits as they try to consolidate support for the $1.9 trillion relief-bill, a Democratic aide said.Elsewhere, oil jumped on a government report showing a record drop in domestic fuel inventories in the aftermath of a deep freeze that shuttered refineries in the U.S. South.Some key events to watch this week:OPEC+ meeting on output Thursday.U.S. factory orders, initial jobless claims and durable goods orders are due Thursday.The February U.S. employment report on Friday will provide an update on the speed and direction of the nation’s labor market recovery.These are some of the moves in markets:StocksThe S&P 500 slid 1.3% as of 4 p.m. New York time.The Stoxx Europe 600 Index was little changed.The MSCI Asia Pacific Index increased 1.1%.The MSCI Emerging Market Index advanced 1.4%.CurrenciesThe Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index gained 0.3%.The euro decreased 0.2% to $1.2066.The Japanese yen depreciated 0.3% to 106.97 per dollar.BondsThe yield on 10-year Treasuries jumped eight basis points to 1.47%.Germany’s 10-year yield climbed six basis points to -0.29%.Britain’s 10-year yield rose nine basis points to 0.779%.CommoditiesWest Texas Intermediate crude advanced 2.6% to $61.28 a barrel.Gold slid 1.4% to $1,714.77 an ounce.Silver fell 2.3% to $26.16 per ounce.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • China to Step Up Oversight of Fintech, Financial Holding Firms

    (Bloomberg) -- China plans to step up oversight of financial holding companies and the nation’s booming fintech industry, Premier Li Keqiang said, setting the tone for closer scrutiny this year of behemoths including Jack Ma’s Ant Group Co.The government will ensure financial innovation has prudent supervision, Li said Friday at the opening of the National People’s Congress. The authorities will also step up an anti-monopoly crackdown and prevent the “unregulated” expansion of capital to create fair competition, Li said.China’s policymakers are walking a fine line of trying to curb risks at home while encouraging local champions as the economy opens wider to foreign capital. Fintech has become the latest target of scrutiny since China’s leaders pledged in 2017 to clean up threats to its $53 trillion financial industry, tackling property loans, opaque wealth management products and fraud-riddled peer-to-peer lending.“We will improve the mechanism for managing financial risks, see responsibilities are fulfilled by all the stakeholders, and ensure that no systemic risks arise,” Li said. “Financial institutions must serve the real economy.”All three financial watchdogs have made it their primary goal this year to curb the push of technology firms into finance, taking aim at a sector where loose oversight fueled breakneck growth for firms such as Ant and Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s Wechat Pay.Regulators has introduced a raft of measures to curb fintech’s growing influence over China’s financial plumbing since late last year, targeting monopolistic practices and tightening scrutiny in areas from credit scoring and payments. New rules on online microlending and financial holding companies have hit billionaire Ma’s Ant particularly hard, derailing its $35 billion initial public offering abruptly and forcing the firm to restructure its sprawling businesses.Ant is in talks with regulators to restructure into a financial holding company, people familiar with the matter said earlier.Meanwhile, China will balance its derisking campaign with efforts to revive economic growth. The government plans to extend policies allowing small businesses to delay repayments and have financial institutions further reduce lending rates and forgo profits to help the economy. Big banks should boost their small business loans by 30% this year, Li said.The lenders were put on the front-line in helping millions of struggling businesses during the pandemic and required to forgo a combined 1.5 trillion ($232 billion) in earnings by reducing borrowing costs and allowing delayed repayments. That helped China become the only major economy to achieve economic growth last year.The banking industry reported a 3% decline in combined profit in 2020, the worst performance in at least a decade, according to official data. Lenders disposed of a record 3 trillion yuan of non-performing loans last year and are under pressure to carve out more soured credit in 2021 as a payment holiday ends at the end of March. The pandemic’s extraordinary relief measures hid the true state of asset quality in the banking sector, which reported an unexpected decline in its bad loan ratio last year.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • China boosts defense spending by 6.8% amid debt, pandemic

    China is increasing its defense spending by 6.8% in 2021 as it works to maintain a robust upgrading of the armed forces despite high government debt and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. A national budget report issued Friday said China would spend 1.355 trillion yuan ($210 billion) on defense in the coming year. The military budget has dipped during periods of slower economic growth, but has also been dropping steadily from the double-digit percentage increases over years as the increasingly powerful military matures and rapid expansion of what is already the world’s second largest defense budget is no longer required.

  • China sets economic-growth target of 6%, aims to be more self-reliant on tech

    China’s top economic official announced a healthy growth target for the nation and its plans to become a more self-reliant technology leader amid tension with Washington and Europe over trade, Hong Kong and human rights.

  • Bank of Japan Shares End Their Puzzling Rally, Dropping by Limit

    (Bloomberg) -- The Bank of Japan’s head-scratching surge this week came to a halt on Friday, as the stock erased earlier gains to fall by its limit.The shares traded at 44,000 yen as of 10:50 a.m. in Tokyo, dropping 19% after rising by the limit in each of the four previous sessions.The volatile moves in the shares, or subscription certificates as the BOJ refers to them, has baffled market participants. While the BOJ is unusual in being a listed central bank, the stock pays a tiny dividend and holds no voting rights. In fact, the central bank doesn’t even hold shareholders’ meetings. The stock traded at an all-time low just in January.Usually little noticed or commented on, the central bank’s stock became a topic of conversation in parliament on Friday, where BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda was delivering his semi-annual report on currency and monetary control.“The Bank of Japan’s subscription certificates are completely different from the normal shares of listed companies,” Kuroda said in response to a question about the long-term decline in the stock price during his time as governor. Unlike a normal stock, he said, the share price doesn’t reflect profits or the state of its balance sheet. “The price is not the responsibility of the bank.”Speculative MovesWhile technically a listed entity on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Jasdaq, the nature of the stock and its speculative moves are a long-standing mystery of Japan’s financial markets. A speculative surge was also witnessed in late 2012 and early 2013, when optimism over the Abenomics program of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was at its peak.The government holds a 55% stake, while individual investors have 40%. The subscription certificates can’t be bought at online securities firms, as they weren’t subject to the 2009 digitalization of traditional paper stock certificates. It’s the only issue for which Japan Securities Clearing Corp., the entity that clears transactions for all equities in the country, still requires physical delivery of paper certificates, which remain valid even now.This week’s short-lived rally comes after the Nikkei 225 Stock Average briefly touched its highest levels since the bubble era of the 1980s. In those days, when the benchmark traded at around 70 times earnings, some investors collected BOJ’s stock and framed their certificates as a collectible which were then worth 745,000 yen ($6,945) apiece.The moves have come ahead of a closely-watched policy review by the central bank on March 19, which may lead to changes in how it buys exchange-traded funds -- because as well as being listed, the BOJ is itself the largest single owner of Japanese shares.(Updates with share slide on Friday.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Nasdaq ends sharply lower after Powell comments

    Wall Street ended sharply lower on Thursday, leaving the Nasdaq down nearly 10% from its February record high, after remarks from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell disappointed investors worried about rising longer-term U.S. bond yields. A decline of 10% from its February record high would confirm the Nasdaq is in a correction. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield spiked to 1.533% after Powell's comments, which did not point to changes in the Fed's asset purchases to tackle the recent jump in yields.

  • Vroom, Inc. (VRM) Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

    VRM earnings call for the period ending December 31, 2020.

  • California’s snowpack signals another dry year, prompting calls to save water

    Water resources officials found that the snowpack, which supplies a third of the state’s water each year, had a water content of just 61% of average Sean de Guzman, chief of snow surveys for the California department of water resources, checks the depth of the snowpack near Echo Summit, California. Photograph: Randall Benton/AP California will face another critically dry year, and residents will need to adapt quickly to cope with water shortages and a warmer, drier climate that has helped fuel destructive wildfires. Officials with the state’s department of water resources announced on Tuesday they had found that the water content of the overall snowpack for 2 March amounted to 61% of the average. The state’s largest reservoirs were storing between 38% and 68% of their capacity, officials said, meaning that the state would have a lot less water to carry it through the rest of the year. “With below-average precipitation across the state, California’s reservoirs are starting to see the impacts of a second consecutive dry year,” said Sean de Guzman, the department’s chief of snow surveys and water supply forecasting. “It’s more critical than ever that Californians adopt sustainability, embrace new approaches and emerging technologies and work together to save water for a secure future,” he added. The Sierra snowpack, which starts building up in the fall, usually supplies about a third of California’s water each year. December, January and February are usually the wettest months – but this year, rain and snowfall at higher elevations have fallen below average month after month. “Absent a series of strong storms in March or April we are going to end with a critically dry year on the heels of last year’s dry conditions,” Karla Nemeth, the department’s director, said in a statement. “Water efficiency and drought preparedness are more important than ever for communities, agriculture and the environment.” Lake Shasta, the state’s largest surface water reservoir, was at 50% of capacity, De Guzman said. The state’s previous drought – which lasted from 2012 to 2016 – resulted in about $2.7bn in losses for the agriculture industry, and more than 18,000 lost jobs, economists estimate. The drought also contributed to the deaths of about 102m forest trees, ecologists found. Hotter, drier weather fueled by global heating has also contributed to more damaging wildfires. With each warmer year, the likelihood of hotter weather and more extreme drought increases – leaving a landscape that is tinder-dry and more prone to fire. Last year, the state saw five of the six largest blazes on record.

  • Investors Bet on Higher Inflation

    Welcome to the Capital Note, a newsletter about business, finance, and economics. On the menu today: the reflation, mortgage rates rise, Deliveroo’s IPO, and a look at equity duration during a pandemic. To sign up for the Capital Note, follow this link. The Reflation Is Here Investors are selling bonds in droves on the expectation of higher inflation. The U.S. ten-year yield now stands at 1.5 percent, near its pre-pandemic level, following a 10 percent decline in ten-year Treasury prices. The magnitude of the sell-off mirrors 2013’s so-called taper tantrum, when a pullback in Federal Reserve asset purchases sent bond prices plummeting. This time around, the dynamic is reversed: Investors are responding to an overly accommodative central bank, betting that growing aggregate demand will push inflation up. That’s tempered partially by a change in interest-rate expectations. The Fed has guided near-zero rates until roughly 2024, but investors have priced in three rate hikes by the end of 2023, betting that a persistent inflation overshoot will shake the Fed’s commitment to accommodative policy. With U.S. retail sales posting a record jump last month while producer prices rose, supply and demand appear likely to be imbalanced this year. For their part, central bankers have dismissed inflation concerns. Fed chair Jay Powell played down inflation concerns in his Senate testimony last week, and redoubled his commitment to holding interest rates low for the foreseeable future. So far, the winner of the “reflation” have been macro hedge funds. The Financial Times reported this morning that the big-name macro funds have posted record gains this year: Caxton, which last year posted its best ever returns, has gained 7.2 per cent in its Macro fund, run by Law, and 4.5 per cent in its main fund this year, according to an investor. Meanwhile, Odey’s European fund, managed by founder Crispin Odey, gained 38.4 per cent last month, according to investor documentation seen by the FT, taking gains this year to 51.1 per cent. The fund has been running large bets against UK and Japanese government bonds. The firm recently wrote to clients to say it expected US inflation at 10-to-15 per cent this year. The losers so far: tech stocks. Low bond yields lengthen the time-horizon for stock valuations — called “equity duration” — because earnings far into the future are more valuable when interest rates are low. The tech-heavy Nasdaq has lost 6 percent over the past two weeks, halting what seemed like an inexorable rally in tech stocks. Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management, which offers actively managed tech ETFs, has hit a road bump after posting triple-digit gains last year. The Wall Street Journal reports: The ETFs suffered double-digit percentage decreases last week, their biggest routs since the stock market’s plunge last March, according to FactSet. Further declines among growth stocks on Tuesday and Wednesday drove even deeper drops among ARK’s funds, bringing the declines for its flagship ARK Innovation ETF to 14% over the past month. The cascade of red has proved hard for many investors to stomach. ARK’s funds collectively lost more than $1.8 billion between Feb. 24 and Monday, their biggest stretch of outflows ever, according to FactSet. Together, they managed roughly $51 billion at the end of February, making ARK the ninth-largest ETF operator. That’s after attracting $36.5 billion in assets over the past year, more than Invesco Ltd. , Charles Schwab Corp. and First Trust—the fourth, fifth and sixth biggest ETF issuers in the U.S., according to Morningstar Direct. Wood is doubling down on growth stocks. After last week’s sell-off, she announced she’d bought more shares of Tesla. The question now is how high bond yields can go. Many of the macro funds that bet on a reflation have closed their positions, and Wall Street analysts have cast doubt on the potential for a serious overshoot. Around the Web 30-Year Mortgage Rate Tops 3% for First Time Since July The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to 3.02%, mortgage-finance giant Freddie Mac said Thursday. It is the first time the rate on America’s most popular home loan has risen above 3% since July and the fifth consecutive week it has increased or held steady. Mortgage rates fell throughout most of 2020 after the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged the economy. That helped power a boom in mortgage lending, fueled by refinancings. When rates hit 2.98% in July, it was their first time under the 3% mark in some 50 years of record-keeping. Deliveroo IPO Deliveroo is targeting a price tag of as much as $10bn in its initial public offering, according to people briefed on discussions at the food delivery group, giving London its most valuable new listing for several years. If the London-based company completes the float at the top of its target range, giving it a market capitalisation of more than £7bn, Deliveroo would be worth more than Sage, one of the few FTSE 100 tech companies, and The Hut Group, the ecommerce group that did the largest UK IPO for five years in 2020. Buffet staying small Berkshire is spending more of its $138 billion in cash on smaller investments, as opposed to deploying it on the huge acquisitions that he famously made in the past. The conglomerate bought back nearly $25 billion of its own shares last year, a record for a company that until recently was reluctant to spend its cash this way. Random Walk With “long-duration” stocks selling off, today’s Random Walk takes us to a recent paper from the University of California, which looks at the sensitivity of stock prices to pandemic shutdowns. Implied equity duration was originally developed to analyze the sensitivity of equity prices to discount rate changes. We demonstrate that implied equity duration is also useful for analyzing the sensitivity of equity prices to pandemic shutdowns. Pandemic shutdowns primarily impact short-term cash flows, thus they have a greater impact on low duration equities. We show that implied equity duration has a strong positive relation to US equity returns and analyst forecast revisions during the onset of the2020 COVID-19 shutdown. Our analysis also demonstrates that the underperformance of ‘value’ stocks during this period is a rational response to their lower durations. In short, companies that generate more-near-term cash flows suffered greater losses than those whose earnings are expected to materialize in the future. This explains in large part why tech stocks — which are valued on longer-term earnings, and many of which are cash-flow negative in the near-term — performed so well during the pandemic. The same framework can be applied to any macroeconomic disruption. Low-duration stocks significantly underperformed during the 2008–09 financial crisis, for example. This is why it can often seem that the stock market is “disconnected” from the real economy: The more long-duration stocks in the market, the less sensitive it is to macro factors. — D.T. To sign up for the Capital Note, follow this link.

  • PreMarket Prep Stock Of The Day: General Electric

    Benzinga's PreMarket Prep airs every morning from 8-9 a.m. ET. During that fast-paced, highly informative hour, traders and investors tune in to get the major news of the day, the catalysts behind those moves and the corresponding price action for the upcoming session. On any given day, the show will cover at least 20 stocks determined by co-hosts Joel Elconin and Dennis Dick along with producer Spencer Israel. Over the last few weeks, there has been a clear rotation in stocks from growth to value. Although General Electric Company (NYSE; GE) is not what it once was with regards to value, it is certainly not a growth stock. Its price action in Thursday's volatile session makes it Benzinga's PreMarket Prep Stock of the Day. GE's Horrible Relative Performance: Any way you slice it, GE has been an underperformer in the greatest bull market of all time. Perhaps the best comparison can be made from the March 2009 low in GE stock and the S&P 500 index. Who can forget the index’s low at 666.79 and GE’s low at $5.51? With the cash index at 3,760 today and GE at $13.40, the numbers speak for themselves. The index has returned 463%, while GE has returned 160%, with much of that appreciation coming in the last five months. Getting Off The Mat: Through downsizing, reducing dividends and expenses and disposing of valuable assets, GE has slimmed down the balance sheet. By reducing debt and paying fewer people, more of GE's earnings have trickled down to the bottom line. After going nowhere from its March 2020 close ($7.94) to its October 2020 close ($7.42), GE caught a bid in November that has carried over into 2021. The recent stampede out of growth into value has been a boon to the issue as well. Did Morgan Stanley Top Tick GE? Before the open Thursday, Morgan Stanley maintained an Overweight rating on the issue and raised the price target from $13 to a Street high of $17. That instigated a much higher open for the issue ($13.88 vs. Wednesday’s close of $13.44). GE Price Action: After clearing out the institutional sellers at $14, GE could only get to $14.13 before sharply reversing course. That high came in between its just above its June 2018 high ($13.88) and July 2018 high ($13.74), but well shy of its May 2018 high ($14.99). Trapped longs on the breakout and a weak market nudged the issue from firmly in the green to in the red in afternoon trading. GE shares recovered to close Thursday's session 0.97% higher at $13.57. GE Moving Forward: Who knows? With this issue, which quite some distance from its nearly three-year high and a weak tape for now, a short-term top could very well be in place. For investors looking to sell on weakness instead of strength, the trio of lows at the $13 area is an area to focus on with continued weakness in the issue. See more from BenzingaClick here for options trades from BenzingaPreMarket Prep Stock Of The Day: SalesforcePreMarket Prep Stock Of The Day: Nio© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

  • Square Stock Drops After It Agrees To Buy Jay-Z's Tidal Music Service

    Square stock dipped after the payment firm said it would acquire rapper Jay-Z's Tidal streaming service for $297 million in cash and stock. Tidal has struggled against rivals Spotify and Apple.

  • China says will deter Taiwan independence but seek peaceful ties

    China will resolutely deter any separatist activity seeking Taiwan's independence but is committed to promoting the peaceful growth of relations across the Taiwan Strait and China's "reunification", Premier Li Keqiang said on Friday. China, which claims democratic Taiwan as its own territory, has increased its military activity near the island in recent months, responding to what it calls "collusion" between Taipei and Washington, Taiwan's main international backer and arms supplier.

  • Biden lauds NASA team for giving US 'dose of confidence'

    President Joe Biden on Thursday congratulated the NASA team responsible for last month’s successful landing of an six-wheeled rover on Mars and for giving the country a “dose of confidence” at a moment when the nation's reputation as a scientific leader has been tattered by the coronavirus pandemic. Biden speaking in video conference call with the leadership of space agency’s jet propulsion laboratory team expressed awe over the Feb. 18 landing of Perseverance. Perseverance, the biggest, most advanced rover ever sent by NASA, became the ninth spacecraft since the 1970s to successfully land on Mars, traveling some 300 million miles in nearly seven months, as part of an ongoing quest to study whether there was once life on the planet.

  • Fox Sports reportedly gave Skip Bayless a $32 million contract to keep him from going back to ESPN

    Skip Bayless is reportedly staying at Fox Sports for a reported $8 million per year after ESPN pursued him with offers in the same salary range.

  • Kamala Harris casts tie-breaking vote to allow debate on Biden’s Covid relief bill to begin in Senate

    Polls suggest more than 70 per cent of the American public back the legislation

  • Democrats want to send $350B to cities and states with Biden's COVID-19 relief bill, but Republicans see it as wasteful

    President Joe Biden's COVID-19 aid bill includes $350 billion for state and local governments, but Republicans say it's wasteful and unfair.

  • Agency cancels Hawaii tsunami watch after huge Pacific quake

    The U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center cancelled a tsunami watch Thursday for Hawaii that was issued after a huge earthquake occurred in a remote area between New Zealand and Tonga. The agency previously cancelled a tsunami warning it had issued for American Samoa. The magnitude 8.1 quake struck the Kermadec Islands region.

  • Trump inadvertently boosts Biden's stimulus messaging with another statement raging against McConnell

    Former President Donald Trump has released a new post-presidency statement, and Democrats might just be glad he did. The former president, who remains permanently banned from Twitter, released a statement Thursday once again raging against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), blasting him as the "most unpopular politician in the country" while blaming him for Republicans' Senate losses in Georgia — losses for which Trump himself has been blamed by other Republicans. One of the reasons Republicans lost the two Georgia Senate runoffs in January, Trump argues, was "Mitch McConnell's refusal to go above $600 per person on the stimulus check payments when the two Democrat opponents were touting $2,000 per person in ad after ad." The statement offered "quite the pre-stimulus political gift to Democrats," wrote National Journal's Josh Kraushaar, while The Washington Post's Dave Weigel noted that Trump "remarkably" used this opportunity to "validate Biden's messaging on the $1,400 checks instead of whacking him and Democrats for curtailing them." Remarkably, Trump also uses this statement to validate Biden's messaging on the $1400 checks instead of whacking him and Democrats for curtailing them. "The $2000 will be approved anyway by the Democrats." https://t.co/M9dXoX13VS — Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) March 4, 2021 Indeed, Trump writes that "the $2,000 will be approved anyway by the Democrats," while offering no comment on the fact that the new checks are actually for $1,400, nor on Biden's recent compromise that narrows the eligibility. Politico's Gabby Orr observed that Trump "could have put out a statement saying the income phase-outs in the Biden stimulus bill are going to mean he gave checks to more Americans," but "instead he's still targeting his own party with stuff like this." This was just Trump's latest statement in this vein after he released another one last month describing McConnell as an "unsmiling political hack." He also mentioned McConnell in a recent Conservative Political Action Conference speech, in which he took credit for McConnell's recent re-election. McConnell told Fox News he "didn't watch" the speech and that "we're dealing with the present and the future, not looking back to the past." More stories from theweek.comTrump wants revenge on Alaska's Sen. Murkowski. His advisers think he won't follow through because the flight is too long. 7 scathingly funny cartoons about Trump's CPAC appearanceThe Republican grievance perpetual motion machine