China PMI beats in September

• David Scutt, Business Insider Australia
 

• 16h
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ChinaFotoPress/ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images

China’s manufacturing PMI report beat expectations in September, rising to 49.8 from 49.7 in August.

A reading below 50 indicates that activity in the sector is contracting, so at 49.8 it suggests conditions deteriorated at a slightly slower pace than August.

Despite the small improvement, activity levels have now contracted for two consecutive months, something that has not occurred since January and February this year.

Business Insider Australia

While the headline index recorded a modest improvement, the internals of the report were more robust with output, new orders and supplier delivery times all improving from August.

Output jumped to 52.3 from 51.7, recording the fastest pace of expansion in two months. In a sign that demand may be starting to pick up, the gauge on new orders increased to 50.2 from 49.7, the first time since May that an improvement has been recorded.

Of the other three components, supplier delivery times improved to 50.8 from 50.6 while the employment index, still deep in contractionary territory, held steady at 47.9. Inventories, at 47.5, was the only component to deteriorate at a faster pace, sliding from 48.3 in August.

Released alongside the manufacturing report, non-manufacturing PMI held steady at 53.4 for a second consecutive month.

The report, often lost in the shadows of the manufacturing PMI release, indicates that activity levels continue to expand, albeit at a slower pace than that seen earlier in the year.

Business Insider Australia

Despite both gauges coming in significantly weaker than levels earlier in the year, they aren’t as bad as what many had feared.

Stocks in Australia, along with the Australian dollar, have both responded positively to the news, adding to gains witnessed prior to the report’s release. As at 11.25am AEST the ASX 200 is up 0.59% while the AUD/USD has risen to .7031, an increase of 0.19%.

Read the original article on Business Insider Australia. Copyright 2015.

More: China PMI PMI China Business Insider Australia

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NO SHUTDOWN — but there's a 'train wreck' coming in a few months

• Brett LoGiurato
 
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• 20h
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AP

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ANALYST: The chances of a shutdown just plummeted — but the real disaster could come in a few months

Boehner unloads on the ‘false prophets’ in his party that have made his job a nightmare

Hillary Clinton has made a major break with Obamacare

Hours ahead of a midnight deadline, Congress averted a second federal-government shutdown in two years, as the US Senate and US House of Representatives Wednesday passed legislation that keeps the government funded through December 11.

The Senate voted 78-20 Wednesday morning to keep the government funded. The House passed it 277-151.

House Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) surprise announcement of his impending resignation last week got the wheels in motion toward avoiding another shutdown — something he and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) had promised heading into the year.

But the short-term aversion of a shutdown could lead to another messy situation come December, analysts say, when Congress would be looking at another potential shutdown. It also needs to raise the nation's debt ceiling sometime this fall, and the deadlines could come up against one another — much as they did in 2013, when the federal government shut down for 17 days.

It will make for a complicated end of the year for House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California), who is expected to be the next speaker when Boehner leaves his post at the end of October.

"Can Kevin McCarthy avoid a mid-December budget train wreck? Chances of a crisis have risen, since the probable new House speaker may be less likely than John Boehner to seek votes from Nancy Pelosi's Democrats," said Greg Valliere, the chief political strategist at the Potomac Research Group. "McCarthy will take a harder line against compromising on spending; rigid domestic outlay caps may be maintained."

When Boehner announced his resignation last week, multiple Republican and Democratic congressional aides were already looking ahead to December's funding battle. Republicans and Democrats look set to again bicker over whether the government should fund Planned Parenthood, as well as over military and domestic spending.

Larry Downing/Reuters

US President Barack Obama and Democrats want to increase spending beyond the agreed-upon caps of the 2011 budget sequester, while most Republicans want to lift only military spending while making further cuts on the domestic side.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest has said that Obama will not support legislation that "locks in those sequester caps that neglect our economic and national-security priorities."

McConnell said Tuesday that he and Boehner will "soon" enter budget talks with Obama. Boehner hasn't shut the door on passing a host of contentious items, like a debt-ceiling increase, before he leaves, but analysts expect that to be easier said than done.

"Boehner and his allies will do their best over October to educate and remind the hardcore members of the House GOP that Pickett's Charge failed, though we fully expect shutdown and debt-ceiling brinkmanship to return in November and December," said Chris Krueger, an analyst at Guggenheim Securities in Washington, DC. "Despite headlines about an Obama-Boehner-McConnell fiscal kumbaya, we just don't see it."

Then there's the debt ceiling, a recurring fight during which Republicans consistently demand concessions from the White House and Democrats in exchange for raising the nation's borrowing limit. Boehner, while pushing that limit to the brink several times, stayed true to public statements and never allowed a debt-ceiling breach.

The US has hit its debt limit — the US Treasury Department is using typical "extraordinary measures" to continue paying the nation's bills. The Congressional Budget Office has said the so-called X date — the date at which the debt ceiling will have to be raised or the country will begin defaulting on its obligations — will come sometime between mid-November and mid-December.

Krueger said there's a 1-in-4 chance of some kind of "accident" in which the US accidentally breaches that ceiling.

"Almost by definition, Boehner's ouster would be the cause of Tea Party-aligned lawmakers who would either elect one of their own as speaker or command a much greater control over the legislative agenda," Krueger said. "With ... Boehner put in place, there is little risk of the US passing the debt-ceiling X date or other economically destructive policies. Without Boehner, all bets are off."

SEE ALSO: Some of John Boehner's allies are furious at Marco Rubio's unprovoked shot at his resignation

Microsoft, Google stand down in patent battles  

Microsoft Corp and Google Inc have agreed to bury all patent infringement litigation against each other, the companies announced on Wednesday, settling 18 cases in the United States and Germany. 

PHOTO: REUTERS

OCT 1, 20157:32 AM

[NEW YORK] Microsoft Corp and Google Inc have agreed to bury all patent infringement litigation against each other, the companies announced on Wednesday, settling 18 cases in the United States and Germany.

In another sign of the winding down of the global smartphone wars, the companies said the deal puts an end to court fights involving a variety of technologies, including mobile phones, wifi, and patents used in Microsoft's Xbox game consoles and other Windows products.

The agreement also drops all litigation involving Motorola Mobility, which Google sold to Lenovo Group Ltd last year while keeping its patents.

However, as Microsoft and Google continue to make products that compete directly with each other, including search engines and mobile computing devices, the agreement notably does not preclude any future infringement lawsuits, a Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed.

See who is talking about MICROSOFT

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"Google and Microsoft have agreed to collaborate on certain patent matters and anticipate working together in other areas in the future to benefit our customers," the companies said in a joint statement. They did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.

The companies said they have been cooperating on such issues as the development of a unified patent court for the European Union, and on royalty-free technology for speeding up video on the Internet.

One of the most bitter disputes between the rivals began in 2010 when Microsoft accused Motorola, later acquired by Mountain View, California-based Google, of breaching its obligation to offer licenses to its wireless and video patents used in Xbox systems at a reasonable cost.

In July, a US appeals court ruled that the low licensing rate Microsoft pays to use the patents had been properly set by a federal judge in Seattle.

Wednesday's agreement is not the first among smartphone heavyweights to settle their patent disputes.

In 2014, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Apple Inc agreed to drop all litigation against one another outside the United States.

REUTERS

      

Prompt payments hit one-year high in Q3: Singapore Commercial Credit Bureau

By

Jamie Lee leejamie@sph.com.sg@JamieLeeBT

Overall prompt payments reached a one-year high in the third quarter of this year, data from Singapore Commercial Credit Bureau on Thursday showed. Slow payments have also reached its lowest since the first quarter of 2014. 

ST PHOTO: NEO XIAOBIN

OCT 1, 201511:17 AM

OVERALL prompt payments reached a one-year high in the third quarter of this year, data from Singapore Commercial Credit Bureau on Thursday showed. Slow payments have also reached its lowest since the first quarter of 2014.

It inched up slightly above the 50 per cent mark, up 5.08 percentage points from a year ago to 51.05 per cent. From a quarter ago, this rose by 2.58 percentage points.

Overall slow payments fell slightly by 3.04 percentage points quarter-on-quarter to 38.31 per cent in the third quarter. Over the year, it dropped 3.61 percentage points.

Prompt payments in Singapore - defined as such when at least 90 per cent of total bills are paid within the agreed payment terms - accounted for more than half of the payment transactions.

Slow payments accounted for less than two-fifths in the third quarter of this year. The latter are so classified when more than half of the total bills are paid later than the agreed credit terms.

    
 

GIC partners US Reit Macerich to invest in five retail assets

By

Cai Haoxianghaoxiang@sph.com.sg@HaoxiangCaiBT

Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC has entered into a joint venture with US-listed retail real estate investment trust (Reit) Macerich to invest in a 40 per cent interest in five retail assets in the US. 

PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS

OCT 1, 201510:48 AM

SINGAPORE sovereign wealth fund GIC has entered into a joint venture with US-listed retail real estate investment trust (Reit) Macerich to invest in a 40 per cent interest in five retail assets in the US.

The transactions are subject to closing conditions and are expected to close in phases starting in October 2015 and concluding in the first quarter of 2016, GIC said in a press release.

The five joint venture retail assets are: Washington Square in Portland, Oregon; Los Cerritos Centre in Cerritos, California; Arrowhead Towne Centre in Glendale, Arizona; Lakewood Centre in Lakewood, California; and South Plains Mall in Lubbock, Texas.

Lee Kok Sun, regional head for Americas at GIC Real Estate, said that GIC expects the assets to generate steady income streams and is confident of their growth moving forward.

"As a long-term value investor, we look forward to partnering with Macerich, one of the premier owners and operators of shopping centres in the US, as they share our core investment belief of being long term."