Afp Business Asia

Britain’s Keir Starmer is the latest Western leader to thaw trade ties with China in a shift analysts say is driven by US tariff pressure and unease over Donald Trump’s volatile policy playbook.The prime minister’s Beijing visit this week to promote “pragmatic” co-operation comes on the heels of advances from the leaders of Canada, Ireland, France and Finland.Most were making the trip for the first time in years to refresh their partnership with the world’s second-largest economy.”There is a veritable race among European heads of government to meet with (Chinese President) Xi Jinping,” Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy, told AFP.This is “driven by internal rivalry to secure investments and market access before the China-US summits in February and April”, he said.It’s not just China looking more appealing these days: on Tuesday, India and the European Union announced a huge trade pact two decades in the making, a move to open new markets in the face of a strained status quo.Vietnam and the European Union also on Thursday committed to deeper cooperation on trade, technology and security.India and other emerging markets such as South America “are too small to sustain the world’s most export-dependent economies, which are in Europe”, Lee-Makiyama said.So they have no choice but to turn to Beijing — despite concern over its human rights record, and accusations of economic coercion.”Half of economic growth is generated by either the United States or China,” Lee-Makiyama said, adding that “the United States is hardly opening up”.- ‘No longer reliable’ -Trump’s unpredictable tariff onslaught signals that “the United States is no longer a reliable trading partner”, said William Alan Reinsch at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.For the new EU-India Free Trade Agreement, “you can argue that, ironically, Trump’s policies have pushed it across the finish line” 20 years since negotiations began, Reinsch told AFP.Starmer told Xi on Thursday it was “vital” to develop the two countries’ relationship, with the Chinese leader also stressing the need for stronger ties in the face of geopolitical headwinds.London and Beijing enjoyed what they described as a “Golden Era” a decade ago but relations deteriorated from 2020 when Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong.Nonetheless, China remains Britain’s third-largest trading partner, and Starmer’s centre-left government is keen to boost UK economic growth.While the European Union also wants stronger ties with China, it is alarmed by the current trade imbalance, with a gaping deficit of more than $350 billion to Brussels’s disadvantage.Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin urged “open trade” in his talks with Xi in early January, while France’s Emmanuel Macron denounced the trade imbalance on a visit to Beijing in December.- More Trump threats -China and India are also seeking ways to cope with Trump’s tariffs designed to boost US manufacturing and “make America great again”.”A select few countries should not have privileges based on self-interest, and the world cannot revert to the law of the jungle where the strong prey on the weak,” Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng said at the World Economic Forum this month.In some cases, Trump has retaliated with more tariff threats, including a new 100 percent levy on all Canadian goods if the US neighbour makes a trade deal with China.Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China in Beijing this month, touting a “preliminary but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs.Under the deal, China, which used to be Canada’s largest market for canola seed, is expected to reduce tariffs on the products to around 15 percent, down from the current 84 percent.In return, Canada will import 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles under a preferential tariff rate.Carney’s visit “signalled a fundamentally new approach to how Ottawa intends to navigate a more fragmented, contested and uncertain world”, wrote Vina Nadjibulla, vice-president of research and strategy at APF Canada. But she warned it could risk being misinterpreted as “a softening of Canada’s assessment of the national and economic security challenges China poses”.Reinsch at the CSIS predicted that the latest agreements would leave the United States at a disadvantage in the long run, while noting they were “surprisingly traditional”.Negotiations on lower tariffs and reducing non-tariff barriers are “exactly what the world has been doing for the past 75 years”, he said.”The outlier is the United States.”

Vietnam and the European Union pledged to deepen economic and security cooperation on Thursday, upgrading their diplomatic relationship to hedge against an increasingly unpredictable United States.Vietnam and the EU must “stand side by side as reliable and predictable partners” at a moment when the “international rules-based order is under threat”, European Council President Antonio Costa said during a visit to the Vietnamese capital Hanoi.President Luong Cuong, speaking at a joint press briefing, called the upgrade to Vietnam’s highest-level partnership a “new landmark” reflecting “sincere and mutual trust”.The announcement of the comprehensive strategic partnership comes less than a week after Vietnam’s Communist Party reaffirmed General Secretary To Lam as the country’s top leader, backing his vision for sweeping growth-oriented change.Vietnam and the EU signed a free-trade deal in 2019, with bilateral exchange growing by around 40 percent since then.But Hanoi’s ballooning surplus with the bloc has rankled European leaders who have called for the removal of non-tariff barriers on EU products such as automobiles.The two sides agreed on Thursday to deepen cooperation on trade, technology, energy and security, according to a joint statement.They also pledged to work together on supply chain security, critical minerals, semiconductors and artificial intelligence. “Science, technology and innovation” should become the “pillars of bilateral ties”, Cuong said, adding that Vietnam also sought cooperation on security and defence, especially at sea and in the cyber domain.- Beyond the US and China -Vietnam has emerged as a regional economic bright spot, clocking eight percent growth last year despite new 20 percent tariffs from its largest export market, the United States.Faced with deepening trade uncertainty, Vietnam is on the hunt for new markets beyond top trading partners, the United States and China.At its twice-a-decade leadership conclave last week, the party elevated foreign affairs to a “core” national function, alongside national defence and internal security.Upgrading ties with the EU is part of Hanoi’s effort “to diversify its export market beyond the US”, said Khang Vu, a Vietnam expert and visiting scholar at Boston College.”Vietnam wants to maintain an open international environment for trade, and the EU can help,” he added.Hanoi also has comprehensive strategic partnerships with China, Russia and the United States.It has agreed similar partnerships with nearly a dozen countries since 2022, seeking to tap their markets, knowledge and technology as it pursues a bigger international role. Vietnam has long practiced what its leaders term “bamboo diplomacy”, looking to stay on good terms with the world’s major powers.

Hong Kong residents hoping to cash in on a precious metals rally are buying up bars of silver as an alternative to gold that they say has become “too expensive” after reaching record highs.After a precious metals shop in Hong Kong’s central business district announced that hundreds of silver bars had sold out for the day on Wednesday, murmurs of disappointment rippled through a waiting queue.Despite increasing its supply to cater to strong demand, the store saw hundreds of bars snapped up in just over an hour.Retiree Ken Wong, 65, began queueing at the precious metals shop Lee Cheong at around 5 am and managed to buy five bars.He told AFP that buying silver offered him the chance to invest in a safe-haven asset quickly on the rise, whereas gold has become “too expensive”.Wong said that thanks to US President Donald Trump’s mercurial policies, he and many others have the opportunity to profit from the inflated prices of the precious metals.The price of gold surged to a record of more than $5,588 an ounce Thursday as investors sought safe places to put their money amid growing nervousness over rising global turmoil sparked by US policies.Silver also struck an all-time peak above $119 an ounce, and is up more than 60 percent this year, having surged more than 140 percent in 2025. Pakistani Meran Jawad waited in line outside the trader shop since around 6 am to purchase silver bars, which were in limited supply.”If you have silver or gold, it will be good for wealth,” the 38-year-old delivery driver told AFP, and the geopolitical impact brought by Trump was affecting “every person’s situation”.”Everything is expensive,” he said, adding that their salaries are not growing while the cost of living continues to rise.- ‘The real safeguard’ -Chen, a 40-year-old jewellery businessman based in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, told AFP that his firm’s silver production sales so far this month were 10 times higher than in November.The company, which employs nearly 20 workers, has reduced its gold jewellery stock with orders increasingly shifting towards silver, mainly to wholesalers.”All of this hinges on market reactions… these developments are inextricably linked to the European and American markets, and Trump,” Chen said.Geopolitical tensions and rising inflation have driven the surge in precious metals investments, Samuel Tse, an economist at DBS Bank, told AFP. “Central banks are now diversifying their portfolio to gold,” Tse said, with “retail and institutional investors… allocating more assets into precious metals.” Outside another gold-buying shop, dozens also formed long lines, waiting to sell their precious jewellery. Vivian Lam, a finance worker in her 40s who calls gold a “scarce resource”, said she had not expected to see such a dramatic surge.She told AFP she saw people selling bullion bars several centimetres long to gold dealers when she was offloading her jewellery. Michael Ko, 55, stared at the fluctuating stock figures on his phone while waiting in line to sell the physical gold he had bought and stored in a home safe several years ago. A retiree from the investment industry, he said the rapid rise prompted him to take the profits to fund other opportunities. He told AFP that he purchased gold bars as it holds its value better. If political and economic crises “were to occur, it is the real safeguard”, he said. 

Gold prices soared to another fresh record above $5,500 Thursday, while oil advanced and stocks fell after Donald Trump ramped up geopolitical tensions with his threatened military strike on Iran.The surge in safe-haven precious metals also saw silver hit another peak and has also been helped by a softer dollar sparked by speculation that the US president is happy to see the world’s reserve currency weaken.An uneventful policy announcement by the Federal Reserve did little to inspire buying, though observers said traders are optimistic that interest rates will come down this year as Trump prepares to name his pick as the next governor.Bullion piled on more than $300 at one point to top out at $5,588.71 after the president said Tehran needed to negotiate a deal over its nuclear programme, which the West believes is aimed at making an atomic bomb.”Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal — NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS — one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.”The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again,” he added, referring to American strikes against Iranian targets in June.A US naval strike group that Trump described as an “armada” led by aircraft carrier the USS Abraham Lincoln is now lurking in Middle East waters, with the president saying it was “ready, willing and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary”.CNN reported that he was mulling an attack after nuclear talks failed to advance.Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi warned Wednesday its forces would respond immediately and forcefully to any US military operation — adding that its forces have their “fingers on the trigger” — but did not rule out a new nuclear deal.- ‘Inverse of confidence’ -Stephen Innes said the surge in gold indicated deeper structural concerns.”After blowing through $5,500 in early Asia, bullion is no longer trading like a commodity. It is trading like a referendum. Not on inflation. Not on rates. On trust,” he wrote.”Gold is the inverse of confidence. When belief in policy coherence weakens, gold ceases to behave like a hedge and instead acts as an alternative. That is what we are watching now. This is not fear of recession. There is doubt about fiat stewardship.”The rising tensions pushed oil prices up — with WTI at its highest since September and Brent at levels not seen since August — amid worries about supplies from the crude-rich region.Equity markets were down. Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney and Seoul led losses.Jakarta tanked eight percent, extending Wednesday’s collapse that came after index compiler MSCI called on regulators to look into ownership concerns and said it would hold off adding Indonesian stocks to its indexes or increasing their weighting.The dollar remained under pressure against its peers, even after Treasury Secretary Bessent told CNBC that “the US always has a strong dollar policy”, a day after Trump appeared to welcome its recent weakness by saying it was “doing great”.The Fed’s latest policy meeting ended with little surprises as boss Jerome Powell said officials were keeping tabs on data.But Matthias Scheiber and Rushabh Amin at Allspring Global Investments said attention was now on who Trump would tap to take the helm when Powell steps down in May.”The big focus will remain on the announcement of the new Fed chair, with the race wide open though a general expectation of someone more dovish to succeed Jerome Powell,” they wrote in a commentary. “Governmental pressure on the Fed to cut interest rates will remain a continued theme this year.”- Key figures at around 0230 GMT -Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.2 percent at 53,274.71 (break)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.2 percent at 27,764.65Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 0.2 percent at 4,144.25West Texas Intermediate: UP 0.9 percent at $63.79 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: UP 0.8 percent at $68.95 per barrelDollar/yen: DOWN at 153.30 yen from 153.38 yen on WednesdayEuro/dollar: UP at $1.1957 from $1.1944Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3799 from $1.3797Euro/pound: UP at 86.66 pence from 86.56 penceNew York – Dow: FLAT at 49,015.60 (close)London – FTSE 100: DOWN 0.5 percent at 10,154.43 (close)

South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics posted record quarterly profits Thursday, riding massive market demand for the memory chips that power artificial intelligence.A global frenzy to build AI data centres and develop the fast-evolving technology has sent orders for advanced high‑bandwidth memory microchips soaring.That is also pushing up prices for less flashy chips used in consumer electronics — threatening higher prices for phones, laptops and other devices worldwide.In the quarter to December 2025, Samsung said it saw “its highest-ever quarterly consolidated revenue at KRW 93.8 trillion (US$65.5 billion)”, a quarter-on-quarter increase of nine percent.”Operating profit was also an all-time high, at KRW 20.1 trillion,” the company said.The dazzling earnings came a day after a key competitor, South Korean chip giant SK hynix, said operating profit had doubled last year to a record high, also buoyed by the AI boom.The South Korean government has pledged to become one of the top three AI powers, behind the United States and China, with Samsung and SK hynix among the leading producers of high-performance memory.Samsung said Thursday it expects “AI and server demand to continue increasing, leading to more opportunities for structural growth”.Annual revenue stood at 333.6 trillion won, while operating profit came in at 43.6 trillion won. Sales for the division that oversees its semiconductor business rose 33 percent quarter-on-quarter.The company pointed to a $33.2 billion investment in chip production facilities — pledging to continue spending in “transitioning to advanced manufacturing processes and upgrading existing production lines to meet rising demand”.- ‘Clearly back’ – Major electronics manufacturers and industry analysts have warned that chipmakers focusing on AI sales will cause higher retail prices for consumer products across the board.This week US chip firm Micron said it was building a $24 billion plant in Singapore in response to AI-driven demand that has caused a global shortage of memory components.SK hynix announced Wednesday that its operating profit had doubled last year to a record 47.2 trillion won.The company’s shares have surged some 220 percent over the past six months, while Samsung Electronics has risen about 130 percent, part of a huge global tech rally fuelled by optimism over AI.Both companies are on the cusp of producing next-generation high-bandwidth “HBM4″ chips for AI data centres, with Samsung reportedly due to start making them in February.American chip giant Nvidia — now the world’s most valuable company — is expected to be one of Samsung’s customers for HBM4 chips.But Nvidia has reportedly allocated around 70 percent of its HBM4 demand to SK hynix for 2026, up from the market’s previous estimate of 50 percent.”Samsung is clearly back and we are expecting them to show a significant turnaround with HBM4 for Nvidia’s new products — helping them move past last year’s quality issues,” Hwang Min-seong, research director at market analysis firm Counterpoint, told AFP.But SK still “maintains a market lead in both quality and supply” of a number of key components, including Dynamic Random Access Memory chips used in AI servers, he said.SK also this week said it will set up an “AI solutions firm” in the United States, committing $10 billion and weighing investments in US companies.

China will act to defend its companies’ interests if Australia forcibly buys back control of the strategic northern port of Darwin, Beijing’s ambassador has warned.China’s Landbridge group was granted a 99-year lease on the port in 2015, a widely criticised decision that led to stricter scrutiny of infrastructure sales.Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised last year to buy back control, criticising the lease as short-sighted for both economic and national security reasons.If Landbridge is obliged to give up the lease, “then we have an obligation to take measures to protect the Chinese company’s interest — that is our position,” ambassador Xiao Qian told Australian media on Wednesday.”We will see when it’s time for us to say something, do something, to reflect the Chinese government’s position and protect our Chinese companies’ legitimate interests,” he said.The ambassador warned that retaking control of the port could affect Chinese companies’ investment, cooperation and trade with the Darwin region.”That is not in the interest of Australia either.”Australia’s prime minister said his government had already made it clear that it disagreed with the port’s sale to “non-Australian interests”.”We are committed to making sure that that port goes back into Australian hands because that is in our national interest,” he told reporters Wednesday during a visit to East Timor.Darwin lies closest to Australia’s Asian neighbours and has been used as a base for US Marines. At the time of the agreement, then-US president Barack Obama reportedly complained that Washington had not been told of Australia’s plan to do business with Landbridge.

South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics posted record quarterly profits on Thursday, riding strong market demand for its artificial intelligence chips.A global AI boom has pushed up prices and shipments of conventional chips, while demand for high‑bandwidth memory chips, used in servers that power the technology, has soared.The hunger for chips to power AI has caused a shortage for consumer electronics, threatening higher prices for phones, laptops and other devices.In a statement, Samsung said that in the quarter ending in December last year, it had posted “its highest-ever quarterly consolidated revenue at KRW 93.8 trillion (US$65.5 billion), representing a quarter-on-quarter increase of nine percent”.”Operating profit was also an all-time high, at KRW 20.1 trillion,” it added.Annual revenue stood at 333.6 trillion won, while its operating profit came in at 43.6 trillion won, the firm said.Samsung attributed the strong earnings to its Device Solutions division, which oversees its semiconductor business, where sales in the last quarter rose 33 percent.Its memory business also posted an “all-time high for quarterly revenue and operating profit”, it said.Samsung pointed to a $33.2 billion investment in chip production facilities, pledging to continue spending in “transitioning to advanced manufacturing processes and upgrading existing production lines to meet rising demand”.The South Korean company said it expects “AI and server demand to continue increasing, leading to more opportunities for structural growth”.- HBM race – Samsung’s strong earnings come as key competitor SK hynix also saw its operating profit double last year to a record high, buoyed by the AI boom.The two firms are among the world’s leading producers of memory chips, supplying high‑performance components that are essential for AI products and the data centres powering the fast‑evolving sector.SK said on Wednesday its operating profit soared 101 percent to 47.2 trillion won last year. Riding the AI boom, SK hynix shares have surged around 220 percent over the past six months, while Samsung Electronics has risen about 130 percent. Both companies are on the cusp of producing next-generation “HBM4” chips for AI data centres, with Samsung reportedly due to start producing them in February.American company Nvidia will be one of Samsung’s customers for HBM4 chips.But Nvidia has reportedly allocated around 70 percent of its HBM4 demand to SK hynix for 2026, up from the market’s previous estimate of 50 percent.The South Korean government has pledged to become one of the world’s top three AI powers, behind the United States and China. 

Wall Street stocks finished little changed Wednesday after the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged, while the dollar rebounded somewhat from the prior session’s slide.The Fed, as expected, voted to maintain rates at a range between 3.50 percent and 3.75 percent. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the status-quo move made sense as the central bank monitors economic data after cutting three straight times due to signs of a weakening labor market.Major US indices, which were directionless prior to the 1900 GMT Fed announcement, moved in a choppy fashion after the decision.The S&P 500 finished nearly flat at 6,978.03 after earlier touching above 7,000 points for the first time.The market had “almost zero reaction” to the Fed, said Art Hogan of B. Riley Wealth Management”The statement and the press conference really delivered no news,” Hogan said Wednesday afternoon shortly before earnings announcements from Microsoft and other large companies.The dollar recovered some of its losses from the prior session, when comments from US President Donald Trump seeming to greet a weaker US currency, sending the dollar to a four and a half year low against the euro.But the strengthening euro was among the factors that dragged on European stocks.Also weighing on Europe was a downgrade to the German government’s 2026 growth forecast to one percent from 1.3 percent previously.”The expected stimulus from economic and fiscal policy measures did not materialize quite as quickly or to the extent that we had assumed,” Economy Minister Katherina Reiche told a Berlin press conference.The CAC 40 in Paris was dragged down by renewed concerns for the luxury sector after market heavyweight LVMH posted a 13 percent slide in annual profit.LVMH shares tumbled nearly seven percent in response, while British fashion label Burberry, traded in London, fell 4.7 percent.Elsewhere, the price of gold struck a new peak as skittishness over the dollar pushes some investors towards the metal as a safe-haven investment.US retail giant Amazon slid 0.6 percent after announcing that it is cutting 16,000 jobs worldwide as the company tries to streamline amid its major push into AI.But shares in Dutch tech giant ASML, the global leader in the machines that make semiconductors, jumped after the company announced a strong rise in annual profits and a buoyant outlook, while also saying it would cut hundreds of management jobs.- Key figures at around 2130 GMT -New York – Dow: FLAT at 49,015.60 (close)New York – S&P 500: FLAT at 6,978.03 (close)New York – NASDAQ Composite: UP 0.2 percent at 23,857.45 (close)London – FTSE 100: DOWN 0.5 percent at 10,154.43 (close)Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 1.1 percent at 8,066.68 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: DOWN 0.3 percent at 24,822.79 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 0.1 percent at 53,358.71 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 2.6 percent at 27,826.91 (close)Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.3 percent at 4,151.24 (close)Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1944 from $1.2041Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3797 from $1.3849Dollar/yen: UP at 153.38 yen from 152.21 yen on TuesdayEuro/pound: DOWN at 86.56 pence from 86.94 penceBrent North Sea Crude: UP 1.2 percent at $68.40 per barrelWest Texas Intermediate: UP 1.3 percent at $63.21 per barrelburs-jmb/jgc

US online retail and cloud computing giant Amazon said Wednesday it will cut 16,000 jobs worldwide as the company tries to streamline amid its major push into AI.The job cuts, which follow already flagged plans to trim its workforce by 14,000 posts, were aimed at “reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy,” senior vice president Beth Galetti said in a statement.Media reports from October had said the roughly 30,000 job cuts planned in total would comprise nearly 10 percent of the 350,000 office jobs at Amazon. They would not affect the distribution and warehouse workers that make up the bulk of the company’s 1.5 million employees.Amazon did not give any breakdown of the latest cuts or specify which divisions would be affected, saying only that “every team will continue to evaluate the ownership, speed, and capacity to invent for customers, and make adjustments as appropriate.”The company will release its full-year 2025 results on February 5. In its last quarterly earnings statement in October, the company said it spent $1.8 billion on severance costs tied to planned job cuts.Amazon said new positions will be offered to employees where possible.The layoffs are in line with a trend in big tech to trim white-collar management jobs. Microsoft in July said it had slashed a little less than four percent of its global workforce, about 15,000 jobs.CEO Andy Jassy said in October, after the first round of layoffs, that the cuts were not related to budget or AI investments. “Really, it’s culture,” he said, decrying too many layers of management.Facebook owner Meta has also cut jobs over the past year, in a move intended to remove organizational bloat following aggressive hiring during the pandemic.Dutch tech giant ASML on Wednesday said it would cut hundreds of management jobs to improve internal organization, with HP and Oracle also announcing recent layoffs.Like other tech giants, Amazon is making massive investments to grab a slice of the AI revolution pie.It is particularly banking on the performance of its subsidiary Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s leading cloud provider, which is engaged in a race against its fast-growing rivals, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.Spending on developing new AI-based chips and services is growing exponentially. In December, Amazon announced it would invest more than $35 billion in India.

The dollar enjoyed a respite Wednesday after this week’s steep drop as traders awaited the US Federal Reserve’s take on interest rates, while gold reached another record high thanks to investors seeking safety amid an uncertain economic outlook.European stock markets came under pressure as the relative strength in the euro and sterling against the dollar weighed on the earnings potential of the continent’s multinationals. “A strong currency is unhelpful as it raises the cost of sales and buyers look elsewhere,” said David Morrison, senior market analyst at FCA.But a rise in US equity markets helped lift European stocks off their worst levels.The dollar had seen a sharp sell-off Tuesday after US President Donald Trump’s suggestion that he was happy with the currency’s recent decline, which saw it fall to a four-year low against the euro.The greenback’s retreat followed reports that the New York Federal Reserve had checked in with traders about the yen’s exchange rate, fuelling talk of joint US and Japanese intervention to prop up the yen. – ‘Dollar’s doing great’ -That led to speculation the White House was prepared to let the dollar weaken, and Trump did little to dismiss that when asked Tuesday if he was worried about the decline.Win Thin, at Bank of Nassau 1982 Ltd, said: “Foreign exchange typically is the leader in terms of showing market discomfort with a country’s policies and economic outlook.”But a weak dollar could be a boon for US equities.”The S&P 500 briefly cleared 7,000 for the first time, emboldened by hopes that a weakening dollar and interest rates will produce a potent cocktail to supercharge earnings in the months to come,” said market analyst Chris Beauchamp at trading platform IG.The price of gold also struck a new peak as the dollar’s low level supported demand for the save-haven investment.But investors generally took a cautious approach ahead of the Fed’s latest policy meeting, hoping for guidance on its plans for interest rates amid uncertainty over Trump’s latest tariff threats.The US central bank is widely expected to keep rates on hold for the coming months. But a durably weaker dollar could fan inflation in the world’s largest economy, lessening the chances of lower rates even later this year. US consumer confidence has plunged to its lowest level since 2014, a survey showed, as households fret about sticky inflation.Retail giant Amazon’s announcement that it is cutting 16,000 jobs added to the sense that — outside the seemingly bullet-proof tech sector — all is not well in the US economy.The company’s shares were down 1.0 percent in early afternoon trading.- ‘AI boom in full swing’ -In Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris was dragged down by renewed concerns for the luxury sector after market heavyweight LVMH posted a 13 percent slide in annual profit.LVMH shares tumbled nearly seven percent in response, while British fashion label Burberry, traded in London, fell 4.7 percent.Shares in Dutch tech giant ASML, the global leader in the machines that make semiconductors, jumped after the company announced a strong rise in annual profits and a buoyant outlook, while also saying it would cut hundreds of management jobs.”ASML’s latest results suggest the AI boom is still in full swing, with strong orders and a bullish outlook,” said Russ Mould, investment director at traders AJ Bell. “However, job cuts in the business would suggest it is not getting carried away with the strength of current trading.”The company’s shares finished the day down around 1.5 percent.- Key figures at around 1630 GMT -New York – Dow: UP 0.1 percent at 49,067.27 pointsNew York – S&P 500: UP less than 0.1 percent at 6,982.76 New York – NASDAQ Composite: UP 0.1 percent at 23,846.30London – FTSE 100: DOWN 0.5 percent at 10,154.43 (close)Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 1.1 percent at 8,066.68 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: DOWN 0.3 percent at 24,822.79 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 0.1 percent at 53,358.71 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 2.6 percent at 27,826.91 (close)Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.3 percent at 4,151.24 (close)Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1932 from $1.2035Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3774 from $1.3833Dollar/yen: UP at 153.71 yen from 152.32 yen on TuesdayEuro/pound: DOWN at 86.61 pence from 86.98 penceBrent North Sea Crude: UP 0.7 percent at $67.07 per barrelWest Texas Intermediate: UP 0.9 percent at $62.97 per barrelburs/rl/js