By Malvika Gurung
Investing.com -- The ongoing week witnessed volatility in global markets, in terms of equities and oil, led majorly by concerns looming around developments at the US Federal Reserve’s annual Jackson Hole symposium on Aug 25-26.
Markets are closely awaiting Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech/address at the conference in Wyoming for clues on the central bank’s prospects of future rate hikes and the magnitude of aggressive monetary tightening to tame the decades-high inflation.
Listed below are highlights of key financial events and developments that occurred during the week across the top three emerging nations - India, China and Russia.
India
- In a surprise move on Tuesday, the ports-to-power conglomerate Adani Enterprises (NS:ADEL) announced an indirect acquisition of a 29.18% stake in the top media company New Delhi Television (NS:NDTV) and launched an open offer to acquire an up to 26% additional stake in the company.
- For three consecutive sessions, including Friday’s, NDTV’s shares have hit a 5% upper circuit and simultaneous 52-week highs despite domestic benchmark indices Nifty50 and Sensex trading volatile.
- According to a Fitch Group unit’s report, the conglomerate giant Adani (NS:APSE) Group’s business is ‘deeply overleveraged’, given its massive expansion over the past few years, mired with debt funding.
- India’s biggest refiner Indian Oil (NS:IOC) Corporation has announced to spend $25 billion for achieving a net zero carbon emissions goal by 2046.
- India's GDP is pegged higher in the Apr-Jun 2022 quarter, likely to be around 15.7%, with good chances of upward bias, as per an SBI (NS:SBI) Ecowrap report.
China
- The country’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China slashed lending rates for a second consecutive week on Monday to revive the economy amid headwinds from recurring COVID lockdowns, property crisis and power crunches.
- As a result, the Chinese USD/CNY too sank to its lowest in almost two years, adding to its downward momentum in the year due to weak economic trends.
- According to a Wall Street Journal report, possible progress for the US and China to work out an audit deal is nearing, with an agreement of allowing American regulators to travel to Hong Kong for inspecting audit records of US-listed Chinese companies. Chinese and Hong Kong market indices ticked higher, with Hang Seng surging 0.7%.
- The second-largest economy has elevated its economic stimulus with further measures of 1 trillion yuan or $146 billion to stimulate growth.
- The country will provide an additional 200 billion yuan or $29.3 billion as special loans to ascertain stalled housing projects delivered to buyers, in an attempt to ramp up the beleaguered sector’s financial support.
Russia
- The state-owned lender VTB Bank (MCX:VTBR) will place one-day exchange-traded bonds of the KS-4-286 series for 50 billion rubles.
- The US-based investment bank giant Citigroup (NYSE:C) has announced to terminate its consumer and commercial banking businesses in Russia, starting this quarter and is likely to incur charges of about $170 million over the upcoming 18 months.
- The country’s largest gold producer Polyus has issued bonds worth $670 million, denominated in the Chinese currency accounting for 4.6 billion yuan.
- Exports of Russian coal were effectively halted, led by European Union sanctions. The country’s largest thermal coal miner SUEK has not been able to ship fuel since mid-August stated Bloomberg.
- Investment volume in the Leningrad Region has surged 31.3% YoY in H1 2022 to 209.5 billion rubles.