Bitcoin surged to a six-week high and was trading near $70,000 on Monday after former U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his support for the cryptocurrency over the weekend.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency was worth $69,495 (£54,254) at the time of writing, up 2.9%.
Trump delivered a keynote speech at Bitcoin 2024, a gathering of industry heavyweights in Nashville, Tennessee, on Saturday, where the Republican presidential candidate used the event to rally support among voters and drum up campaign fundraising from the tech industry.
Trump stated his intention to make the United States the “cryptocurrency capital of the world” if re-elected. He assured the audience that the U.S. government would retain 100% of all Bitcoin currently held or acquired, and proposed the creation of a “national Bitcoin reserve.”
Additionally, Trump further solidified his support for the industry by announcing plans to “immediately appoint a Presidential Advisory Commission on Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies,” and also vowed to fire SEC Chairman Gary Gensler if elected.
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“I think we’re just getting started,” Trump said at a meeting of cryptocurrency industry leaders. “I think we’re just getting started. In just 15 years, bitcoin has grown from just an idea posted anonymously on an internet message board to the ninth most valuable asset in the world.”
President Trump’s recent comments are a sharp turnaround from his 2021 comments, in which he described Bitcoin as a “fraud” that would negatively impact the value of the US dollar.
Alibaba (BABA)
Alibaba shares notched their biggest gain in two months as investors cheered the company’s new strategy to capture more service fees from retailers.
Shares in the e-commerce giant rose 5.8% in Hong Kong after Alibaba said it would introduce a basic software service fee of 0.6% for verified transactions for sellers on its Tmall and Taobao platforms.
The policy change was communicated to retailers on Friday, according to insiders cited by Bloomberg, although the people added that there may be exceptions for smaller merchants.
Jefferies Financial Group highlighted that the new measures are expected to lead to improved core merchant revenue for Alibaba, adding to other positive factors for the stock. Currently, Alibaba derives most of its revenue from Taobao and Tmall through customer management fees that merchants pay for advertising and optimizing their product offerings.
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Analysts at Jefferies led by Thomas Chong expressed optimism in a research note on Sunday: “Given that the new arrangement applies to both Taobao and Tmall, we believe the 0.6% software service fee starting in September will be accretive to core merchant revenues.”
Alibaba’s move to a percentage-based commission structure, first reported by local media outlet The Late Post, makes it the last major e-commerce platform to adopt the model. PDD Holdings (PDD) has been charging retailers a technology service fee of about 0.6% to 1% of the total merchandise value since 2020, while JD.com (JD) and Bytedance introduced a commission rate of 0.6% last year.
Heineken shares fell sharply on Monday morning after the beer giant missed expectations for profit growth in the first half of the year.
The company’s first-half net loss slid to 95 million euros (80.3 million pounds, $103.1 million) from a profit of 1.16 billion euros a year earlier after it wrote down the value of its stake in Chinese brewer China Resources Brewery (0291.HK) and took heavy impairment losses.
Heineken announced a one-off impairment charge of 874 million euros (737.5 million pounds) after writing down its stake in China’s biggest brewer.
The Dutch brewer blamed the impairment on concerns about demand levels in mainland China.The big impairment led Heineken, the world’s second-largest brewer, to cut its full-year operating profit forecast to a range of 4 percent to 8 percent.
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Operating profit grew organically by 12.5%, below the company’s consensus estimate of 13.2%. Beer sales, which were expected to grow 3.4%, rose just 2.1%.
“Heineken has gained momentum following optimistic comments at its recent conference, leading to an improved outlook for the market (and the company),” Barclays analysts said in a note on Monday.
“But the results were below expectations, suggesting a gap between the company’s messaging and analyst expectations. This gap needs to be closed.”
Education publisher Pearson reported a decline in revenue over the past six months but announced plans to leverage advances in artificial intelligence (AI) to drive future growth.
The FTSE 100 (^FTSE) company informed shareholders that its profit for the period had risen slightly, citing “solid” performance in the first half of 2024 and “operational progress” across its business segments.
Pearson reported that its sales for the half year to June 30 fell to £1.75 billion from £1.88 billion in the same period last year. But its assessment and qualifications division saw sales rise 2% in the half year. In contrast, its virtual schools business fell 1% due to contract losses, and higher education sales fell 2%. On the bright side, Pearson benefited from an 11% increase in sales in English language learning.
The company also revealed that adjusted operating profit for the period rose 4% to £250 million.
Despite the sales decline, Pearson maintained its full-year revenue and profit guidance.
Chief executive Omar Abosh said: “Major demographic changes and rapid advances in AI will be key drivers of education and job growth over the coming years, playing to Pearson’s strengths as a trusted provider of learning and assessment services.”
“We are implementing plans to deliver better products and services more efficiently across all our businesses. We are also focused on opportunities to gradually expand our presence in significantly larger, higher growth markets where we are positioned to succeed, with a particular focus on developing early career and enterprise skills.”
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