Lets dig deeper into what is going on in hong kong. Hong kong is braced for more demonstrations and a general strike called for monday and tuesday. The protests are the longest running political demonstration in the territory since the handover in 1997. Over the weekend, thousands of protesters blocked roads to the territorys main airport. Hong kong has a world class Financial Centre and stock market, and the tiny island has a gdp bigger than many industrialised countries. But its main bourse the hang seng has performed badly over the past month, with investors from the chinese mainland buying some 5. 1 billion of stocks. The protests are affecting the economy, particularly retailers. On friday, retail sales figures forjuly declined 11. 4 from a year earlier to just over 34 billion. Then theres tourism. Hong kong is one of the worlds most visited cities and the demos have been blamed forjuly monthly visitors numbers falling for the first time this year to 4. 8 from a year earlier to 5.
both men said talks were productive and repeated their stance that a default is off the table. to avoid that, though, they ll have to work out an agreement within the next ten days. my college michelle fleury explains. even before president biden met with house speaker kevin mccarthy, negotiators were once again around the table, trying to strike a deal to avoid a default. now, sources say the white house is now offering to keep spending flat from this year to next, while republicans they say they want to increase defence spending while cutting everything else by up to 22%. treasury secretary janet yellen confirmed over the weekend that june 1st is the hard deadline, when the government can no longer pay its bills. and the deadline for a deal may actually be sooner in order for it to pass the house and senate in time. and there s another worry even if they do get a deal done in time, will rank and file members of both parties go for it? the impact of defaulting would
let s get down to business, there were no january blues on wall street as the month ended on a high for investors. lets look at the numbers some of the biggest names in corporate america have been reporting their latest earnings. the dow is up 2% in the month, the s&p is up 596. the rally comes as investors also look ahead to the us federal reserve as a two day meeting gets underway. my colleague samira hussain, with more from new york. 2022 was the worst year for the stock market since 2008 year, so far, is proving to be different with financial markets posting strong again for the month of january. markets posting strong again for the month ofjanuary. 0n for the month ofjanuary. on wednesday, all eyes moved to washington for the latest interest rate decision. traders are expecting to see rates increase by 25 points, a far cry from the aggressive interest rate hikes last year when america s central bank raised interest rates by three quarters of a percent four times. but the
we begin with the turmoil on financial markets today, the pound sterling continues to languish against the us dollar and several other currencies. the slide in its value was triggered by last week s mini budget, with its controversial package of tax cuts. let s get historical for a moment. we have records for sterling against the dollar going back through history, and in the early hours of monday morning it reached an all time low that is since the creation of the us currency in 1792. let s take a closer look at the past few days the dollar has been strong but this further drop down is about sterling weakness, with a bit of a recovery and then falling back again. you can see this dramatic few days, sterling weakness with a little bit of recovery before it fell back again. on friday and monday there were massive moves within a day, which for a currency like sterling is rare. and one of the impacts of a low pound means that we import inflation, oil and gas is more expensi