YOKOHAMA, KANAGAWA, JAPAN – 2025/08/28: A loaded container ship is docked inside Tokyo Bay.
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Japanese exports in September snapped four months of declines, climbing 4.2% year on year, as shipments to Asia saw robust growth, partially offsetting the drop in exports to the U.S.
Exports, however, missed expectations of a 4.6% rise, according to median estimates in a Reuters poll of economists.
Shipments to Asia climbed 9.2% compared to the same period last year, while exports to the U.S., Japan’s second largest trading partner, dropped 13.3%. Exports to mainland China, Japan’s largest trading partner rose 5.8%.
Japan’s exports had fallen into negative territory as the country grappled with U.S. tariffs with its shipments of automobiles to the world’s largest economy taking a huge hit.
Auto shipments to the U.S. dropped 24.2% in September in terms of value, a softer fall compared to the 28.4% drop in August.
The world’s fourth-largest economy saw imports increase 3.3% year on year, reversing course from the 5.2% decline in August and beating the 0.6% growth expected by the Reuters poll.
Tokyo in July clinched a trade deal with Washington, bringing down tariffs on its exports to the U.S. to 15% from the 25% initially proposed by President Donald Trump.
The data comes a day after the country got its first female prime minister in Sanae Takaichi, after months of political turmoil following electoral losses of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party under former Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
Takaichi’s stance of a loose momentary policy and massive fiscal stimulus is likely to weaken the yen, making Japan’s exports more competitive and benefiting exporters — heavyweights on the benchmark Nikkei 225 that hit a record high on Tuesday.
Markets have priced in the so-called “Takaichi trade” since she took the helm of the LDP in September, which has seen the Nikkei rise to record highs and the yen weakening past the 150 mark.
However, the country’s economy has held up better than expected, with the second-quarter GDP being revised upward to 0.5% quarter on quarter from 0.3% estimated initially.
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Stocks @ Night is a daily newsletter delivered after hours, giving you a first look at tomorrow and last look at today. Sign up for free to receive it directly in your inbox. Here’s what CNBC TV’s producers were watching on Tuesday and what’s on the radar for Wednesday’s session. Dow record breaker ” Mad Money ” Man Jim Cramer celebrated the Dow’s new high today. He said it’s a positive sign on the health of the market because “so many companies that are not connected to data centers and AI” are showing they’re doing really well. He highlighted RTX, 3M and GE Aerospace. RTX was up 7.7% after posting earnings. It hit a new high. 3M was up 7.6%, hitting a new high. GE Aerospace was up 1.3%, also hitting a new high. .DJI YTD mountain Dow year to date AT & T The telecom giants releases quarterly earnings during ” Squawk Box ” early tomorrow morning. Watch the numbers and the stock reaction live with Becky Quick, Andrew Ross Sorkin and Joe Kernen. The stock is down 5% since last reporting three months ago. Shares are 12.5% from the 52-week high hit last month. GE Vernova On Tuesday, we saw GE Aerospace beat earnings and hike guidance. The stock was up 1.3% and hit a record. Shares are up 84% this year. GE Vernova reports Wednesday, also during “Squawk Box.” The stock is up 6.6% since last reporting three months ago. It is up 112% in a year. IBM The computing giant reports in the afternoon during ” Closing Bell: Overtime ” with Morgan Brennan and Jon Fortt. The stock is 6% below the intraday record it hit two weeks ago. In the past three months, IBM is flat. Tesla The stock is up 35% in the past three months. Earnings come out Wednesday after the bell. The stock is 9.4% below the high reached in December. Netflix The stock is down 6% after this afternoon’s earnings release. The company reported a miss on earnings. Revenue was on target, up 17%, and Netflix said it had its best ad sales quarter ever. Including tonight’s, drop Netflix is up 30% year to date. NFLX YTD mountain NFLX YTD Knight-Swift Transportation The trucking company reports Wednesday afternoon, but CNBC’s Frank Holland will be looking ahead on ” Worldwide Exchange ” at 5 a.m. He covers the sector. The stock is up 4% since last reporting three months ago, but has fallen 23% from the January high. Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf will be on ” The Exchange ” with CNBC’s banking reporter Leslie Picker live from the company’s new campus “Deep in the Heart of Texas.” The stock is down 3% from last week’s high. Shares are up 20% year to date.
Mount Fuji and the Shinjuku skyline in Tokyo, Japan, on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Asia-Pacific markets fell Wednesday as investors assessed trade data from Japan and its new government.
Japanese exports in September snapped four months of declines, climbing 4.2% year on year, as shipments to Asia saw robust growth, partially offsetting the drop in exports to the U.S.
Exports, however, missed analysts’ expectations of a 4.6% rise, according to median estimates in a Reuters poll of economists.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and her new cabinet were sworn in on Tuesday, with her former rival in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership race, Shinjiro Koizumi, named defense minister and Satsuki Katayama becoming Japan’s first female finance minister.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 1.26%, leading losses in Asia, while the Topix index lost 0.18%. Shares of SoftBank plunged over 10%, building on their 0.26% drop on Tuesday. Shares had gained 8.5% on Monday.
On Tuesday, the Nikkei briefly set a new intraday record of 49,945.95, before retreating after Takaichi won the parliamentary vote to become Prime Minister.
South Korea’s Kospi index was down 0.26%, while the small-cap Kosdaq fell 0.25%. Shares of LG Chem soared as much as 10% after Palliser Capital urged the chemicals company to revamp its board and buy back shares, according to a Reuters report.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 started the day down 0.73%, pulling back from earlier gains on Tuesday after rare earth stocks briefly rallied on news of a U.S.-Australia critical minerals agreement.
Hong Kong Hang Seng index futures were at 25,919, lower than the last close of 26,027.55.
Indian markets are closed for a holiday.
Overnight in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average set a new closing record, boosted by strong earnings reports from companies such as Coca-Cola and 3M, while the S&P 500 was relatively unchanged.
The 30-stock index gained 0.47% to close at 46,924.74, and briefly topped 47,000 during the session.
The broad market S&P 500 closed just above the flatline at 6,735.35, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lagged, falling 0.16% to 22,953.67.
—CNBC’s Sean Conlon and Pia Singh contributed to this report.
There has been more than a bitter twang in the glasses at British breakfast tables. Only five years ago, a typical supermarket own-label carton of orange juice could be bought for 76p for 1 litre. It now costs £1.79.
That’s a rise of 134% since 2020, and it’s up 29% just in the past year.
In cafes and restaurants it’s a similar story – with £3.50 to £4 now a standard price point for a glass of basic OJ.
One colleague was outraged to be sent a bill for £9 for a glass of hangover-busting orange juice and lemonade at an unassuming little restaurant in Kent. Asked why so much, she was told that the orange juice – albeit freshly squeezed – accounted for £5.30 of the price.
Yet as costs have surged, the taste is changing too, with certain manufacturers substituting oranges for mandarins to cut costs.
The public is, if you like, being freshly squeezed.
There are all sorts of reasons for this: disease among crops, extreme weather, over-reliance on supply from a single nation, new rules for packaging and complexities around trade wars and Brexit.
All of this is compounded by grocery price inflation which, after hitting 17.5% in 2023, came down (to around 5.7% in August) but is rising once again. New figures for overall inflation will be released later today.
It is a perfect storm.
Yet the problem is not isolated to orange juice – track the prices of all sorts of other groceries in supermarket aisles and you’ll see a similar pattern. And so understanding what has happened to orange juice offers a glimpse into how our overall grocery bills suddenly seem so expensive.
It all prompts the question: is this storm a passing one, or are prices set to remain stubbornly high – and should brace for them staying that way permanently?
The Bing Crosby effect
Where else to start but in the orange groves of Florida where the industrialisation of OJ began as an initiative of the US Army during World War Two.
The US government was seeking a source of transportable Vitamin C for troops that didn’t taste like turpentine.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Orange juice from concentrate was commercialised by Minute Maid
Orange juice is nearly 90% water. So gently evaporating the water off the juice and freezing the concentrate, allowed for transportability of a much better tasting product when water was later re-added.
WW2 ended before the troops got to try it, but it ended up being commercialised by what became the American soft drink giant, Minute Maid.
It was popularised by Bing Crosby, who, as a significant shareholder, would sing in ads and radio show jingles about frozen orange juice being “better for your health”.
Western consumption of orange juice surged.
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Minute Maid orange juice was popularised by Bing Crosby
Flash forward to today and an estimated 2.5 billion gallons of orange juice are drunk each year – with about a tenth of that in the UK, where the market is still growing.
Drought, disease and flooding
At an industrial unit in the Essex town of Basildon, green steel drums of frozen orange concentrate arrive from Brazil, overseen by Maxim McDonald.
His firm Gerald McDonald and Co is named after his grandfather, a pioneer who was importing orange concentrate as far back as the 1940s from what was then British-mandate Palestine.
Today it produces juices and blends them, then sells them to supermarkets and restaurant suppliers.
But prices reached extraordinary heights in global markets, rising from $1(75p) to $1.50 (£1.12) per lb over the last decade, to a record $5.30 per lb by the end of last year.
This followed five years of poor crops, owing to severe drought and a disease called citrus greening (caused by a bacteria spread by insects). Brazil had its worst crop since 1988. In some parts of its citrus belt, two thirds of orange trees are affected.
“Around September of last year the price shot up to crazy levels,” Maxim tells me. “At the worst time I was being offered $7 a kilo.
“For such a major commodity to go from $2 to $7 is insane, but it took a while to filter through to consumers.”
Until 2023 the rise in orange juice prices was disguised among food inflation in general, explains Philip Coverdale, an industry expert at consultancy firm GlobalData.
Producers have tried to look beyond South America but it’s not easy – the supply of oranges has been sown up by Brazil, even more so than, say, the Saudis have cornered the market for crude oil.
Morocco, Egypt and South Africa grow oranges too but their supplies are more limited. Spain also grows them, but Valencia and Seville oranges are mostly exported as fruit, rather than concentrate. (Plus Spain too suffered from weather-related production slumps, including the floods in Valencia last October.)
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Spain has suffered from weather-related production slumps
Even within Brazil the market is concentrated in the hands of huge industrialised conglomerates.
In a truly competitive market the price would settle again – but it hasn’t, nor does the industry expect it to. This is a phenomenon that is common to many other ordinary groceries too whose prices have risen.
Oranges becoming less sweet
Florida is the other traditional exporter of oranges, but output from the Sunshine State over the past year has been the lowest since the Great Depression, amid a high number of hurricanes and long-term problems caused by citrus greening.
One problem with greening is that it reduces sugar content, making oranges less sweet.
“Not many are buying Florida oranges any more unless it is a requirement to label the juice ‘Florida Orange’,” says Maxim McDonald.
“It’s very difficult to get oranges out of Florida [because of the shortages] and it’s too expensive.”
VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Spain also grows oranges – but Valencia and Seville oranges are mostly exported as fruit, rather than concentrate
One of the leading suppliers to Tropicana sold off some of its land earlier this year to build homes.
Tropicana itself, the marquee US brand for orange juice, had to restructure its debts this year. Pepsi has also sold most of its stake in it.
One of Tropicana’s recent product innovations in the US has been to launch an “essentials” brand of orange juice “blends” – combining orange, apple and pear juice – at a lower price.
Similar trends can be seen on British shelves. Orange is being mixed with mango, mandarins and clementine juice. Mango purée is especially cheap right now, driven by a good harvest in India. Mandarin concentrate, meanwhile, is cheaper than its orange equivalent because there is less demand for it.
These developments save money, but also maintain the traditional sweetness of the taste.
Tariffs: War on the orange
Then there is the added impact of the recent spike in trade tensions with the US since President Trump introduced new tariffs.
Oranges, it transpires, have been at the centre of it.
US exports of orange juice to Canada have slumped to a 20-year low after Canada put counter-tariffs on US exports. The former PM Justin Trudeau warned that Canadians might have to “forgo Florida orange juice”.
The Trump administration has also settled on a 10% tariff on orange juice coming from Brazil, which will feed into US supermarket prices.
In 2024, the UK eliminated tariffs on some imports produced from fruit grown outside Britain. But tariffs on certain sweeter, cheaper varieties and blends were not part of this.
And while the tariff cuts might have helped, they were vastly outweighed by the increase in the underlying price.
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The Trump administration has put a 10% tariff on orange juice coming from Brazil
Then there are new regulations around packaging, further adding to the pressures.
The rules, known as Extended Producer Responsibility, are aimed at improving recycling rates, with a weight-based fee. All juice producers will be impacted, especially those still using glass bottles.
In August a Bank of England report said that high food price inflation is driven partly – and among other things – by these regulations.
Did the West fall out of love with OJ?
In Brazil, the orange harvest has recovered somewhat – this is the greatest hope for a return to normal prices. Yet it coincides with sinking demand: global consumption of orange juice is now down 30% from a peak two decades ago.
Though this may be partly down to the high prices, in certain parts of the world there has also been a shift in perception about the sugar content and health benefits or otherwise of fruit juice.
“When young children are not regularly given juice from an early age, they are less likely to be regular juice drinkers in later years,” suggests Philip Coverdale at GlobalData.
Demand is increasing in countries with growing middle classes, such as China, South Africa, and India. But elsewhere other more exotic fruit juices such as mango, pear and pomegranate are growing in popularity.
AFP via Getty Images
South Africa grows oranges but its supplies are small
Ultimately, however, orange juice is a staple that supermarkets have long been used to selling at low prices. And the price spikes to £2 a carton could, with for example better weather, simply reverse.
“The volatility in the harvest appears to have reduced,” says Giles Hurley, UK CEO of Aldi, “Our buying team are doing everything they can to ensure that that saving is passed on to consumers.”
Others in the supply chain are less convinced, given that much of the frozen concentrate was bought at last year’s high prices. Plus, the stranglehold of the small number of giant producers who control the market remains.
As for the citrus greening, some major commercial producers, including Coca-Cola, which owns Minute Maid and Innocent, have contributed to a project to Save the Orange, using artificial intelligence to find a way to combat it.
It’s a long-term project – and even if fruitful, it may be some time before the effect – if at all – filters through to grocery bills.
But the story of orange prices does also show how an upward price shock gets transmitted around the world far more quickly than a downward one.
Chocolate, coffee, butter and beef
Oranges are not the only food that has seen a price spike, of course. The price of beef and veal is up almost 25% in a year. Butter is up almost 19%, and chocolate and coffee 15% and milk over 12%, all according to the Office for National Statistics.
This all suggests that, more generally, there may be something else at play. And that for all the food and drink spikes, the consumer was actually protected from the worst of it for a period – and now it is pay back time.
“It might be the retailers didn’t full pass through the cost increase in the first place and therefore it’s a way of recouping some of the margin they would otherwise have got,” says Steve McCorriston, Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Exeter.
EPA – EFE/REX/ Shutterstock
Do consumers need to simply accept the fact that the UK will be increasingly exposed to food price shocks?
Ultimately, though, trying to unpick the precise reason for why our food and drink costs what it does is very difficult – other factors that influence price can go undetected.
“What we don’t know much about is how these supply chains tend to work in practice. It’s difficult to uncover relationships between retailers and manufacturers or farmers and the use of contracts.”
There is also a broader question that goes well beyond orange juice: do consumers in the UK need to simply accept the fact that as a densely populated small country with limited agriculture, a changing climate means the UK will be increasingly exposed to food price shocks?
A 2024 government report on food security noted: “The UK continues to be highly dependent on imports to meet consumer demand for fruit, vegetables and seafood…
“Many of the countries the UK imports these foods from are subject to their own climate-related challenges and sustainability risks.”
And so it could be that this is only the start of a wild ride on what we pay for our food and drink.
Top image credits: Daniel Grizelj/ Tetra Images/ Getty Images
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