Category: 3. Business

(Bloomberg) — Asian equities were set to climb Friday following fresh highs for US stocks as strong jobs data eased concerns the economy slowing down.

Equity index futures for Japan and Australia rose, while those for Hong Kong were fractionally lower. The S&P 500 gained 0.8% and the Nasdaq 100 advanced 1% Thursday, leaving each index at the highest closing level on record in a shortened session ahead of Friday’s Independence Day holiday. Contracts for US stocks were little changed in early Asian trading.

US markets closed prior to the House passing President Donald Trump’s tax bill that includes some $4.5 trillion in tax cuts that had weeks earlier sparked concerns over rising deficits.

Treasuries fell and the dollar rose in a sign traders see less pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates after US job growth exceeded expectations in June. Swap traders saw almost no chance of a July Fed cut, compared with a roughly 25% probability seen before the data. The chance of a move in September ebbed to about 70%.

“The solid June jobs report confirms that the labor market remains resolute and slams the door shut on a July rate cut,” said Jeff Schulze at ClearBridge Investments. “A wage-price inflationary spiral shouldn’t be a near-term concern, setting up something resembling a ‘Goldilocks’ scenario.”

Meanwhile, traders remain on alert after Trump said his administration may begin sending out letters to trading partners as soon as Friday setting unilateral tariff rates ahead of a July 9 deadline for negotiations.

Asked Thursday if more deals were on the way, Trump responded that “we have a couple of other deals, but you know, my inclination is to send a letter out and say what tariffs they are going to be paying.”

In Asia, Hong Kong’s de-facto central bank bought the city’s dollar again to defend its foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong dollar has had a wild ride recently with two previous rounds of intervention failing to send funding costs high enough to dampen bearish currency bets. 

Elsewhere, data set for release in the region included inflation for the Philippines, household spending for Australia and retail sales in Singapore.

Rate Outlook

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday questioned Fed officials’ judgment on rates, reiterating his view that two-year yields are a signal their benchmark rate is too high.

“The committee seems to be a little off here in their judgment,” Bessent said in an interview on Fox Business, referring to the Fed’s rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee.

Headline numbers from the June jobs report took pressure off the Fed to consider a rate cut later this month, but the solid figures masked weakness in private payrolls and other potential warning signs of deterioration in the labor market. That’s a trend that could raise the stakes later in the year.

“While today’s report points to still firm job creation, we don’t think the underlying details of the report are as supportive as suggested by the top-line beat,” said Oscar Munoz and Gennadiy Goldberg at TD Securities. “The story of a low-fire, low-hire labor market continues to hold for now.”

In commodities, gold fell Thursday while oil prices also retreated as media reports indicated OPEC+ has begun discussing another production increase.

Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

• S&P 500 futures were little changed as of 7:13 a.m. Tokyo time
• Hang Seng futures fell 0.3%
• S&P/ASX 200 futures rose 0.3%

Currencies

• The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.2%
• The euro was little changed at $1.1754
• The Japanese yen was little changed at 144.96 per dollar
• The offshore yuan was little changed at 7.1692 per dollar
• The Australian dollar was little changed at $0.6570

Cryptocurrencies

• Bitcoin fell 0.2% to $109,765.51
• Ether fell 0.2% to $2,596.35

Commodities

• West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.1% to $67.07 a barrel
• Spot gold was little changed

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.

At Meta, ensuring the safety of young people is a top priority and we’ve spent over a decade building our products for teens with this in mind. Across the industry, there is growing recognition that teens deserve consistent protection across all the different digital platforms they use. That’s why we support proposals to establish a common Digital Majority Age across EU member states, whereby parents need to approve their younger teens’ access to digital services, including social media. 

We believe this can be an effective solution to the industry-wide challenge of ensuring teens have safe, age-appropriate experiences online, if it is grounded in three key principles:

Guiding principles for an EU-Wide Digital Majority Age

1. Parental Approval of App Downloads by Younger Teens
   Parents want to be involved in their teen’s online lives: Recent polling by Morning Consult found that three-quarters of EU parents support parental approval for app downloads for teens under 16. We agree that parents know their teens best, and they should be the ones who have final say over what online services they are comfortable with their teens using. Regulation should empower this, underpinning their ability to make decisions for their family. There’s growing support for this approach in and outside of Europe. 
2. Consistency Across Industry
   Any new provisions should apply broadly across the digital services teens use — not just to social media platforms. Teens engage with a variety of apps – at least 40 apps per week on average, including gaming, streaming, messaging, and browsing. Focusing only on social media would miss the full picture and could push teens toward unregulated and less safe digital spaces.
3. Address Age Verification
   For a Digital Majority Age to work, robust age verification mechanisms are critical. We have and continue to be supportive of solutions that reduce the burden on parents: They should be easy-to-use, privacy-preserving and work consistently across industry. That’s why we have been supportive of an EU-wide solution at the app store or operating system level. However, what is most important is that this is a simple, privacy-protective mechanism that offers a consistent experience to parents across the EU.

To be clear, our support for an EU-wide Digital Majority Age is not an endorsement of government mandated social media bans. Bans take away parental authority, focus narrowly on one type of online service among the nearly two million apps available to teens, and overlook how teens use social media to connect with the world around them, grow and learn. Bans also fail to acknowledge the differences that exist between different services and varying levels of protections they offer. 

Safety and Support for Teens

Meta takes youth safety incredibly seriously and we recently launched Teen Accounts to better support parents, and bring them peace of mind that their teens can use social media to connect with their friends and explore their interests with the right protections in place.

Teen Accounts have built-in protections which limit who can contact a teen and the content they see. They set time reminders prompting teens to take breaks from our apps and turn off notifications at night to support a good night’s sleep. Millions of teens in Europe are automatically placed into Teen Accounts, and teens under 16 need a parent’s permission to change any of these settings to be less strict. And with supervision parents can set individual time limits, e.g. no Instagram during dinner or school hours. 

Teens will continue to use digital services to socialize, be creative and explore who they are. Parents want to feel confident that their teens can use social media safely, and deserve tools to guide those experiences, not bans that bypass their input. A thoughtful, EU-wide Digital Majority Age — grounded in parental approval, strong age verification, and consistency across industry — can help achieve that.

Hong Kong’s de-facto central bank bought the city’s dollar again to defend its foreign-exchange peg, as two previous rounds of intervention failed to send funding costs high enough to dampen bearish currency bets.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority bought HK$29.6 billion ($3.8 billion) of the currency in New York trading Thursday, a move which drains liquidity from the financial system and can increase borrowing costs. The amount was higher than the HK$20 billion it purchased earlier this week and more than triple the HK$9.4 billion it purchased last week.

Jul 3, 2025

– U.S. Space Force award for development and production of two satellites with options for two more, to deliver resilient space-based nuclear, command, control, and communications (NC3) for the President of the United States and joint strategic forces worldwide

ISLAMABAD – Biometric verification is becoming important for online transactions in Pakistan with rising concerns over identity theft, fraud, and misuse of government aid. Pakistanis using mobile wallet services need to make this from now onwards.

State Bank of Pakistan rolled out new mechanism towards enhancing security of digital financial services, and all cash transactions must be conducted through mobile wallet platforms like Easypaisa and JazzCash. The new rule came into effect on July 1, 2025.

EasyPaisa and JazzCash users will need to verify their identity via biometric authentication when making cash deposits or withdrawals at retail outlets across Pakistan to prevent fraud, strengthen user protection, and ensure that all transactions are safely and accurately processed.

The news sparked concerns among users as authorities clarified that no user accounts will be blocked and all funds remain secure. The biometric requirement solely applies to physical cash transactions conducted through authorized agents and has no impact on existing accounts or balances.

Easypaisa and JazzCash agents are already in place to assist customers with their transactions. Any deposit or withdrawal made without biometric verification will not be processed under new rules.

Biometric rule is said to introduce secure digital banking in Pakistan as Biometric verification not only adds an extra layer of security but also builds greater trust among users. The move could further accelerate Pakistan’s transition toward a more secure and cashless economy, especially as mobile wallet adoption continues to rise across urban and rural areas.

With over 50 million active mobile wallet users in Pakistan, the implementation of biometric verification marks a significant milestone in the country’s digital financial landscape.

Alberta’s oil production fell to the lowest in two years in May as wildfires and maintenance work crimped oil sands output.

Output from Canada’s biggest oil-producing province slid 397,000 barrels a day to 3.61 million barrels a day in May, the lowest since May 2023, provincial data released Thursday show. Flows from the oil sands, the world’s third-largest reserve of crude, dropped 384,000 barrels a day. Output from oil sands mines slid to the lowest in more than four years.

Paris was one of many European cities hit by a record-breaking heat wave at the end of June and early July 2025. NASA’s Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) instrument recorded surface temperatures of 82 degrees Fahrenheit (23 degrees Celsius) at 6:57 a.m. local time on July 1. Extreme daytime air temperatures – of over 100 degrees F (38 degrees C) – prompted officials to close the summit of the Eiffel Tower on July 1 and 2.

In this visualization of ECOSTRESS data, dark red indicates higher temperatures while green and blue are cooler. The city is peppered with areas of several blocks where surface temperatures reached more than 80 F (27 C), including around the Eiffel Tower, before 7 a.m.

The ECOSTRESS instrument measures thermal infrared emissions from Earth’s surface. This enables researchers to monitor plant health, the progress of wildfires, land surface temperatures, and the burn risk to people from hot surfaces such as asphalt. Land surface temperatures are hotter than air temperatures during the day. Air temperatures, which are measured out of direct sunlight, are usually what meteorologists report in a weather forecast.

The instrument launched to the space station in 2018. Its primary mission is to identify plants’ thresholds for water use and water stress, giving insight into their ability to adapt to a warming climate. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California built and manages the ECOSTRESS mission for the Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. ECOSTRESS is an Earth Venture Instrument mission; the program is managed by NASA’s Earth System Science Pathfinder program at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

More information about ECOSTRESS is available here:

https://ecostress.jpl.nasa.gov/.

For many Dubai residents earning between Dh15,000 and Dh20,000 per month, owning a home has long seemed out of reach, especially with property prices frequently surpassing Dh1 million. However, Dubai’s new First-Time Homeownership Initiative, aimed at making homeownership accessible to first-time buyers, offers support for properties priced up to Dh5 million. Backed by 13 developers and 5 major banks, the program provides significant benefits, including priority access to new off-plan units, preferential pricing, and direct discounts of up to 10% on property prices. Additionally, the initiative offers flexible mortgage payment plans with better rates from participating banks, making homeownership more affordable. DLD registration fees can also be paid in interest-free instalments, easing the upfront financial burden. So, if you’re eyeing that Dh1 million home, here’s how you can plan your strategy, estimate your costs, and make the most of these benefits to bring your dream of homeownership closer to reality. With this initiative, even moderate-income earners can turn the goal of owning a home into a viable possibility.

Step 1: Determine Affordability and Choose the Right Property

Let’s say you’re earning Dh18,000 per month, placing you comfortably within the program’s targeted salary range. The First-Time Homeownership Initiative aims to make homeownership a reality for people like you, with homes priced up to Dh1 million eligible under the program. According to the common mortgage lending rule, banks typically recommend that no more than 30% of your monthly income should go towards housing costs (including both the mortgage repayment and associated property costs like maintenance and insurance).Here’s how we calculate this:

Now, let’s consider the mortgage options available through this program. With 18-year loan tenures on offer, the total amount you can borrow will depend on the interest rate, which is among the lowest available to first-time buyers under this initiative.Now, let’s see how the First-Time Homeownership Initiative supports this.

Step 2: Mortgage Breakdown and Affordability

The program offers competitive interest rates, making homeownership more accessible for residents earning Dh15,000 to Dh20,000 per month. While typical mortgage rates in Dubai range from 3.5% to 4.5%, this initiative, backed by major banks and developers, provides below-market financing options. A 3.5% interest rate is realistic and competitive, ensuring affordable monthly payments for first-time buyers in the mid-income range.Assuming an interest rate of 3.5%, which is reasonable given the program’s supportive nature, here’s how the numbers break down for a Dh1,000,000 home:

Using the standard mortgage calculation formula, the estimated monthly payment comes out to be around Dh5,544 (precise), which is just slightly above the 30% salary rule. With Dh18,000 per month in salary, the monthly payment of Dh5,544 still remains manageable, offering a solid financial foundation for first-time buyers.

Step 3: Plan for Upfront Costs and Financing

While the program offers numerous benefits, it’s important to keep in mind the upfront costs, including the down payment and closing costs. As is typical in Dubai’s property market, you will generally need to make a 20% down payment on the purchase price. In case this requirement remains 20%, even with the initiative’s benefits, we’ve used this figure for a safe estimate. For a Dh1,000,000 property, this means a Dh200,000 down payment.

If you’re able to make the upfront payment of Dh200,000, your loan amount will reduce to Dh700,000, bringing the monthly payment down to approximately Dh4,314 per month.Though the down payment may seem steep, there are several ways to manage this:

Step 4: Maximize Program Benefits and Get Expert Support

To make the most of the First-Time Homeownership Initiative, consider these tips:

Disclaimer: The figures provided are rough estimates, meant to illustrate how the First-Time Homeownership Initiative can make homeownership more accessible. Actual costs, discounts, and mortgage terms may vary based on factors such as bank policies, property specifics, and developer offers.