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 Asian stocks clung to tight ranges on Thursday as investors awaited key Chinese data for clues on how much the 16-month trade war between Beijing and Washington has hit growth in the world's second-largest economy.
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 (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Jack Ma is riding high this week. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., the company he founded, has won approval to forge ahead with a Hong Kong share sale that could raise at least $10 billion. On Monday, China's largest e-commerce company logged more than $38.3 billion of purchases during its annual Singles' Day shopping event, a new record. The rest of China's retail sector hasn't been so lucky. Just as shoppers were placing gadgets in their carts, investors were selling their consumer stocks. In two days, Gree Electric Appliances Inc. of Zhuhai and peer Midea Group Co. tumbled 7.4% and 6.2%. That's despite electronics companies notching a 30% rise in sales this Singles' Day.What explains the selloff?Blame Jack the Ripper. He's killing the most beloved trade in China's $12 trillion stock market: a bet on consumers. The retail sector, excluding cars, has been remarkably resilient this year.Now Alibaba's Singles' Day has kicked off a price war. Over the weekend, Gree announced it would forgo 3 billion yuan ($427.5 million) in profit just to please China's lonesome hearts. Its air conditioners sold for as little as 1,399 yuan, a 42% discount, both online and at the company's thousands of retail outlets. China's biggest electronics makers have been caught in a three-way race, so it's little surprise that rivals from Midea to Haier Electronics Group Co. quickly followed suit.Investors were already looking at Monday's stellar statistics with suspicion, after an alarming report over the weekend that producer prices fell ag
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 Sundial Grows Inc. shares rose more than 15% in the extended session Wednesday after the company reported a third-quarter loss of C$97.5 million ($73.6 million) on net revenue of C$33.5 million. The cannabis company's net loss amounts to C$1.06 a share, versus a loss of C$0.18 a share in the year-ago period. Sundial did not report revenue a year ago. Sundial said its losses were "driven by" the termination of a royalty obligation and the acquisition of a business in the United Kingdom. Not enough analysts were polled by FactSet to form reliable consensus estimates. Sundial went public in August; the stock has dropped 65% in the past three months as the benchmark S&P 500 index rose 23%.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
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The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 posted record closing highs on Wednesday helped by a big jump in Walt Disney shares, but the Nasdaq fell as stocks were kept in check by fresh uncertainty over U.S.-China trade relations.
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The Dow Jones Industrial Average was clinging to a small gain, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite slipped back into negative territory after The Wall Street Journal said U.S.-China trade talks hit a snag over purchases of agricultural products. The Dow was up 24 points, or 0.1%, at 27,716, while the S&P 500 edged down 0.1% to 3,089. The Nasdaq Composite was off 0.3% at 8,464. The report said that while President Donald Trump has agreed to buy $50 billion a year of U.S. soybeans, pork and other farm products, China is wary of making a numerical commitment in the text of the agreement.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
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Walt Disney Co. shares jumped to record prices Wednesday, after the company announced that its new streaming service had more than 10 million subscribers in the wake of the service's Tuesday launch. Disney shares rose as much as 8.2% to an intraday record of $149.92 before closing with a 7.3% gain at $148.63, topping the record closing price of $146.39. The previous record was established on July 29 of this year, after Disney announced a new annual box-office record less than seven months into the year. The day's gain was the third-best on a percentage basis for Disney's stock in the past decade. Disney announced Wednesday that it had achieved 10 million subscribers to the Disney streaming service, which launched Tuesday. The company has been signing up subscribers for months in advance of the launch of Disney , which is seen as a rival to other streaming services like Netflix Inc. Disney's gains paced the Dow Jones Industrial Average , contributing about two-thirds of the blue-chip index's gain for the day.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
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U.S. stocks largely closed in positive territory Wednesday, though off session highs, after the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S.-China trade talks have stalled out on disagreements over China making firm commitments on agricultural purchases and U.S. reluctance to roll back already implemented tariffs in the hopes of maintaining an enforcement mechanism to hold China to the terms of a potential deal. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 92 points, or 0.3% to close at about 27,784, a new record, and the S&P 500 index added about two points to end the day at 3,094, also a record close. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite index shed about 4 points, or 0.1% to close near 8,482. The apparent gap between U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators has delayed the completion of a phase-one trade deal that was announced on Oct. 11 by President Trump and Vice-Premier Liu He, though doubts to whether an actual deal will be signed grew after President Trump said during a speech Tuesday that he was willing to raise tariffs further if China doesn't agree to a deal that works for the U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testified before Congress' Joint Economic Committee Wednesday, where he signaled that interest rates would be on hold unless there was a material deterioration in the economy. In company news, shares of Nike Inc. rose 2% after it announced it would stop selling apparel directly on Amazon.com Inc.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
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 Michael Cembalest, the chairman of market and investment strategy for J.P. Morgan Asset Management, rounded up the dire predictions from a range of commentators and calculated the consequences of shifting money from stocks to bonds.
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