U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said 10 hours of meetings with senior Chinese officials in recent days were "direct" and "productive", helping stabilise the superpowers' often rocky relationship as her four-day Beijing trip ended.

Before departing China on Sunday, Yellen said the United States and China remained at odds on a number of issues but expressed confidence that her visit had advanced efforts to put the relationship on "surer footing".

"The U.S. and China have significant disagreements," Yellen told a press conference at the U.S. embassy in Beijing, citing Washington's concerns about what she called "unfair economic practices" and recent punitive actions against U.S. firms.

"But President (Joe) Biden and I do not see the relationship between the U.S. and China through the frame of great power conflict. We believe that the world is big enough for both of our countries to thrive." (Reuters - Continue Reading)

The European Union signed a free trade agreement with New Zealand that aims to increase its exports there by €4.5 billion a year, a first such deal to also include sustainability goals.

The agreement will cut about €140 million ($153.5 million) a year in duties for the bloc’s companies, with the goal of boosting bilateral trade by 30% within a decade and investment to New Zealand by 80%, according to a joint statement on Sunday.

“It’s an ambitious and very well-balanced free trade agreement,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters in Brussels. “It provides plenty of opportunities for our respective businesses.”

The agreement is part of the bloc’s strategy to develop trade relations with trusted partners, including Australia. “Good progress” is being made toward a deal with Canberra, with a new round of talks set for the coming week, according to Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis. (Bloomberg - Continue Reading)

As second-quarter earnings approach, investors are looking at beaten-down sectors which might gain ground regardless of whether the U.S. economy falls into recession this year.

While the benchmark S&P 500 has gained nearly 15% year-to-date driven by a handful of megacap growth and technology names, some sectors have lagged, including the S&P 500 healthcare, which is down 4.7%. The financials sector is down 2%, while energy is nearly 9% lower.

These unloved sectors are growing attractive to investors increasingly torn over whether a long-feared U.S. recession will ever materialize.

Global fund managers increased their allocations to healthcare and banks by about 5 percentage points in June, while cutting holdings of popular recession plays such as cash and consumer staples companies, BofA Global said.

Large asset managers such as BlackRock and Wells Fargo highlighted healthcare as a favoured sector in their recent outlooks for the rest of the year. (Reuters - Continue Reading)