Leading Bangladeshi company ACI Motors which is the  the distributor of Himoinsa and Yorpower diesel generators in Bangladesh, has emerged as the leader in the market this fiscal year 2023-24, its Executive Director Subrata Ranjan Das said recently. Subrata Ranjan Das, in a recent interview said that the market size for diesel generators with 10-3,000 KVA capacity slowed down by around 8% in the past fiscal year and is projected to face the same this fiscal year too, due to the inflation and economic slowdown, as the dollar crisis made timely imports a tough job now-a-days. "However, an increasing demand for quality products and services among the ongoing projects helped us beat other brands, gain market share and emerge as the market leader," Subrata Ranjan Das added.

China's stock market has seen net selling for a record six straight months, Bloomberg data shows. Foreign investors have fled amid economic problems and a tepid policy response from Beijing. In January, global funds sold $2 billion worth of Chinese equities. January marked the sixth consecutive month foreign investors were sellers of Chinese equities, according to a Bloomberg report. Last month, global funds sold 14.5 billion yuan worth of stocks — about $2 billion — and Beijing has yet to offer any policy solution to reverse the outflows. Chinese equities have shed roughly $6 trillion in market value since peaking in 2021.  The post-pandemic economic rebound never fully materialized for China, and instead, it's had to contend with severe real estate trouble, deflation, and fresh demographic challenges including an aging population and historic youth unemployment.  "You have an uber-bearish narrative around China that is proving very difficult to dislodge," Nicholas Spiro, a partner at Lauressa Advisory, told Business Insider in a recent interview. "China is emphatically out of favor with global investors." On January 22, Bloomberg reported that Chinese authorities were weighing a rescue package for stocks worth as much as $278 billion, pulled primarily from offshore accounts of state-run firms.  Yet experts told Business Insider that even sizable initiatives may not bring bears clamoring back to China. The bleak outlook stems from China's real estate market, which accounts for the majority of household wealth in the country. With property values depreciating, people's willingness to spend has also deteriorated, as has sentiment across the economy and markets. Deep-seated structural issues in real estate, experts say, make it difficult to envision what has to happen for investors to regain confidence.    Source: Business Insider  

Software engineer Jacky Jia has been paying more attention than usual to his stocks portfolio since China launched a torrent of measures aimed at boosting the beleaguered market in recent weeks. South China Monitoring Post Reported. Regulators have slashed the stamp duty on transactions, restricted divestments by major shareholders and taken tighter control of approving new share offerings in a string of actions that have taken the immediate sting out of the sell-offs that have roiled the onshore market. Having banked a reasonable return on the back of this, 45-year-old Jia is toying with the idea of investing a fixed amount of his salary in stocks every month going forward. But something is holding him back. Like many of the 220 million retail investors at home, he is not fully convinced the government’s efforts go far enough to set equities on a path to long-term recovery. “I’m about 60 per cent confident in the market,” said Jia, who works for a Japanese software company in Shanghai, in a recent interview. Despite the positive vibes on the policy front, “there’s no significant improvement in fundamentals,” he said. “The key issue is the lack of money and confidence. Of course, confidence matters more.” The task of restoring that confidence, among both retail and institutional investors, rests with the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), the watchdog that oversees the nation’s US$10 trillion stock market. President Xi Jinping’s all-powerful Politburo made its move in a meeting in July, setting the tone for second-half economic policy. Sentiment has been shaky for some months, as expectations of a strong post-Covid economic recovery failed to materialise and top policymakers refrained from launching a policy “bazooka” to kick-start growth. The term “bazooka” is often used to refer to a large-scale stimulus package, similar to the one Beijing launched during the 2008 global financial crisis. The government has adopted a more piecemeal approach to economic stimulus. In the latest move, on Thursday, China’s central bank announced a fresh cut to the amount of cash banks must hold as reserves. Source: South China Monitoring Post

A fire that broke out at the Mohammadpur Krishi Market in the city in the early hours of today was brought under control around 9:25 today.   Director of Fire Service and Civil Defense (Operation and Maintenance) Lt Colonel Tajul Islam Chowdhury confirmed it.   The fire started after 3:30 am on Thursday night.  A total of 17 units of the fire service brought the fire under control. They were joined by special teams from the Army, Navy and Air Force. Traders at the site said that there were atleast 500 shops in the market. Senior Station Officer of Fire Service and Civil Defence Headquarters (Media Cell), Raihanul Ashraf said that WASA, Bangladesh Air Force, Army, Navy, BGB, and police are all assisting the fire service men. No casualties were reported at the time of filing this report.

A massive fire broke out at Mohammadpur Krishi Market in the capital around 3:45am on Wednesday.  17 units of the fire service are working to bring the fire under control, said Fire Service and Civil Defence officials. more to follow....

Earlier in 2023, Netflix launched its strategy to block viewers from sharing passwords in a bid to bring in more money. With nearly 6 million new subscribers, the bet seems to have paid off. Netflix reported its biggest surge in paying viewers — nearly 6 million — since the early days of the pandemic, as its strategy to crackdown on password sharing pays off. The media streaming platform added 5.9 million subscribers in the second quarter and now has over 238 million paying patrons, it said in an earnings release on Wednesday. The company has been working to eliminate the practice of shared passwords between viewers since May, in an attempt to improve its profitability. It had earlier said that more than 100 million households were sharing Netflix accounts. "Let's face it, the crackdown on passwords is working," Navellier and Associates chief investment officer Louis Navellier said about Netflix's updated figures. "I was ecstatic with the results; I think they hit the ball out of the park with subscriber growth." First tested in limited countries including the US and Germany, Netflix said it plans to expand this strategy to other markets worldwide. The plan that paid off After the work-from-home induced rise in viewership since 2020, global inflationary pressures reflected a slowdown in the company's earnings since the beginning of 2022. Netflix introduced a low-price option, which included commercials, and started blocking shared passwords, forcing customers who were using them to formally join the platform. Account holders also have the option of paying an extra $8 (Є 7.14) in the US to allow families living in different households to share accounts. Despite initial market skepticism, more Netflix users have finally chosen to pay for the service rather than cancel. The company's revenue rose 2.7% year-on-year in the second quarter, albeit lower than market expectations. Shadow of protests Netflix's quarterly success did not reflect on the stock market as shares fell more than 8% in after-hours trading in the US, partly because of the ongoing writers and actors strike. Netflix, in a letter to its shareholders, warned that "quite a competitive battle" was unfolding against the backdrop of the strikes by the talent unions which threatens to block the otherwise steady pipeline of shows to the streaming service. Analysts believe Netflix is better equipped to weather the storm compared to its peers. "We are constantly at the table negotiating with everyone across the industry," Netflix co-chief executive Ted Sarandos said during an earnings presentation. "We need to get this strike to a conclusion so that we can all move forward." 

Artillery and air strikes hit the Khartoum market after the Sudanese military said it was suspending talks. The US warned it wouldn't be able to mediate amid truce violations. At least 18 civilians were killed in a market in Khartoum on Thursday, after the military announced withdrawing from truce talks the day before. Military shelling and aerial bombardments hit the capital's market, injuring over 100. The French AFP news agency cited a neighborhood group which organizes aid as saying the situation was "catastrophic." The number of casualties was even higher than the initial tally, a member of a local neighborhood committee told the Reuters news agency. They said several people were either treated at the scene or buried at home by relatives who feared the perilous trip to hospital. The Sudanese military, led by Abdel-Fattah Burhan, has been using its air force to attack members of its rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since the fighting started on April 15. The latter have nestled in the capital's neighborhoods, and the confrontation has left many Khartoum residents trapped in their homes to avoid the fighting. What's the fate of the truce? Clashes continued elsewhere in the capital and its surroundings, with residents of northern Omdurman and southern Bahri reporting heavy artillery fire. "We are being terrorized by the sounds of heavy artillery around us. The house has been shaking," 49-year-old Nadir Ahmed in Omdurman told Reuters. "Where is this ceasefire we hear about?" Sudan's army suspended talks with the RSF on Wednesday, accusing the paramilitary group of failing to implement "any of the terms of the agreement" and continuously violating the ceasefire. The truce talks were ongoing in Jeddah throughout most of May, mediated by Saudi Arabia and the US. They produced a fragile week-long cease-fire that was extended by five more days this week, despite multiple violations. The US acknowledged on Thursday "serious violations of the ceasefire by both sides." A State Department spokesperson warned that Washington would only mediate if the warring parties were "serious." "Once the forces make clear by their actions that they are serious about complying with the ceasefire, the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are prepared to resume facilitation of the suspended discussions to find a negotiated solution to this conflict," the AFP news agency quoted the spokesperson as saying. The fighting, ongoing since mid-April, has killed hundreds and displaced over a million, hundreds of thousands of whom crossed into neighboring countries to seek refuge.

After a terrible fire broke out in the New Super Market in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, the fire service brought it under control after a few hours of efforts. Traders said hundreds of shops inside the market were destroyed in the fire. The fire service, however, said that even if the fire is brought under control, it will take more time for the situation to be completely normal. The fire service says that after receiving the news of the fire at 5:40 am in the morning, five units of the fire service quickly went there and started to extinguish the fire. BGB and army personnel came also to assist the fire service. But then smoke started appearing in different directions.  The fire was seen on the third floor of the market at around eight in the morning. As the intensity of the smoke increased, several more units of the fire service were rushed to the spot. At ten o'clock in the morning, the fire service reported that a total of thirty units were working to control the fire. Water was being brought from the pond of the neighboring Dhaka College through a pipe. But even in this the smoke of fire was seen to increase. At least 18 people, including nine fire fighters, were taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital as they fell ill while working in the spot.

Fire breaks out in multi-storey building in the capital's Kataban Signal, 9 units of the fire service are working to control the fire.  Khaleda Yeasmin, the duty officer of the control room of the fire service, said,"The fire broke out on Monday, March 27 at around 7:30 p.m." She said, "Two units of the fire service went to the spot after hearing the information about the fire. Then when the fire increased, another seven units were added." The duty officer of the fire service said, "The fire started from the fifth floor of the building." Initially, the fire service official could not give any information about the cause of the fire and casualties.

In recent days, there has been a lot of instability in the chicken market in the country. The price of broiler chicken, which was 170-180 taka per kg, is now nearly three hundred taka. Along with this, the price of beef has also increased.  In such a situation, at a meeting on Thursday, March 23, Md. Jashim Uddin, the FBCCI president, made this statement regarding the import, storage, supply, and market situation of essential commodities during Ramadan.  "It is necessary to import beef and chicken meat as needed to control the local market price," he added. The President of FBCCI stated, "We are concerned about the sudden increase in the price of chicken in the last few days. We called for a meeting with business owners related to this today. They did not come. Even though, they did not send us a logical answer. Previously, when the price had increased. They decreased the product price when we pressurised them to control the market." He questioned, "Why has the market price increased again on the occasion of Ramadan?" He said, "The import of meat had been banned for so long. If they cannot provide beef and broiler chicken at the reasonable price, then imports must be allowed. If necessary, we will ask the government to ease the import of beef and chicken for two to three months. We don't see any other solution instead of this." At this time, the FBCCI board of directors, along with the President of Bangladesh Shop Owners Association and various wholesale market businessmen, were present.