Raphael Stevens

Shenzhen-based camera company Insta360 went public Wednesday on Shanghai’s tech-heavy STAR Market in the board’s largest raise to date.
The company counts the U.S. as one of its biggest markets, contributing roughly the same amount of revenue as mainland China and Europe.
It’s a sign of how China-based companies are still eager to expand globally despite geopolitical tensions.

The Insta360 One R displayed in a container of water at the Insta360 booth during CES 2020 at the Las Vegas Convention Center on Jan. 8, 2020.
David Becker | Getty Images News | Getty Images

BEIJING — Chinese companies are so intent on global expansion that even the biggest stock offering to date on Shanghai’s tech-heavy STAR board counts the U.S. as one of its biggest markets, on par with China.
Shenzhen-based camera company Insta360, a rival to GoPro, raised 1.938 billion yuan ($270 million) in a Shanghai listing Wednesday under the name Arashi Vision. Shares soared by 274%, giving the company a market value of 71 billion yuan ($9.88 billion).

The United States, Europe and mainland China each accounted for just over 23% of revenue last year, according to Insta360, whose 360-degree cameras officially started Apple Store sales in 2018. The company sells a variety of cameras — priced at several hundred dollars — coupled with video-editing software.
Co-founder Max Richter said in an interview Tuesday that he expects U.S. demand to remain strong and dismissed concerns about geopolitical risks.
“We are staying ahead just by investing into user-centric research and development, and monitoring market trends that ultimately meet the consumer[‘s] needs,” he told CNBC ahead of the STAR board listing.
China launched the Shanghai STAR Market in July 2019 just months after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced plans for the board. The Nasdaq-style tech board was established to support high-growth tech companies while raising requirements for the investor base to limit speculative activity.

In 2019, only 12% of companies on the STAR board said at least half of their revenue came from outside China, according to CNBC analysis of data accessed via Wind Information. In 2024, with hundreds more companies listed, that share had climbed to more than 14%, the data showed.

“We are just seeing the tip of the iceberg. More and more capable Chinese firms are going global,” said King Leung, global head of financial services, fintech and sustainability at InvestHK.
Leung pointed to the growing global business of Chinese companies such as battery giant CATL, which listed in Hong Kong last month. “There are a lot of more tier-two and tier-three companies that are equally capable,” he said.
InvestHK is a Hong Kong government department that promotes investment in the region. It has organized trips to help connect mainland Chinese businesses with overseas opportunities, including one to the Middle East last month.
Roborock, a robotic vacuum cleaner company also listed on the STAR board, announced this month it plans to list in Hong Kong. More than half of the company’s revenue last year came from overseas markets.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year, Roborock showed off a vacuum with a robotic arm for automatically removing obstacles while cleaning floors. The device was subsequently launched in the U.S. for $2,600.
Other consumer-focused Chinese companies also remain unfazed by heighted tensions between China and the U.S.
In November, Chinese home appliance company Hisense said it aimed to become the top seller of television sets in the U.S. in two years. And last month, China-based Bc Babycare announced its official expansion into the U.S. and touted its global supply chain as a way to offset tariff risks.

New phase of expansion

Chinese companies have been pushing overseas in the last several years, partly because growth at home has slowed. Consumer demand has remained lackluster since the Covid-19 pandemic.
But the expansion trend is now evolving into a third stage in which the businesses look to build international brands on their own with offices in different regions hiring local employees, said Charlie Chen, managing director and head of Asia research at China Renaissance Securities.
He said that’s a change from the earliest years when Chinese companies primarily manufactured products for foreign brands to sell, and a subsequent phase in which Chinese companies had joint ventures with foreign companies.

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Insta360 primarily manufactures out of Shenzhen, but has offices in Berlin, Tokyo and Los Angeles, Richter said. He said the Los Angeles office focuses on services and marketing — the company held its first big offline product launch in New York’s Grand Central Terminal in April.
Chen also expects the next phase of Chinese companies going global will sell different kinds of products. He pointed out that those that had gone global primarily sold home appliances and electronics, but are now likely to expand significantly into toys.
Already, Beijing-based Pop Mart has become a global toy player, with its Labubu figurine series gaining popularity worldwide.
Pop Mart’s total sales, primarily domestic, were 4.49 billion yuan in 2021. In 2024, overseas sales alone surpassed that to hit 5.1 billion yuan, up 373% from a year ago, while mainland China sales climbed to 7.97 billion yuan.
“It established another Pop Mart versus domestic sales in 2021,” said Chris Gao, head of China discretionary consumer at CLSA.
The Hong Kong-listed retailer doesn’t publicly share much about its global store expansion plans or existing locations, but an independent blogger compiled a list of at least 17 U.S. store locations as of mid-May, most of which opened in the last two years.
The toy company has been “very good” at developing or acquiring the rights to characters, Gao said. She expects its global growth to continue as Pop Mart plans to open more stores worldwide, and as consumers turn more to such character-driven products during times of stress and macroeconomic uncertainty. More

It must be tempting to give up. Those tasked with reviving Britain’s stockmarket have long faced a difficult task and a steady drip of bad news, as one firm after another departs for private ownership or America. It will still have hit like a bucket of cold water to learn, on June 5th, that Wise intends to move its main listing to New York. More

A group of 42 state attorneys general are calling on Meta to curb the rise of investment scams on Facebook that fraudulently use the images of Warren Buffett and other famous figures, New York Attorney General Letitia James said.
James said in a news release criminals are consistently evading Meta’s automated and human review systems to post fake ads that leave retail investors saddled with millions of dollars in losses.
The ads, touting access to Buffett, Elon Musk or Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood, lure Facebook users to join chat groups on Meta-owned messaging platform, WhatsApp, according to the New York AG.

New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press conference at the office of the Attorney General on July 13, 2022 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images

A group of 42 state attorneys general are calling on Meta to curb the rise of investment scams on Facebook that fraudulently use the images of Warren Buffett and other famous figures, New York Attorney General Letitia James said Wednesday.
James said in a news release criminals are consistently evading Meta’s automated and human review systems to post fake ads that leave retail investors saddled with millions of dollars in losses. Her office continues to see the scams months after reporting them to Meta, she added.

The ads, touting access to Buffett, Elon Musk or Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood, lure Facebook users to join chat groups on Meta-owned messaging platform, WhatsApp, according to the New York AG.
There, users are unwittingly involved in alleged pump-and-dump schemes, where criminals boost the price of thinly traded stocks and quickly sell for a profit, leaving small investors with losses.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is struggling to control the rise of cyber scams on its platforms and is a “cornerstone of the internet fraud economy,” the Wall Street Journal reported last month. The problem is global in nature, with one notable lawsuit being brought by an Australian billionaire who alleges that Meta’s artificial intelligence-run advertising program created and amplified false ads using his likeness.
“Thousands of Facebook users have lost hundreds of millions of dollars to these scams and Meta must do more to stop these fraudulent ads from running on its platforms,” James said. “I am leading a bipartisan coalition calling on Meta to step up its review of ads to stop these scams. I also urge all New Yorkers to be extra careful before putting their money in investments they see advertised on social media.”

Arrows pointing outwards

Source: New York State Attorney General’s office

The AGs urged Meta to boost its policing of ads, including with more human review, saying that unless they curb the scams, Meta should stop running investment ads altogether.

Joining James were AGs from states including California, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Andy Stone, a spokesman for Meta, said that addressing scams on its platforms requires collaboration between banks, governments, law enforcement and telecom companies.
“We’re committed to doing our part: Investing in technology to aggressively enforce against scams, including testing the use of facial recognition technology, empowering people to protect themselves with on-platform warnings and tools, educating consumers on common schemes and forging partnerships across tech, banking and beyond to protect people from these criminals,” Stone said. More

The consumer price index rose 2.4% on an annual basis in May 2025, up from 2.3% in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Inflation trends are largely encouraging under the surface, and roughly back to the Federal Reserve’s target level, economists said.
However, President Trump’s tariff policy is likely to cause a reacceleration of inflation in coming months, economists said.

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The annual inflation rate increased slightly in May as an uptick in grocery inflation somewhat offset lower prices at the gasoline pump.
And while inflation was relatively tame, economists said they expect President Trump’s tariff policy to raise consumer prices in coming months — and that there was already some evidence of their impact.

The consumer price index, an inflation barometer, rose 2.4% in the 12 months through May, up from 2.3% in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday.

‘Calm before the inflation storm’

That increase to the annual inflation rate was largely due to a data quirk called “base effects,” economists said. (Basically, inflation one year prior, in May 2024, was unusually low, making the May 2025 numbers look high by comparison.)
The monthly inflation rate paints a rosier picture and gives a better indicator of underlying trends, economists said: CPI increased 0.1% from April to May, down from 0.2% the prior month, the BLS said.

A consistent monthly rate around 0.2% would generally be adequate to bring inflation down to the Federal Reserve’s long-term target, economists said.
“It was a very good report,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s. “Basically, it says inflation has finally gotten back to the Federal Reserve’s annual inflation target.”

However, tariffs President Trump levied on many countries and products will likely start to show up noticeably into the summer and fall, he said.
“I think it’s the calm before the inflation storm,” Zandi said. “This [report] still reflects the disinflation that began a few years ago and continued on through the month of May.”

Tariff impact on energy prices

That said, tariffs already had some impact on consumer prices in May, economists said.
For one, gasoline prices fell almost 3% from April to May, according to the BLS. They’re down 12% from a year ago, it said.
This is largely the result of falling oil prices, which reflect concerns about a slowdown in global economic growth due to tariffs, said Bernard Yaros, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.

Lower energy prices filter down to the gasoline pump and lower household bills, he said. Lower oil prices also feed through more broadly to reduced costs for transportation, in categories like airline fares, Zandi said.
Airfare fell about 3% from April to May and is down 7% for the year, the BLS said.
Grocery prices were a sticking point in May, though, economists said. Inflation for food at home rose by 0.3% for the month, after having deflated 0.4% the prior month.
Food prices give “a little bit of a queasy feeling,” Zandi said. It’s one of the categories he’s most concerned about, he said.

Other disinflationary factors

Healing supply chains and a weakening of the labor market are factors that have helped rein in U.S. inflation broadly, said Sarah House, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Economics.
Data indicate consumers are continuing to spend money and haven’t shown much reluctance to accept higher prices, House said.
“The consumer hasn’t buckled yet,” she said.

Housing inflation has also moderated, an important element since the category is the largest component of the consumer price index, economists said.
Indeed, monthly inflation for rent and “owners’ equivalent rent” (a rent measure applied to homeowners) have “returned to their pre-pandemic norms,” Stephen Brown, deputy chief North America economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a research note Wednesday.
These trends together signaled “a steady downtrend in inflation” back to the Fed’s long-term target at least by the end of this year or early next year, Oxford Economics’ Yaros said.

Tariff risk ‘stalling out’ disinflation

Tariffs complicate that narrative, economists said.
“The disinflationary trend we’ve been seeing in fits and starts is at risk of stalling out again,” House said.
President Trump has levied a barrage of import duties since his inauguration in January.
Federal data show the effective tariff rate in April was about 6% — and is likely to increase — relative to 2% at end of 2024, House said.
The Yale Budget Lab estimates the average U.S. household would pay about $2,500 more in 2025 due to tariff policy in effect as of June 1.

There were some early signs of tariff impacts in the May CPI report for people “looking through a microscope,” Brown wrote.
For example, major appliance prices jumped 4.3% for the month, and toy prices by 2.2%, he wrote, citing CPI data.
“Unless all retailers are raising prices at the same time, it may trickle not flood into the data,” Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at NerdWallet, wrote Wednesday. More

The U.S. and China have reached consensus on trade, representatives from both sides said after high-level talks in London.
The negotiators will now seek approval on the framework from the U.S. and Chinese presidents, before implementing it.
The talks follow a breakthrough trade agreement reached in mid-May that paused new tariffs for 90 days.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick speaks to members of the media while arriving for trade talks at Lancaster House in London, UK, on Tuesday, June 10, 2025.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The U.S. and China have reached an agreement on trade, representatives from both sides said following a second day of high-level talks in London.
“We have reached a framework to implement the Geneva consensus and the call between the two presidents,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters.

That echoed comments to reporters from Li Chenggang, China’s international trade representative and a vice minister at China’s Commerce Ministry.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by phone late last week, stabilizing what had become a fraught relationship with both countries accusing each other of violating the Geneva trade agreement. At a meeting in Switzerland in mid-May, the world’s two largest economies had agreed to a 90-day suspension of reciprocal tariffs added in April, and a rollback of certain other measures.
Lutnick said he and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will head back to Washington, D.C., to “make sure President Trump approves” the framework. If Xi also approves it, then “we will implement the framework,” Lutnick said.
Chinese restrictions on rare-earth exports to the U.S. are a “fundamental part” of the latest agreement and the U.S. expects the issue “will be resolved in this framework implementation,” Lutnick said.
He indicated U.S. restrictions on sales of advanced tech to China in recent weeks would be rolled back as Beijing approves rare earths exports.

While Chinese state media had been quick to announce Xi’s call with Trump last week, Beijing’s official mouthpieces were conspicuously silent more than one hour after Lutnick’s comments. The latest state media report from Tuesday night focused on how U.S.-China talks continued following lunchtime local time.
A headline from the state-backed China News Service at 8:35 a.m. Beijing time Wednesday said, without elaborating, that the “result of the talks is beneficial for taking a step toward increasing trust between China and the U.S.” That’s according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese.
On Tuesday local time in London, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters he was headed back to the U.S. in order to testify before Congress.
Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, the lead negotiator on trade talks with the U.S., and Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao also participated in this week’s discussions. More