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    Empty shelves, gasoline shortages and sky-high energy prices? Britain is facing a ‘difficult winter’

    Britain has been plunged into uncertainty as issues over gasoline, electricity and food have prompted warnings of “a really difficult winter” for the country.
    A significant lack of truck drivers has meant deliveries of fuel and goods have fallen short.

    Empty shelves that usually stock bottled water at Sainsbury’s supermarket, Greenwich Peninsular, on September 19, 2021 in London, England.
    Chris J Ratcliffe | Getty Images

    LONDON — Britain has been plunged into uncertainty as issues over gasoline, electricity and food have prompted warnings of “a really difficult winter” for the country.
    A significant lack of truck drivers has meant deliveries of fuel and goods have fallen short.

    In a bid to incentivize people to take the job, some employers have reportedly offered salaries as high as £70,000 ($95,750) a year, with joining bonuses of £2,000.
    Speaking to ITV News on Thursday, Paul Scully, the U.K.’s minister for small businesses, warned that “this is going to be a really difficult winter for people.”
    “We know this is going to be a challenge and that’s why we don’t underestimate the situation that we all find ourselves in,” he said. However, Scully told Times Radio on Friday that there was “no need for people to go out and panic buy.”
    Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman said earlier this week that there was no shortage of fuel in the U.K., and people should continue to buy gas as normal. He also described the U.K.’s food supply chain as “highly resilient,” but acknowledged some businesses in the industry were facing challenges and said the government was having meetings with representatives from the sector.

    Gas station closures

    As supplies of some essential goods have dwindled, reports have emerged of empty shelves and long lines of cars outside gas stations.

    In a BBC interview Friday, U.K. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said people should continue to buy gasoline as usual, adding that military personnel would be brought in to drive trucks if it would help the situation.

    Vehicles queue for fuel at a Sainsbury’s petrol station on September 24, 2021 in Weymouth, England.
    Finnbarr Webster | Getty Images

    Oil giant BP confirmed Friday that it had temporarily closed a handful of its U.K. gas stations due to shortages of unleaded gasoline and diesel. 
    “These have been caused by some delays in the supply chain which has been impacted by the industry-wide driver shortages across the U.K., and there are many actions being taken to address the issue,” a spokesperson said via email.
    “We continue to work with our haulier supplier to minimize any future disruption and to ensure efficient and effective deliveries to serve our customers. We are prioritising deliveries to motorway service areas, major trunk roads and sites with largest demand.” 
    A spokesperson for Exxon Mobil’s Esso told CNBC that a small number of the sites it operated in the U.K. had been impacted by fuel shortages, but that the company was “working closely with all parties in our distribution network to optimize supplies and minimize any inconvenience to customers.”
    In an emailed statement on Friday, a spokesperson for Tesco, the U.K.’s largest supermarket chain and an operator of 500 gas stations, said, “We have good availability of fuel, with deliveries arriving at our petrol filling stations across the U.K. every day.”
    The company has only experienced temporary outages at two of its own gas stations so far. Some stations are owned by other operators but have a Tesco convenience store onsite.
    Competitor Sainsbury’s said it wasn’t currently experiencing any issues with fuel supply but was monitoring the situation.

    ‘Serious labor shortages’

    Some food supplies in Britain have also been affected by delivery disruptions. But according to Ian Wright, chief executive of the U.K.’s Food and Drink Federation, food and drink manufacturers in the country have been experiencing the “same serious labor shortages as those being seen across the food supply chain.” 
    “We need Government urgently to conduct a full survey of the state of employment markets to gain an understanding of the most pressing issues,” he said in an emailed statement.
    “For example, workers may have returned to their respective home countries during lockdown and not returned [to the U.K.]. Some estimates put this figure at well over a million. If fast action is not taken, the impacts we are already seeing will worsen.”

    One remaining drink is seen on a near-empty shelf at an Asda supermarket in London, England on September 19, 2021.
    Chris J Ratcliffe | Getty Images

    In recent days, a serious carbon dioxide shortage in Britain had prompted concerns that food production would suffer a blow and dent supplies nationwide. U.S. CO2 producer CF Industries recently closed two U.K. sites that produce 60% of the country’s commercial supplies, blaming soaring wholesale gas prices. 
    While Britain’s government struck a deal with the company to restart production, the BBC reported that the country’s food industry could end up paying five times more for the gas under the agreement.
    Energy companies have also come under strain, with at least seven suppliers collapsing since August after the price of wholesale natural gas soared 250% in less than nine months. According to energy industry body OGUK, prices surged 70% between August and September alone.
    The U.K. has limits on how much suppliers are able to charge consumers for energy, with price caps reviewed by the government every six months. Some are expecting the current cap to be lifted when it is reviewed by ministers in April, meaning British households will absorb some of the increased wholesale cost.
    In a report on its latest monetary policy decision on Thursday, the Bank of England warned the inflation rate was likely to climb to “slightly above” 4% this year, double its target level.

    Positive growth outlook

    A surge in demand following coronavirus lockdowns is seen as a factor behind these issues, as well as labor and supply shortages accentuated by Britain’s full departure from the European Union at the start of this year.
    Speaking to CNBC in a phone call Friday, Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG U.K., said it didn’t look as though the country’s supply chaos was going to be completely resolved before the winter.
    Labor shortages could take at least six months to resolve, Selfin said.
    “We are a little bit vulnerable as there’s a lot of strain in the system already. Any additional shock, like what we’ve just seen with gas prices, is just going to make it harder for businesses and households to absorb,” she said.
    However, Selfin’s overall outlook for the U.K. economy remained positive.
    “The good news is that we are quite near to where we were prior to [the coronavirus pandemic],” she said. “We’re expecting the economy to reach its pre-Covid level by the third quarter of next year. Even with additional shocks, we may have weaker growth, but we’re still expecting 6.2 percentage point growth.”
    “The main problem is that there’s very strong demand that cannot be met. So it’s bad, but it could be worse if no one wanted to buy anything,” Selfin added.
    Andrew Goodwin, chief U.K. economist at Oxford Economics, also told CNBC on Friday that it would take time to resolve the delivery driver shortage.
    “Training or recruiting new HGV [heavy goods vehicle] drivers isn’t something you can do overnight, it’s going to take quite a while. The industry is really going to have to work with what it has at the moment,” he said via telephone.
    However, Goodwin said he too remained “reasonably optimistic” about the state of the U.K. economy.
    “Households have got this big stockpile of savings to spend, but that will be starting to ebb away a bit simply because the bad news we’re having on things like inflation,” he told CNBC. “[But] certainly over the next year we should achieve much stronger GDP growth than we normally would because we’re still in the catch-up phase.”
    “I suspect, we’re going to end up in a situation where the reality is a little bit disappointing to what we were expecting say three months ago,” Goodwin added. “And that’s simply because of these issues with supply shortages, both in terms of sort of constraining output and also just eating into consumers’ purchasing power.”

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    Bitcoin tanks 8%, ethereum drops 11% as China intensifies crackdown on cryptocurrencies

    The price of bitcoin fell 8% to $41,241, according to Coin Metrics data.
    Ethereum, the second-largest digital currency, fell 11% to $2,808.
    The declines come after the People’s Bank of China said all crypto-related activities are illegal.

    Bitcoin and ethereum tumbled Friday, with traders rattled by tough talk out of China.
    The price of bitcoin fell 8% to $41,241, according to Coin Metrics data. Ethereum, the second-largest digital currency, dropped 11% to $2,808.

    It comes after the People’s Bank of China said in a Q&A that all crypto-related activities are illegal. Services offering trading, order matching or derivatives for virtual currencies are strictly prohibited, the PBOC said, while overseas exchanges are also illegal.
    Beijing has cracked down sharply on crypto this year. The Chinese government moved to stamp out digital currency mining, the energy-intensive operation that validates transactions and produces new coins. That led to sharp slump in bitcoin’s processing power as miners took their equipment offline.
    The PBOC banned banks and non-bank payment institutions like Alibaba affiliate Ant Group from providing services related to virtual currency. In July, authorities told a Beijing-based software company to shut down over its involvement with crypto trading.
    Vijay Ayyar, head of Asia Pacific at digital currency exchange Luno, said that, though China’s position on crypto was not new, it was enough to tip the market into negative territory. Investors had already been unnerved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission taking a tougher line on cryptocurrencies lately, he added.
    “The Chinese regulators have always been extreme in their views and these comments are not new,” Ayyar told CNBC via email. “They have said these things many times in the past. But the reaction is interesting purely because we are anyway in a slightly nervous environment for crypto with the recent SEC comments and overall macro environment with the Evergrande news. So any comments of this nature will cause a sell off in risky assets.”
    “Overall, we’ve seen this play out many times in the past, with such dips being inorganic and bought up quite quickly especially in environments where crypto is in a bull market cycle. Hence, price action wise, as long as we don’t drop below $38,000 on a high time frame basis, we are still in bullish territory.”

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    China's central bank says all cryptocurrency-related activities are illegal, vows harsh crackdown

    The People’s Bank of China said services offering trading, order matching, token issuance and derivatives for virtual currencies are strictly prohibited.
    Overseas cryptocurrency exchanges providing services in mainland China are also illegal, the PBOC said.
    It’s not the first time China has gotten tough on cryptocurrencies. Earlier this year, Beijing announced a crackdown on crypto mining.

    In this photo illustration, the Bitcoin logo is seen on a mobile device with People’s Republic of China flag in the background. (Photo Illustration by t/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
    Budrul Chukrut | SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty Images

    China’s central bank renewed its tough talk on bitcoin Friday, calling all digital currency activities illegal and vowing to crack down on the market.
    In a Q&A posted to its website, the People’s Bank of China said services offering trading, order matching, token issuance and derivatives for virtual currencies are strictly prohibited. Overseas crypto exchanges providing services in mainland China are also illegal, the PBOC said.

    “Overseas virtual currency exchanges that use the internet to offer services to domestic residents is also considered illegal financial activity,” the PBOC said, according to a CNBC translation of the comments. Workers of foreign crypto exchanges will be investigated, it added.
    The PBOC said it has also improved its systems to step up monitoring of crypto-related transactions and root out speculative investing.

    “Financial institutions and non-bank payment institutions cannot offer services to activities and operations related to virtual currencies,” the bank said, reiterating past comments.
    The price of bitcoin sank over 3% on a 24-hour basis, last trading at around $42,239, according to Coin Metrics data. Ethereum, the second-largest digital asset, fell 7% to $2,860.
    Stocks with heavy exposure to crypto also slumped in premarket trading, with Coinbase down by nearly 4%, MicroStrategy slipping 5% and Riot Blockchain down over 6%.

    It’s not the first time China has gotten tough on cryptocurrencies. Earlier this year, Beijing announced a crackdown on crypto mining, the energy-intensive process that verifies transactions and mints new units of currency. That led to a sharp slump in bitcoin’s processing power, as multiple miners took their equipment offline.

    Read more about cryptocurrencies from CNBC Pro

    The PBOC also ordered banks and non-bank payment institutions like Alibaba affiliate Ant Group not to provide services related to crypto.
    In July, the central bank told a Beijing-based company to shut down for allegedly facilitating digital currency transactions with its software.
    China’s crypto crackdown comes as Beijing is looking to fulfill its climate targets. The country is the world’s biggest carbon emitter, and has set out to become carbon neutral by 2060.
    Meanwhile, the PBOC is also working on its own digital currency. China is seen as a leading contender in the race toward central bank-issued digital currencies, having trialed a virtual version of the yuan in several regions.
    —CNBC’s Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.

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    What's next for bus operator Greyhound post-pandemic

    Intercity bus travel in the U.S. has long been dominated by one iconic brand: Greyhound. With its fleet of 1,200 buses, Greyhound shuttles nearly 16 million passengers annually to 2,400 North American destinations.
    Known primarily for catering to budget-conscious, long-distance travelers, the company also offers charter services for businesses, conventions and schools. And its Greyhound Package Express business provides same-day delivery to thousands of destinations.

    But a drop in passenger demand due to the Covid-19 pandemic has forced the bus operator to cut back its schedule.
    “The pandemic has hit the bus and motorcoach industry really harder, I think, than almost any other segment,” American Bus Association President and CEO Peter Pantuso said.
    In its fiscal 2021, Greyhound saw an average of just 10,000 passenger journeys per day compared with 40,000 during the previous period. The company reported an operating loss of $12 million in fiscal year 2021 and a loss of $15 million in fiscal year 2020.
    Competition from low-cost airlines and a combination of increased automobile access and low fuel prices in recent years have also led to mounting headwinds for the bus operator. 
    Greyhound provides an affordable travel option for people living in rural areas and others with limited economic resources. So, what does the future look like for the bus operator and what happens to intercity bus service in America once the pandemic ends? 

    Watch the video to find out what’s next for Greyhound.
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    Afghanistan's health-care system is 'on the brink of collapse,' WHO warns

    Afghanistan’s health-care system is “on the brink of collapse” as a lack of funding left thousands of health facilities struggling to buy medical supplies and pay their staff, said the World Health Organization.
    WHO said reduced donations to Afghanistan’s largest health project, Sehatmandi, have left health facilities without medicines, medical supplies, fuel, and salaries for medical workers.
    Afghanistan’s Covid-19 and poliovirus response will also suffer due to the shortages, according to the agency.

    In this photo taken on March 20, 2019, an Afghan health worker administers a polio vaccine to a child in the Kandahar province.
    Javed Tanveer | AFP | Getty Images

    Afghanistan’s health-care system is “on the brink of collapse” as a lack of funding left thousands of health facilities struggling to buy medical supplies and pay their staff, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.
    “Unless urgent action is taken, the country faces an imminent humanitarian catastrophe,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Ahmed Al-Mandhari said in a statement following a visit to Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital city.

    The Taliban, an ultraconservative militant group, seized power in Afghanistan last month as the U.S. withdrew its military presence in the country. Afghanistan is heavily dependent on international funding, but many donors have suspended aid to the country while the U.S. froze its Afghan financial assets.

    WHO said reduced donations to Afghanistan’s largest health project, Sehatmandi, left health facilities without medicines, medical supplies, fuel, and salaries for medical workers.
    Sehatmandi is the main source of health care in the country — it operates 2,309 medical facilities across Afghanistan that benefitted over 30 million people in 2020.
    “Many of these facilities have now reduced operations or shut down, forcing health providers to make hard decisions on who to save and who to let die,” the statement said, noting that only 17% of the facilities were fully functional.

    Covid-19 response

    Problems in Afghanistan’s health-care system have affected the country’s response to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

    “Nine of 37 COVID-19 hospitals have already closed, and all aspects of the COVID-19 response have dropped, including surveillance, testing, and vaccination,” WHO said.
    Covid vaccination rates have “decreased rapidly” in recent weeks, while 1.8 million vaccine doses remained unused, according to the statement.

    United Nations Childrens Emergency Fund (UNICEF) members label the shipment containing Astrazeneca Covid-19 coronavirus vaccines donated by the French government after it arrived at the Kabul airport in Kabul on August 8, 2021.
    Wakil Kohsar | AFP | Getty Images

    “Swift action is needed to use these doses in the coming weeks and work towards reaching the goal of vaccinating at least 20% of the population by the end of the year based on national targets,” said WHO.
    Only around 1.1% of the Afghan population has been fully vaccinated, according to latest data compiled by online repository Our World in Data.

    Other emergencies

    In addition to Covid, Afghanistan faces other health emergencies, said WHO.
    The country is one of only two in the world where polio is still prevalent, said the agency. Cases of wild poliovirus cases have fallen to just one this year from 56 in 2020, but efforts to eradicate the disease will suffer due to problems facing the Afghan health system, explained WHO.
    Meanwhile, measles outbreaks are spreading in Afghanistan, the agency added.

    CNBC Health & Science

    The United Nations said Wednesday it’s releasing $45 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to “help prevent Afghanistan’s health-care system from collapse.”
    “Allowing Afghanistan’s health-care delivery system to fall apart would be disastrous. People across the country would be denied access to primary health care such as emergency caesarian sections and trauma care,” said Martin Griffiths, UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.

    Impact on women

    Problems in Afghanistan’s health-care system pose a particular risk to women in the country.
    With fewer health-care facilities operating and fewer female medical workers reporting to work, female patients are hesitant to seek medical attention, said WHO.

    While women in the public health sector have been asked to return to their jobs, many are understandably scared of dealing with Taliban militants, especially now that that there is no governing system in place to offer them any protection.

    Samira Hamidi
    Humanitarian Campaigner, Amnesty International

    Samira Hamidi, Amnesty International’s South Asia campaigner, said that women in the country feel insecure as they don’t trust the Taliban.
    “While women in the public health sector have been asked to return to their jobs, many are understandably scared of dealing with Taliban militants, especially now that that there is no governing system in place to offer them any protection,” she told CNBC.

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    New rules for investing in China: Lessons from Beijing’s education crackdown

    Regulators cracked down on Chinese ride-hailing app Didi, then after-school tutoring companies, this summer.
    In both cases, investment funds poured in billions of dollars for a strategy of cash burning to subsidize exponential user growth and build up a dominant market leader.
    Now, investors need to consider national policies far more than just industry developments, Ming Liao, founding partner of Beijing-based Prospect Avenue Capital.

    Chinese ride-hailing company Didi offers cars for guests of the Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2017 (World Economic Forum’s Summer Davos session) on June 27, 2017, in Dalian, Liaoning Province of China.
    VCG | Visual China Group | Getty Images

    BEIJING — As overseas investors reel from Beijing’s regulatory crackdown, the rapid fallout in an industry like after-school tutoring can be a guide to what went wrong, and where future opportunities lie in China.
    Before China cracked down on tutoring schools this summer, major investment firms like SoftBank were pouring billions of dollars into Chinese education companies, many of which were publicly traded in the U.S. or on their way to listing there.

    The strategy was one of burning cash to fund exponential user growth, with hopes of profit in the future. For the strategy to work, investors aimed for a “winner takes all” approach that they’d used with other Chinese start-ups such as coffee chain Luckin Coffee and ride-hailing company Didi.
    Didi essentially paid Chinese consumers to take cheap rides through its app, beating out Uber to dominate about 90% of the mainland market, and went on to raise more than $4 billion in a New York IPO on June 30.
    But it soon became clear that investment strategy might no longer work. Just days after Didi’s IPO, Chinese authorities ordered app stores to remove Didi’s app and began investigations into data security — effectively shutting down the business’s growth prospects in the near term.
    It came months after Beijing’s efforts to tackle alleged monopolistic practices by the country’s internet technology giants like Alibaba and Tencent.
    By late July, the education sector was clearly Beijing’s next target.

    Crackdown on after-school tutoring

    In October 2020, online tutoring start-up Yuanfudao said it raised a total of $2.2 billion from Tencent, Hillhouse Capital, Temasek and many other investors — for a valuation of $15.5 billion.
    Two months later, competitor Zuoyebang raised $1.6 billion from investors including SoftBank’s Vision Fund 1, Sequoia China, Tiger Global and Alibaba.
    “They were hoping to create another oligopoly like Didi” with market pricing power, said an investor and co-founder of one of the largest U.S.-listed Chinese education companies, according to a CNBC translation of his Mandarin-language interview. He requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
    However, the education industry already had several major market players, he pointed out, and “it turned out that no business could really beat the other before the crackdown.”
    Building a dominant market leader in after-school tutoring was a lucrative prospect. The opportunity was enormous given China’s population of 1.4 billion people and a culture in which parents prize their children’s education.
    Early industry players like New Oriental got their start with physically leased locations and in-person classrooms. But the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 accelerated the tutoring industry’s shift online, and the cash-burning fights of China’s internet world was in full play.

    Advertising wars

    Chinese after-school tutoring companies began to spend heavily last year on advertising to attract new students.
    U.S.-listed Gaotu spent more than 50 million yuan ($7.75 million) in one week this past winter for ads on short-video platform Kuaishou, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.
    “In China, Kuaishou is a smaller platform than [ByteDance’s] Douyin/TikTok, so the total spend on traffic by all of K to 12 education companies would be much more than that,” the source said in Mandarin, according to a CNBC translation.
    Gaotu did not respond to a request for comment. In its earnings report for the first three months of the year, the company said its selling and marketing expenses of 2.29 billion yuan were three times more than a year ago.
    Tal Education disclosed that its spending in the same category surged by 172% from a year ago to 660.5 million yuan for the three months that ended Feb. 28.
    Both companies reported a net loss in the quarter, as did another industry player, OneSmart International Education Group, which disclosed a 47% year-on-year surge in selling and marketing expenses to 288.8 million yuan.

    OneSmart listed in the U.S. in 2018 in an IPO underwritten by Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and UBS. Later that year, the education company acquired Juren, one of the oldest businesses in China’s tutoring industry.
    But the new after-school regulations struck a fatal blow to the 27-year-old company. About a month after the new rules were released, Juren collapsed, just one day before public schools opened on Sept. 1.
    OneSmart could be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange since its shares have remained below $1 since July.
    Other U.S.-listed Chinese stocks are also struggling. New Oriental did not report a net loss for the quarter ended Feb. 28, but disclosed it spent $156.1 million on selling and marketing in that time, 32% more than a year ago.
    The surge in advertising spend to grow student enrollment came as investors piled into the industry, and increased competition sent customer acquisition costs soaring.

    The landscape has significantly changed.

    founding partner, Prospect Avenue Capital

    ‘Common prosperity’ in China

    The new policy marks Beijing’s latest effort to restrict the education industry’s sprawling growth and its burden on parents — a concern for authorities trying to boost births in the face of a rapidly aging population and shrinking workforce.
    Investors need to recognize that tackling the population problem, slowing economic growth and tensions with the U.S., have become top concerns for the Chinese government, said Ming Liao, founding partner of Beijing-based Prospect Avenue Capital, which manages $500 million in assets.
    “The landscape has significantly changed,” he said, noting that investors now need to consider national policies far more than just industry developments.

    In addition to the crackdown on internet companies and after-school tutoring centers, authorities have  ordered online video game companies to restrict children to playing three hours a week.
    Speeches by President Xi Jinping have emphasized the goal is “common prosperity,” or moderate wealth for all, rather than some.
    Education is just one of the so-called three mountains that Chinese authorities are tackling. The other two are real estate and health care, all areas in which hundreds of millions of people in the country have complained of excessively high costs.
    In the last 20 years, corporate profits have largely gone to property developers and companies based on internet platforms, Liao said.
    In light of new policy priorities, he said, it’s important for investors to distinguish between internet-based businesses and those developing more tangible kinds of technology like hardware — even if both kinds of companies are loosely referred to as “tech” businesses in English.

    Read more about China from CNBC Pro

    With the U.S. now under President Joe Biden and bent on competing with China, Beijing is increasing investing in an ambitious multi-year plan to build up its domestic technology ranging from semiconductors to quantum computing.
    The “China market can still offer attractive investment returns for global investors, and the challenge lies in identifying the potential future winners amid China’s rebalancing,” Bank of America Securities analysts wrote in a Sept. 10 report.
    They pointed to a shift over the last two decades in the largest Chinese companies by market capitalization — from telecommunications, to banks, to internet stocks. Going forward, they expect greater regulation on internet and property industries, “while advanced manufacturing, technology, and green energy related sectors will be promoted.”
    The bank listed a few contenders for “future winners.”

    Sportswear: Anta
    Health care: Wuxi Bio
    Electric vehicles and and EV battery: BYD
    Lithium in new materials: Ganfeng
    Renewable energy: Long Yuan
    Tech hardware: Flat Glass

    “Certain industrials sectors that we currently do not cover could also have promising opportunities,” the analysts said.

    Future of investing in China

    For Chinese after-school tutoring companies that once attracted billions of dollars, they’re now trying to survive by building up courses in non-academic areas like art or adult education. Those in the industry say it’s an uncertain path that has a market only a fraction of what the companies used to operate in.
    SoftBank is waiting for clarity on the regulatory front before resuming “active investment in China,” its Chief Executive Masayoshi Son said in an earnings call on Aug. 10.
    “We don’t have any doubt about future potential of China … In one year or two years under the new rules and under the new orders, I think things will be much clearer,” Son said, according to a FactSet transcript.

    When contacted by CNBC last week about its investment plans for China, Softbank pointed to how it led investment rounds in the last few weeks in Agile Robots, a Chinese-German industrial robotics company, and Ekuaibao, a Beijing-based enterprise reimbursement software company.
    “Our commitment to China is unchanged. We continue to invest in this dynamic market and help entrepreneurs drive a wave of innovation,” SoftBank said in a statement.
    But when it comes to bets on the education industry, some investors have decided to look elsewhere in Asia.
    In June, Bangalore-based online education company Byju became the most valuable start-up in India after raising $350 million from UBS, Zoom founder Eric Yuan, Blackstone and others. Byju is valued at $16.5 billion, according to CB Insights.

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    Stock futures are flat as major averages set for positive week after two-day rebound

    Stock futures were flat in overnight trading on Thursday after two straight days of gains pushed major averages into positive territory for the week.
    Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 20 points. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures were little changed.

    The market staged a two-day relief rally after the Federal Reserve signaled no imminent removal of its ultra-easy monetary policy. Investors also bet that the debt crisis of China’s real estate giant Evergrande wouldn’t trigger a ripple effect across global markets.
    The blue-chip Dow advanced 500 points on Thursday for its best daily performance since July 20. The S&P 500 gained 1.2%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 1%.

    The major averages have wiped out the steep losses earlier this week and are on pace to post a winning week. The Dow is up 0.5% week to date, on pace to break a three-week losing streak. The S&P 500 have gained 0.4% this week, and the Nasdaq is up about 0.1%.
    Some expect Evergrande to default on bond payments as it’s still unclear if the developer was able to pay $83 million in interest on a U.S. dollar-denominated bond due Thursday. Bloomberg News reported that government regulators instructed Evergrande to avoid a near-term dollar bond default. Bondholders could also be eyeing a 30-day grace period. Regardless of the outcome, investors seem to hope that the impact on Wall Street would be contained.
    “If Evergrande fails, the exposure outside of China appears limited, and since the government will do whatever it takes to contain it,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda. “If China is successful, global risk appetite may not be dealt that much of a blow.”

    On Wednesday, the Fed said a tapering of its monthly bond-buying program “may soon be warranted,” but it did not give a specific timeline on when it may begin moderating its purchases.
    “While we are far from the end of QE and near-zero rates, the tide seems to be beginning to change,” said Anu Gaggar, global investment strategist at Commonwealth Financial Network. “So far, the market had welcomed bad news as good news, but a market reacting to signs of an economy able to stand on its own without the monetary policy crutches is a refreshing change.”
    Nike shares fell 2.5% in extended trading Thursday after the sneaker giant reported quarterly revenue that missed analysts’ expectations due to softening demand in North America.

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    Covid vaccines don't increase risk of miscarriage or birth defects, CDC says

    The CDC tracked 1,613 pregnant women who received a Covid-19 vaccine, 30% of whom were vaccinated in the second trimester.
    The remaining 70% received their inoculations in the third trimester.
    Participants gave birth to 1,634 infants, including 42 twins.

    A pregnant woman receives a vaccine for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at Skippack Pharmacy in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania, U.S., February 11, 2021.
    Hannah Beier | Reuters

    Vaccinating against Covid does not increase the risk of miscarriage or birth defects, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
    The CDC tracked 1,613 pregnant women who received a Covid-19 vaccine, 30% of whom were vaccinated in the second trimester, while the remaining 70% received their inoculations in the third trimester, Dr. Christine Olson, a CDC medical officer, told the agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on Wednesday.

    Those participants gave birth to 1,634 infants, including 42 twins.
    “We reviewed the currently available registry data and found no evidence of an increase in spontaneous abortion rates, and no evidence of any disproportionate negative infant birth outcomes,” Olson said.

    The 1,613 participants were part of the CDC’s v-safe pregnancy registry, which had 5,096 enrollees as of Sept. 13. The CDC reported that 79.4% of the registry’s enrollees were white, 8.4% were Asian, 8.1% were Hispanic and 1.4% were Black. Approximately 65% were between the ages of 25 and 34, while 33% were 35 to 44 years old.
    Olson cited a CDC study on Covid vaccine-related miscarriages conducted from Dec. 14 through July 19. The report factored into its findings a 12.8% risk of miscarriage by the 20th week of gestation among 2,456 participants who received Pfizer’s or Moderna’s vaccines while pregnant, which is the normal risk of miscarriage after adjusting for the mom’s age.

    CNBC Health & Science

    Among the 1,634 babies Olson evaluated, 99 were preterm, 45 were considered small for their gestational age and 158 required intensive care. There were no infant fatalities in the group.

    Just 45 babies in the group were born with birth defects, and Olson reported no uncommon types or clusters of birth defects to the panel. Covid vaccines aren’t connected to stillbirths either, said Dr. Elyse Kharbanda, a researcher with the HealthPartners Institute who presented her findings before the committee.
    Kharbanda monitored pregnant, Covid-immunized individuals within the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink from December through July, recording 11,300 live births compared with 26 stillbirths during that period. Placental complications, obstetric complications and maternal comorbidities were the leading causes of those stillbirths, Kharbanda said.
    “No concerning patterns were identified related to the timing of vaccine exposures or stillbirth etiology,” Kharbanda said.
    The CDC reports that pregnant people face a higher risk of harsher Covid cases than the nonpregnant population. Covid raises the chances of premature birth as well, according to the agency.

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