Finance

China’s Golden Week holiday affirmed a trend in more cautious spending, while consumers put greater emphasis on experiences.
“Low tourism spending per head and subdued services prices highlighted still weak domestic demand and continued consumption downgrading,” Goldman Sachs analysts said.
“People become more cautious with spending. Also they opt for more affordable options of travel and affordable locations,” Kenneth Chow, principal at Oliver Wyman, told CNBC on Wednesday.

Passengers line up to check in at Chengdu Tianfu International Airport on October 6, 2024 as China’s week-long National Day holiday draws to a close.
China News Service | China News Service | Getty Images

BEIJING — China’s Golden Week holiday affirmed a trend in more cautious spending, while consumers put greater emphasis on experiences.
The seven-day public holiday that ended Monday recorded about 2% less spending per domestic trip than the pre-pandemic level, according to Goldman Sachs analysis published Tuesday.

“Low tourism spending per head and subdued services prices highlighted still weak domestic demand and continued consumption downgrading,” the analysts said.
The decline was an improvement from a gap of more than 10% during holidays in the spring, the Goldman report said.
The Golden Week holiday in China commemorates the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1. It is the last public holiday of the year for the country.

Nearly one-fifth of bookings on Trip.com for the holiday came from users ages 20 to 25, making them the main consumer group, the company said. It noted more than 90 concerts were held during the holiday, and that daily growth in orders for performances and exhibitions grew by an average of more than 80% during the period.
However, a lack of blockbusters resulted in a drop in box office earnings, to 2.1 billion yuan ($300 million) this year, from 2.7 billion yuan last year, according to state media, citing the China Film Administration.

Consumers were also more spontaneous.
Trip.com said nearly 30% of travelers booked travel on the same day, or one day in advance, a 6 percentage point increase from last year. The average number of days customers booked in advance fell to 6 days this year, down from 6.8 days last year, the company said.
The holiday this year followed a flurry of policy announcements and promises, and a stock market surge. Consumer spending in China has been lackluster since the pandemic due to uncertainty about future income and economic growth.
“People become more cautious with spending. Also they opt for more affordable options of travel and affordable locations,” Kenneth Chow, principal at Oliver Wyman, told CNBC on Wednesday.
“People are much more interested in spending on things they can talk about, things they can post [on social media] about, rather than just the big ticket items,” he said. He said such shifts mean brands, including luxury ones, need to focus more on communicating the benefits to potential Chinese consumers.
“When people are becoming much more sophisticated, the proposition has to change, and whoever is able to adapt to that new trend first will be able to win,” Chow said. “It’s not just about Chinese brands. It’s not just about overseas brands. It’s about who’s going to react first and who’s going to capture the attention of Chinese consumers first.”

Appliance sales climb

Christine Peng, head of the Greater China consumer sector at UBS, pointed out Wednesday that Golden Week figures indicated recovery in spending was tied to trade-in policies for appliances.
Retail sales rose by 9% during the holiday, while sales of home appliances surged by 149.1%, according to state media, citing figures from the tax administration. It did not provide the amount spent.
“The Golden Week consumption could still suggest a modest recovery versus August, in our view, due to trade-in subsidies (for appliances and autos) and consumption vouchers issued by the local governments,” Peng said. “For example, Shanghai’s retail sales rose 3%, a recovery versus -3% YoY this August.”
During Golden Week, mainland China recorded 765 million domestic trips, up from both the prior year and before the pandemic, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
However, by another measure of counting from the ministry, China had received 782 million domestic visits in 2019. It was not immediately clear whether the figures were comparable.
The average number of mainland China residents traveling across the border rose to 1.08 million a day during this year’s holiday, up from 1.01 million a day in 2019, according to CNBC calculations of official data.
Japan, Thailand and the U.K. were among the more popular destinations, according to booking site Trip.com.

Chinese mobile pay expands

Overseas transactions by China’s Alipay users surged by 60% during the first four days of the holiday versus the year-ago period, according to the mobile payments operator, owned by Alibaba-affiliate Ant Group.
Malaysia, Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore were the top destinations for Chinese tourists by transaction volume growth, Alipay said. It noted that rather than shopping, the Chinese travelers also spent significantly on entertainment, food and beverage, services and transportation.
Foreign visitors to mainland China using Alipay spent more than twice the amount during the first four days of the holiday, versus a year ago, the company said. China has introduced visa-free travel for more countries, while Alipay and WeChat Pay — the two dominant mobile pay apps in the country — have in the last two years made it easier for foreigners to use the apps.
Hong Kong said that visitors from mainland China visitors averaged 170,000 per day during the holiday, 27% more than a year ago. On Oct. 1, Hong Kong said it received 220,000 visitors from the mainland, the highest since the end of Covid-19 border controls.
Oliver Wyman’s Chow noted how hotels, especially those in Hong Kong, were adapting to lower prices per night by selling more food or other experiences. More

Chinese tech company Baidu’s robotaxi unit, Apollo Go, is in talks to expand overseas in the near future, according to a source familiar with the situation.
Regulators in parts of Beijing and cities such as Wuhan — Apollo Go’s largest operating region — have allowed companies to commercially operate self-driving taxis.
Tesla is scheduled to hold its widely anticipated robotaxi event on Thursday.

Chinese tech company Baidu announced Monday it can sell some robotaxi rides without any human staff in the vehicles.

BEIJING — Chinese tech company Baidu’s robotaxi unit, Apollo Go, is in talks with several firms to expand into overseas markets in the “near future,” according to a source familiar with the matter.
No details on timing or regions were available.

Baidu is one of the major operators of robotaxis in China. Regulators in parts of Beijing and cities such as Wuhan — Apollo Go’s largest operating region — have allowed companies to commercially operate self-driving taxis after years of just permitting internal testing.
Tesla is scheduled to hold its widely anticipated robotaxi event on Thursday.

WeRide, another Chinese robotaxi developer, in late September announced a deal to integrate its cars onto ride-hailing giant Uber’s platform in Abu Dhabi this year. The statement said the companies did not plan on similar partnerships in the U.S. or China.
In July, BYD and Uber announced they would develop “autonomous-capable vehicles” for the ride-hailing company’s platform. They did not share details.
Robotaxi rides in China operated by Baidu and companies such as Pony.ai are generally highly subsidized by the companies to encourage their usage. Local regulation sometimes requires a human staff worker to sit inside the car, meaning not all the vehicles are fully autonomous.

Baidu said as of late July, Apollo Go had operated more than 7 million robotaxi rides.
Separately, Baidu on Tuesday announced Rong Luo would no longer serve as its CFO, and instead become executive vice president overseeing the company’s mobile ecosystem unit. Junjie He, former head of the mobile unit, will become interim CFO, the company said. Baidu described the changes as part of a “management rotation.” More

Zheng Shanjie, chairman of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, pledged a raft of actions to bolster the country’s economy during a highly-anticipated press conference.
But he stopped short of announcing any new major stimulus plans, underwhelming investors and weakening a long rally.

Two women sit on the sidewalk of Qiansimen Jialing River Bridge, decorated with Chinese national flags, on October 3, 2024 in Chongqing, China. National Day Golden Week is a holiday in China commemorates the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. 
Cheng Xin | Getty Images

Zheng Shanjie, chairman of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, on Tuesday pledged a raft of actions to bolster the country’s economy during a highly-anticipated press conference.
But he stopped short of announcing any new major stimulus plans, underwhelming investors and weakening the rally in the mainland Chinese markets.

China will speed up special purpose bond issuance to local governments to support regional economic growth, the senior NDRC official said.
Zheng said ultra-long special sovereign bonds, totaling 1 trillion yuan, have been fully deployed to fund local projects, and he vowed that China will continue to issue ultra-long special treasury bonds next year.

BEIJING, CHINA – JUNE 22: Zheng Shanjie, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), meets with Robert Habeck (not in the picture), German vice chancellor and minister for economic affairs and climate action on June 22, 2024 in Beijing, China. 
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images

The central government will release a 100 billion yuan investment plan for next year by the end of this month, ahead of schedule, a senior official added.
The NDRC head was speaking at a press briefing with four other key officials of the country’s economic planning agency. The briefing came as markets in mainland China returned from Golden Week, a weeklong holiday that started Sept. 30.
The rally in Chinese markets lost steam as policymakers held back from delivering more stimulus measures. The CSI 300 blue chip index pared gains to a 5% rise, after skyrocketing over 10% on open. The Shanghai Composite Index and SZSE Component Index similarly dialed back gains to around 5% and 8%, respectively.

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Shanghai Composite Index

Underwhelming stimulus

China is “fully confident” that it will achieve the full-year economic growth target this year, Zheng said, while pledging some measures to support the property market and boost domestic spending.
“The absence of specific figures may not be a negative sign”, Yue Su, principal economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said in a note. China’s “pro-growth policy stance remains unchanged.”
The economist kept her growth forecast for China unchanged at 4.7% this year and 4.8% in 2025, while anticipating that Beijing could arrange another 1 trillion to 3 trillion yuan of additional fiscal support to boost the real economy.
“Many western investors will take profits off the table today and wait to see if more money comes in,” Shaun Rein, partner and managing director at China Market Research Group told CNBC. They have had “too much froth as they hoped the government would launch a massive stimulus.”
“If there’s no fiscal stimulus with real meat and details, the rally will fade,” he added.

More’s needed

Last month, China’s top leaders had signaled a sense of urgency in confronting a long and painful economic downturn that has thrown into doubt the country’s ability to hit an annual growth target of “around 5%.”
Before the holiday, Chinese authorities had called for strengthening fiscal and monetary policy support at a monthly meeting of top Communist Party officials, and unveiled a flurry of stimulus measures aimed to put an end to the sliding property prices.

The stimulus blitz came as growth in the world’s second largest economy had slowed after a disappointing recovery from Covid-19 lockdowns, weighed down by lackluster domestic demand and a protracted property downturn.
In the first half of the year, China’s economy grew by 5.0% from a year earlier, meeting the central government’s target, while in the April-June quarter, its GDP growth missed expectations and grew by 4.7%, marking its slowest growth since the first quarter in 2023.

China’s latest consumer price index rose by 0.6% year on year in August, missing expectations of 0.7%, while the core-CPI, which strips out food and energy prices, climbed by 0.3%, a slower rise for a second-straight month.
Among a barrage of disappointing economic data, China’s factory activity also contracted for the fifth consecutive month in September, with the official PMI coming in at 49.8 in September. A PMI reading above 50 indicates expansion in activity, while a reading below that level points to contraction.
The Caixin PMI was 49.3 in the same period, the sharpest contraction in 14 months, driven by declining demand and a weakening labor market.
In March, Zheng said at a high-level press conference that China will “continue to strengthen macroeconomic policies.” It would involve coordination of fiscal, monetary, employment, industrial and regional policies, he said, as China continues to step up macro economic policy adjustment.
The NDRC chief also acknowledged that “there are still many difficulties and problems” in the process of achieving the country’s expected growth targets, according to CNBC’s translation of his Mandarin-language remarks. More

EVER SINCE Hamas’s attacks on Israel a year ago, the biggest fear in oil markets has been that tensions would escalate into a full-blown regional war pitting Israel against Iran, the world’s seventh-largest producer of crude. Until recently both countries seemed keen to avoid it. That explains why, despite war in Gaza and Houthis firing missiles in the Red Sea, initial jitters on oil markets after October 7th last year soon gave way to the low and stable prices that have prevailed for much of this year. More

Crypto relationship scams have become a common type of investment fraud tied to cryptocurrency like bitcoin and ethereum.
Criminals use social media, networking and other sites like Instagram, WhatsApp and LinkedIn to build trust and entice people to buy fake crypto investments, federal officials said.

krisanapong detraphiphat | Moment | Getty Images

Investors are at a heightened risk of cryptocurrency scams tied to fake relationships established over social media, dating apps and networking sites, federal officials warn.
Such frauds occur when scammers use dating apps, social media platforms, professional networking sites or encrypted messaging apps to pose as a romantic interest, old friend, investment professional or other acquaintance.

Fraudsters gain the trust of targets over time. At some point, they broach the idea of investing in crypto — and then defraud victims via fake investments.
More from Personal Finance:How to avoid the top scam of 2023FBI: ‘Financial sextortion’ of teens is ‘rapidly escalating threat’How this 77-year-old widow lost $661,000 in a common scam
“Relationship investment scams, including those involving crypto asset investments, pose a risk of catastrophic harm to retail investors, and the threat is increasing rapidly as these scams become more popular with fraudsters,” Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement, said in a press statement.
Last month, the SEC brought its first-ever enforcement actions tied to crypto relationship frauds. The SEC alleged criminals pilfered millions of dollars of investors’ money in two separate schemes tied to WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Instagram and fake crypto asset trading platforms NanoBit and CoinW6.

Crypto scam losses ‘can be huge’

Crypto, examples of which includes bitcoin and ethereum, is a digital currency. Its use has grown among criminals, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Consumers lost an estimated $5.6 billion from crypto-related scams in 2023, up 45% from 2022, the FBI said in a recent fraud report.
Investment scams accounted for about 71% of those total losses in 2023, the agency said.

There are “many variations” of crypto investment fraud, but the most prominent last year was the relationship scam, the FBI said.
“The dollar losses can be huge,” Kim Casci-Palangio, head of the romance scam recovery group at the Cybercrime Support Network, said on a recent podcast published by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a federal brokerage regulator.
“For our program, the dollar losses average about $178,000 a person,” Casci-Palangio said.

These frauds are often ‘long cons’

Criminals have turned to crypto more readily as an outlet for fraud because of its decentralized nature, the speed of irreversible transactions and ability to move money around the world, the FBI said.
Advancements in artificial intelligence will likely make romance scams tied to crypto harder to detect, said Micah Hauptman, director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group.
These frauds are often “long cons,” Hauptman said.
Jules, a victim of a crypto relationship scam, detailed her experience with the crime on a new FINRA podcast. FINRA only used Jules’ first name to protect her identity. It’s unclear how much total money she lost, but disclosed it was “thousands of dollars of transactions.”
Jules, who grew up in the Seattle area, began messaging a supposed romantic interest on a dating app in spring 2022 while finishing the final few weeks of her undergraduate degree.

After a “couple of weeks of regular communication” via text, the man “slowly” began to introduce the idea of investing into bitcoin, she said.
“This person was really kind. We had really good interaction,” Jules said. “It started with a friendship. It started with communication. It wasn’t like, ‘Hey, give me your money.'”
The romantic interest — who was a scammer hiding his identity — provided information to build the illusion he was a knowledgeable crypto investor, such as fake screenshots of thousands of dollars in a digital wallet, Jules said.
She took out personal loans to fund crypto investments, she said. Initially, she started with a “little bit” of money,” around $1,000, eventually moving into “larger dollar amounts,” Jules said.

How to protect yourself from crypto scams

Crispin La Valiente | Moment | Getty Images

Here are tips from the FBI, SEC and financial experts on how to protect yourself from crypto romance scams:

Be cautious of investment advice or promotions from someone you meet online and have never met in real life, even if you have spoken on the phone or video chatted — and no matter how trustworthy they seem.
Look out for domain or website names that impersonate legitimate financial institutions, especially cryptocurrency exchanges. Fraudsters often use websites that mimic those of real financial firms (but are often slightly different) to convince people of legitimacy.
Don’t download or use suspicious-looking apps to invest unless you can verify their legitimacy.
If someone is pitching you can investment, don’t gain a false sense of security by being able to make early withdrawals or seeing “profits.”
Beware of fake testimonials from people claiming to have made money.
If an investment sounds too good to be true, it likely is.
Double check that an investment firm is registered on BrokerCheck. More

Starting from Oct. 7, banks will be required to start compensating victims of online fraud a maximum £85,000 in the U.K.
On Thursday, London-based digital bank Revolut accused Meta of falling “woefully short of what’s required to tackle fraud globally” when it comes to tackling fraud.
Tensions have been running high between banks and tech companies for years as financial firms see themselves as bearing the brunt of the cost for scam attacks taking place virtually.

Meta is facing calls from U.K. banks and payment firms like Revolut to financially compensate people who fall for scams on their services.
Jaap Arriens | Nurphoto via Getty Images

Tensions are escalating between banking and payment companies and social media firms in the U.K. over who should be liable for compensating people if they fall victim to fraud schemes online.
Starting from Oct. 7, banks will be required to start compensating victims of so-called authorized push payment (APP) fraud a maximum £85,000 if those individuals affected were tricked or psychologically manipulated into handing over the cash.

APP fraud is a form of a scam where criminals attempt to convince people to send them money by impersonating individuals or businesses selling a service.
The £85,000 reimbursement sum could prove costly for large banks and payment firms. However, it’s actually lower than the mandatory £415,000 reimbursement amount that the U.K.’s Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) had previously proposed.
The PSR backed down from its bid for the lofty maximum compensation payout following industry backlash, with industry group the Payments Association in particular saying it would be far too costly a sum tor the financial services sector to bear.
But now that the mandatory fraud compensation is being rolled out in the U.K., questions are being asked about whether financial firms are facing the brunt of the cost for helping fraud victims.
On Thursday, London-based digital bank Revolut accused Meta of falling “woefully short of what’s required to tackle fraud globally.” The Facebook-owner announced a partnership earlier this week with U.K. lenders NatWest and Metro Bank, to share intelligence on fraud activity that takes place on its platforms.

Woody Malouf, Revolut’s head of financial crime, said that Meta and other social media platforms should help cover the cost of reimbursing victims of fraud and that, by sharing no responsibility in doing so, “they have no incentive to do anything about it.”
Revolut’s call for large tech platforms to financially compensate people who fall for scams on their websites and apps isn’t new.

Proposals to make tech firms liable

Tensions have been running high between banks and tech companies for some time. Online fraud has risen dramatically over the last several years due to an acceleration in the usage of digital platforms to pay others and buy products online.
In June, the Financial Times reported that the Labour Party had drafted proposals to force technology firms to reimburse victims of fraud that originates on their platforms. It is not clear whether the government still plans to require tech firms to pay compensation out to victims of APP fraud.
A government spokesperson was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
Matt Akroyd, a commercial litigation lawyer at Stewarts, told CNBC that, after their victory on lowering the maximum reimbursement limit for APP fraud down to £85,000, banks “will receive another boost if their efforts to push the government to place some regulatory liability on tech companies is also successful.”
However, he added: “The question of what regulatory regime could cover those companies who do not play an active role in the PSR’s payment systems, and how, is complicated meaning that this issue is not likely to be resolved any time soon.”
More broadly, banks and regulators have long been pushing social media companies for more collaboration with retail banks in the U.K. to help combat the fast-growing and constantly evolving fraud threat. A key ask has been for the tech firms to share more detailed intelligence on how criminals are abusing their platforms.

At a U.K. finance industry event focusing on economic fraud in March 2023, regulators and law enforcement stressed the need for social media companies to do more.
“We hear anecdotally today from all of the firms that we talk to, that a large proportion of this fraud originates from social media platforms,” Kate Fitzgerald, head of policy at the PSR, told attendees of the event.
She added that “absolute transparency” was needed on where the fraud was occurring so that regulators could know where to focus their efforts in the value chain.
Social media firms not doing enough to combat and remove attempts to defraud internet users was another complaint from regulatory authorities at the event.

“The bit that’s missing is the at-scale social media companies taking down suspect accounts that are involved in fraud,” Rob Jones, director general of the National Economic Crime Centre, a unit of the U.K. National Crime Agency, said at the event.
Jones added that it was tough to “break the inertia” at tech companies to “really get them to get after it.”

Tech firms push ‘cross-industry collaboration’

Meta has pushed back on suggestions that it should be held liable for paying out compensation to victims of APP fraud.
In written evidence to a parliamentary committee last year, the social media giant said that banks in the U.K. are “too focused on their efforts to transfer liability for fraud to other industries,” adding that this “creates a hostile environment which plays into the hands of fraudsters.”
The company said that it can use live intelligence from big banks through its Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (FIRE) initiative to help stop fraud and evolve and improve its machine learning and AI detection systems. Meta called on the government to “encourage more cross-industry collaboration like this.”
In a statement to CNBC Thursday, the tech giant stressed that banks, including Revolut, should look to join forces with Meta on its FIRE framework to facilitate data exchanges between the firm and large lenders.
FIRE “is designed to enable banks to share information so we can work together to protect people using our respective services,” a spokesperson for Meta said last week. “Fraud is a multi-sector spanning issue that can only be addressed by working collaboratively.” More

When Michel Barnier, France’s new prime minister, submits his budget to parliament on October 10th he will be doing so against a painful market backdrop. A fortnight ago the yield on French ten-year government debt surpassed that of Spain, suggesting that investors see the euro zone’s second-largest economy as riskier than its southern neighbour’s (see chart 1). That is quite the turnaround. In January Spanish yields were around 0.4 percentage points higher than their French equivalents; at the worst of the euro-zone crisis, the gap was nearer five full percentage points. French borrowing costs are now well above the levels of Portugal and closer to those of Greece and Italy than they are to Germany’s. More

One financial firm is trying to capitalize on preferred stocks – which carry more risks than bonds, but aren’t as risky as common stocks.
Infrastructure Capital Advisors Founder and CEO Jay Hatfield manages the Virtus InfraCap U.S. Preferred Stock ETF (PFFA). He leads the company’s investing and business development.

“High yield bonds and preferred stocks… tend to do better than other fixed income categories when the stock market is strong, and when we’re coming out of a tightening cycle like we are now,” he told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week.
Hatfield’s ETF is up 10% in 2024 and almost 23% over the past year.
His ETF’s three top holdings are Regions Financial, SLM Corporation, and Energy Transfer LP as of Sept. 30, according to FactSet. All three stocks are up about 18% or more this year.
Hatfield’s team selects names that it deems are mispriced relative to their risk and yield, he said. “Most of the top holdings are in what we call asset intensive businesses,” Hatfield said.
Since its May 2018 inception, the Virtus InfraCap U.S. Preferred Stock ETF is down almost 9%.

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