Market Report – Baosteel Buys Aquila

In today’s market report… all eyes were again on China. The country’s biggest steelmaker, Baosteel, announced plans to take over a 15 percent stake in Australian iron ore explorer Aquila.

However, recent comments by Chinese officials about curbing overcapacity prompted worries about China’s recovery.

The country’s biggest foreign-exchange lender expects to scale back lending in the coming months as Beijing moves to stem the lending surge.

China’s largest shipping group, COSCO, swung to a slightly smaller-than-expected net loss in the first half. It warned of a still tough second half amid continuous decline of the economy and trade.

All these factors dampened investor appetite in Shanghai and Hong Kong, but tech shares such as Hitachi and LG boosted most other Asian stock markets.

Meanwhile, Toyota announced it would end production at a California plant it has shared with General Motors for 25 years. It’s drawing criticism from U.S. labor groups and politicians in the face of more job losses.

(NTDTV)