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Asian shares are mixed after Wall Street logs a 3rd straight winning week

Asian shares are mixed after Wall Street logs a 3rd straight winning week

BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares are mixed and U.S. futures have edged higher after U.S. stocks logged their third straight winning week.
Markets were closed for a holiday in Japan, where the ruling Liberal Democrats have lost their coalition majorities in both houses of parliament for the first time since 1955 following Sunday's election and the loss of their lower house majority in October.
A grim Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has vowed to stay on, but the outcome of the upper house election reflects voters' frustration with rising prices and political instability. Analysts said they expect his weakened government to crank up spending, adding to Japan's huge debt burden.
Japan is also facing the imposition of 25% tariffs across the board on its exports to the U.S. as talks with the Trump administration appear to have made little headway.
'We expect short-term political instability to intensify due to the difficulties of forming a majority coalition, a likely change in leadership, and a potential deadlock in trade negotiations,' Peter Hoflich of BMI, a part of the Fitch Group, said in a commentary.
'Without a structural reset through snap elections, Japan is likely to face prolonged policy drift throughout 2026,' he said.
Chinese shares advanced after the central bank kept its key 1-year and 5-year loan prime interest rates unchanged. Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.3% to 24,895.20, while the Shanghai Composite index gained 0.4% to 3,549.89.
Recent stronger economic data have eased pressure on the Chinese leadership to soften credit. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump's administration has softened its criticism of Beijing, raising hopes that the two sides can work out a trade deal and avert the imposition of sharply higher tariffs on imports from China.
South Korea's Kospi picked up 0.5% to 3,205.71 after the government reported a slight improvement in exports in June.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 shed 1.1% to 8,659.50, while Taiwan's Taiex dropped 0.3%. In India, the Sensex rose 0.2%, while Bangkok's SET was down 0.5%.
This week will bring updates on U.S. home sales, jobless claims and manufacturing. Several Big Tech companies including Alphabet and Tesla are due to provide earnings reports.
On Friday, the S&P 500 handed back less than 1 point after setting an all-time high the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3% and the Nasdaq composite edged up by less than 0.1% to add its own record.
Norfolk Southern chugged 2.5% higher after an AP source said it was discussing a merger with Union Pacific to create the largest railroad in North America, one that would connect the East and West coasts. Any such deal, though, would likely face tough scrutiny from U.S. regulators. Union Pacific's stock fell 1.2%.
The heaviest weight on the market, meanwhile, was Netflix, which fell 5.1% despite reporting a stronger-than-expected profit.
Exxon Mobil sank 3.5% and also tugged on the market. It had been challenging Chevron's $53 billion deal to buy Hess, but an arbitration ruling in Paris about Hess assets off Guyana's coast allowed the buyout to go through. Chevron fell 0.9% after losing an early gain.
Treasury yields eased after a report suggested U.S. consumers may be feeling less fearful about coming inflation. They're bracing for inflation of 4.4% in the year ahead, down from last month's projection of 5%, according to preliminary results from a University of Michigan survey.
Prices may already be starting to feel the upward effects of President Donald Trump' s higher tariffs, according to data released last week.
The Trump administration is preparing to impose steeper import duties on many countries as of Aug. 1, although some have worked out deals to mitigate some of the damage.
The U.S. dollar rose to 148.50 Japanese yen from 147.98 yen. The euro slipped to $1.1628 from $1.1629.
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Trump's trip to Scotland as his new golf course opens blurs politics and the family's business
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Trump's trip to Scotland as his new golf course opens blurs politics and the family's business

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But she added that Trump 'has built the best and most beautiful world-class golf courses anywhere in the world, which is why they continue to be used for prestigious tournaments and by the most elite players in the sport.' Trump family's new golf course has tee times for sale Trump went to Scotland to play his Turnberry course during his first term in 2018 while en route to a meeting in Finland with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This time, his trip comes as the new golf course is about to debut and is already actively selling tee times. It's not cheap for the president to travel. The helicopters that operate as Marine One when the president is on board cost between $16,700 and nearly $20,000 per hour to operate, according to Pentagon data for fiscal year 2022. The modified Boeing 747s that serve as the iconic Air Force One cost about $200,000 per hour to fly. That's not to mention the military cargo aircraft that fly ahead of the president with his armored limousines and other official vehicles. 'We're at a point where the Trump administration is so intertwined with the Trump business that he doesn't seem to see much of a difference,' said Jordan Libowitz, vice president and spokesperson for the ethics watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. 'It's as if the White House were almost an arm of the Trump Organization.' During his first term, the Trump Organization signed an ethics pact barring deals with foreign companies. An ethics frameworks for Trump's second term allows them. Trump's assets are in a trust run by his children, who are also handling day-to-day operations of the Trump Organization while he's in the White House. The company has inked many recent, lucrative foreign agreements involving golf courses, including plans to build luxury developments in Qatar and Vietnam, even as the administration continues to negotiate tariff rates for those countries and around the globe. Trump's first Aberdeen course has sparked legal battles Trump's existing Aberdeenshire course, meanwhile, has a history nearly as rocky as the area's cliffs. It has struggled to turn a profit and was found by Scottish conservation authorities to have partially destroyed nearby sand dunes. Trump's company also was ordered to cover the Scottish government's legal costs after the course unsuccessfully sued over the construction of a nearby wind farm, arguing in part that it hurt golfers' views. And the development was part of the massive civil case, which accused Trump of inflating his wealth to secure loans and make business deals. Trump's company's initial plans for his first Aberdeen-area course called for a luxury hotel and nearby housing. His company received permission to build 500 houses, but Trump suggested he'd be allowed to build five times as many and borrowed against their values without actually building any homes, the lawsuit alleged. Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump liable last year and ordered his company to pay $355 million in fines — a judgment that has grown with interest to more than $510 million as Trump appeals. Golfers-in-chief Family financial interests aside, Trump isn't the first sitting U.S. president to golf in Scotland. That was Dwight D. Eisenhower, who played in Turnberry in 1959. George W. Bush visited the famed course at Gleneagles in 2005 but didn't play. Many historians trace golf back to Scotland in the Middle Ages. Among the earliest known references to game was a Scottish Parliament resolution in 1457 that tried to ban it, along with soccer, because of fears both were distracting men from practicing archery — then considered vital to national defense. The first U.S. president to golf regularly was William Howard Taft, who served from 1909 to 1913 and ignored warnings from his predecessor, Teddy Roosevelt, that playing too much would make it seem like he wasn't working hard enough. Woodrow Wilson played nearly every day but Sundays, and even had the Secret Service paint his golf balls red so he could practice in the snow, said Mike Trostel, director of the World Golf Hall of Fame. Warren G. Harding trained his dog Laddie Boy to fetch golf balls while he practiced. Lyndon B. Johnson's swing was sometimes described as looking like a man trying to kill a rattlesnake. Bill Clinton, who liked to joke that he was the only president whose game improved while in office, restored a putting green on the White House's South Lawn. It was originally installed by Eisenhower, who was such an avid user that he left cleat marks in the wooden floors of the Oval Office by the door leading out to it. Bush stopped golfing after the start of the Iraq war in 2003 because of the optics. Barack Obama had a golf simulator installed in the White House that Trump upgraded during his first term, Trostel said. John F. Kennedy largely hid his love of the game as president, but he played on Harvard's golf team and nearly made a hole-in-one at California's renowned Cypress Point Golf Club just before the 1960 Democratic National Convention. 'I'd say, between President Trump and President John F. Kennedy, those are two of the most skilled golfers we've had in the White House,' Trostel said. Trump, Trostel said, has a handicap index — how many strokes above par a golfer is likely to score — of a very strong 2.5, though he's not posted an official round with the U.S. Golf Association since 2021. That's better than Joe Biden's handicap of 6.7, which also might be outdated, and Obama, who once described his own handicap as an 'honest 13.' The White House described Trump as a championship-level golfer but said he plays with no handicap. ___ Associated Press writer Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report. in this topic

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