Retail sales in July slipped 0.6 percent from June’s level, the commerce department reported last week, to mark the first decline in sales since last October.
Category: 18 August 2026
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SPOTLIGHT: BIGS GETTING BIGGER
Ari Emanuel, CEO of the company owning fight franchises UFC and WWE, is buying ATG Entertainment, a British company that owns theaters in Europe, the U.K., and the U.S.
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SPOTLIGHT: CHINA TIGHTENS ITS GRIP ON WORLD AUTO INDUSTRY
Over the past 20 years, Chinese car parts companies have invested in at least 130 European counterparts, particularly in France and Germany, industry data service Rhodium reported.
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GERMAN INVESTMENT IN U.S. FALLS TO THREE-YEAR LOW
During this year’s first half, German companies’ direct investments in the U.S. fell to €4.3 billion, or about $5 billion, two-thirds less than in the same period in 2025 and 80 percent below 2024’s level, the German Economic Institute (IW) reported.
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PRIVATE CREDIT’S TROUBLES WORSEN
Loan defaults among some private credit funds managed by Ares Management, Blackstone, Blue Owl Capital, and Golub Capital are worsening and have reached their highest levels since 2021, according to the companies’ public filings reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
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OCEAN SHIPPING RATES REACH THEIR HIGHEST IN 20 YEARS
The cost of shipping cargo has risen to 20-year highs since mid-July as the Iran War and severe droughts in Europe and Latin America have sharpened concerns about the security of key supply chains, the Financial Times reported.
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JAPAN’S ECONOMY MISSES SECOND-QUARTER GROWTH EXPECTATION
Japan’s GDP grew by 1.1 percent in the year’s second quarter, a full percentage point below a 2.1-percent expansion in the year’s first quarter and missing analysts’ forecasts of a 2-percent bump.
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CHINA’S ECONOMY STUMBLES IN JULY
Weather-related disruptions and persistently weak consumer demand dampened China’s household spending and industrial output in July.
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U.S. CREDIT CARD DEBT WAS $1.26 TRILLION IN THE SECOND QUARTER
Americans added $21 billion to their credit card balances over April, May, and June this year, bringing the total debt to $1.26 trillion in this year’s second quarter, just shy of last year’s record $1.28 trillion, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported.
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CORPORATE CEO PAY SOARS, WEALTH GAP WIDENS
Elon Musk’s trillion-dollar payday has emboldened other corporate boards to increase pay for their own chief executives, according to a report by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).