China's 🇨🇳 Industrial Activity Shrinks in August, Denting its Image as the World’s Factory 🏭
Scott D. Clary | Daily Business, Tech & Finance Newsletter
Scott D. Clary
September 05, 2022
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Here’s whats happening:
- China’s Industrial Activity Shrinks in August, Denting its Image as the World’s Factory
- Uh-oh! The merger of Sprint and T-Mobile hasn’t created jobs
- Celsius files to reopen withdrawals for some customers
- Reddit acquires Spiketrap
- Slack Rolls Out New Automation Features
China’s 🇨🇳 Industrial Activity Shrinks in August, Denting its Image as the World’s Factory 🏭
China’s factory activity declined in August, for the second month in a row, as sporadic Covid outbreaks disrupted the sector.
The factory activity declined due to the worst heatwaves and a beleaguered property sector.
Key Stats:
- According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the official manufacturing purchasing managers’ Index (PMI) increased to 49.4 in August from 49.0 in July.
- While the index was higher than the expected 49.2 mark, it remained below the 50-point mark that separates contraction from growth.
- China’s official composite PMI, which is a combination of manufacturing and services, fell to 51.7 from 52.5 a month before. 🔻
Why does this matter?
Since China’s manufacturing PMI has been in the narrowing region for five out of the past six months, its reputation as “the world’s factory” is currently weakening.
What is China doing? 🤔
To revive the economy, the Chinese government has recently offered a stimulus package, and its central bank has cut benchmark lending rates and lowered the mortgage reference by a bigger margin.
Celsius Files to Reopen Withdrawals For Some Customers
Crypto lender Celsius Network has filed a motion with the United States Bankruptcy Court to enable withdrawals for some of its customers.
The Timeline:
- Celsius filed for bankruptcy protection in July after stopping all withdrawals in June. Its customers started writing letters to the court explaining the difficulties they faced because of the ban.
- Some customers even asked the court to allow Celsius to re-open withdrawals and liquidate its assets if necessary.
- On September 1, Celsius filed a motion to reopen withdrawals, a day after 64 customers who hold approximately $22.5 million in crypto with the lender filed a petition in the court to recover funds.
More details about the filing:
The crypto lender has over 58,000 users who collectively deposited more than $210 million with its custody. Nearly 15,680 customers hold “Pure Custody Assets” worth around $44 million.
What’s next?
The Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, which is overseeing the case, has scheduled a hearing for October 6 to discuss the issue.
Reddit Acquires Spiketrap 🎊🎉
Reddit has acquired audience contextualization startup Spiketrap for an undisclosed amount.
Why does this matter?
Spiketrap’s AI-powered contextual analysis and tools will facilitate the social news aggregator to improve ad quality scoring.
In addition, the acquisition will boost Reddit’s prediction models for powering auto-bidding and ultimately drive a higher return on investment.
The acquisition indicates Reddit’s growing investment in its advertising business as the company looks to make it easier for advertisers to target relevant audiences based on interests.
This deal also follows Reddit’s recent acquisitions of Spell and MeaningCloud and is the latest example of its commitment to evolving its algorithms and recommendation engines.
About Spiketrap:
Founded in 2016, Spiketrap touts its proprietary Clair AI technology for its ability to extract the “signal from the noise” of unstructured datasets.
Leveraging its knowledge graph, the startup offers different solutions in brand safety monitoring, contextual ad targeting, impact measurement, and data-as-a-service solutions.
Slack Rolls Out New Automation Features
Messaging platform Slack has rolled out new automation options designed to make workflows extra shareable and discoverable.
The company has introduced new capabilities to the Workflow Builder tool (launched in 2019).
The expansion allows users to send workflows to other Slack users and leverage “if-then” statements to create more sophisticated flows.
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