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Customers dine in at a McDonald's in Guangzhou on Dec. 1, 2022, a day after the city eased Covid restrictions on restaurant operations. Yin Hon Chow | CNBC BEIJING — A trickle of changes around China's Covid controls in the last 24 hours has raised hopes that broader relaxation is on its way. Local state media reports and anecdotes indicated Thursday that some people who tested positive for Covid-19 in Beijing might now be allowed to quarantine at home instead of being sent to a centralized facility. It was not clear to what extent these changes applied.  At a central government level, one notable development is official language downplaying the severity of the Omicron variant. Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said at a meeting Wednesday that China faces a new Covid situation "as the Omicron variant's pathogenic nature weakens, vaccination becomes more common and [there's] an accumulation of experience with Covid prevention and control." That's according to a ...

Federal Reserve policy makers on Wednesday signaled they will push on with more interest rate hikes , with several supporting a top policy rate of at least 5% even as inflation shows signs of having peaked and economic activity is slowing. “I just think we need to keep going, and we’ll discuss at the meeting how much to do,” Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said in an interview with the Associated Press. The remarks appeared to reflect a widely shared view among her fellow policymakers, most of whom as of December had penciled in a 5.00%-5.25% policy rate in coming months. Mester said that for her part she expects the Fed’s policy rate to need to go “a bit higher” than that, and stay there for some time to further slow inflation. The Fed’s benchmark overnight lending rate currently sits in a target range of 4.25% to 4.50%, and investors expect the Fed to lift that rate by a quarter of a percentage point at the end of its Jan. 31-Feb. 1 meeting. But slowing spending, inflation, ...

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba was one of the 100 over companies that had faced the risk of delisting in the U.S. in 2024 if their audit information was not made available to PCAOB inspectors. Budrul Chukrut | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images Investors could regain the confidence to put their money in Chinese tech stocks as these companies avoid delisting from U.S. stock exchanges and the Chinese government pledges policy support , according to one invest ment manager . Last week, U.S. accounting watchdog the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board said it gained full access to inspect and invest igate Chinese companies for the first time, after China finally granted the U.S. access in August. related investing news Is China set for a rebound in 2023? Wall Street pros weigh in — and reveal how to trade it Zavier Ong a day ago More than 100 Chinese tech companies such as Alibaba , Baidu and JD.com  had faced the risk of delisting in the U.S. in 2024 if their audit info...

Customers dine in at a McDonald's in Guangzhou on Dec. 1, 2022, a day after the city eased Covid restrictions on restaurant operations. Yin Hon Chow | CNBC BEIJING — A trickle of changes around China's Covid controls in the last 24 hours has raised hopes that broader relaxation is on its way. Local state media reports and anecdotes indicated Thursday that some people who tested positive for Covid-19 in Beijing might now be allowed to quarantine at home instead of being sent to a centralized facility. It was not clear to what extent these changes applied.  At a central government level, one notable development is official language downplaying the severity of the Omicron variant. Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said at a meeting Wednesday that China faces a new Covid situation "as the Omicron variant's pathogenic nature weakens, vaccination becomes more common and [there's] an accumulation of experience with Covid prevention and control." That's according to a ...