Investors are spooked by China’s regulatory crackdowns
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 28 July 2021
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Apple’s profit nearly doubled in the latest quarter as iPhone sales surged, and a former oil trader at Glencore has pleaded guilty in the US over his part in a scheme to bribe government officials in Nigeria. Plus, the FT’s US investment editor, Michael Mackenzie, explains why China’s crackdown is burning investors.
Tech blowout: Apple profit nearly doubles as iPhone sales surge
https://www.ft.com/content/18cfeb9a-8596-4d23-badd-df9a62d510ab
Former Glencore trader pleads guilty to role in Nigeria bribery scheme, with natural resources editor Neil Hume
https://www.ft.com/content/392b610f-43c6-4496-bb16-977e1f31f015?
Beijing’s threat to VIEs triggers Wall St panic over Chinese stocks, with US investment editor Michael Mackenzie
https://www.ft.com/content/38ba7bb9-9a7e-4817-80cf-324bc9a4527b?
US law firms up ante on bonuses in war to win staff
https://www.ft.com/content/046d42d1-ec0b-4649-af6a-592430b5668c?
The FT News Briefing is produced by Fiona Symon and Marc Filippino. The show’s editor is Jess Smith. Our intern is Zoe Han. Additional help by Gavin Kallmann, Michael Bruning, and Persis Love. The show’s theme song is by Metaphor Music. The FT’s global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Wednesday, July 28th, and this is your FTE news briefing. |
| 0:09.1 | Silicon Valley reported quarterly earnings yesterday, and they blew away expectations. |
| 0:14.4 | Meanwhile, an oil trader pleaded guilty to driving government officials in Nigeria. Plus, |
| 0:19.5 | China's crackdown on education companies is bad news for investors, but Beijing's regulatory move |
| 0:26.2 | is not out of character. A mistake that people make with China, they believe Beijing's biggest concern |
| 0:32.6 | is about the economy, and so they're not going to really upset the gravy train here. However, |
| 0:36.8 | there's another side to China's economy at the moment, that is control. A Mark Filipino, and here's |
| 0:42.8 | the news you need to start your day. Yesterday, we got a few big tech earnings for the latest quarter, |
| 0:54.9 | which means I'm going to throw a lot of numbers at you right now, so just bear with me, okay? |
| 0:59.2 | Ready? Microsoft have to beat analysts' revenue expectations by about $2 billion. Google's |
| 1:04.9 | parent company Alphabet beat revenue expectations by nearly $6 billion, but Apple beat revenue |
| 1:11.2 | expectations by a whopping $8.1 billion. The bottom line here is that big tech is doing really |
| 1:17.8 | well this year, even with regulatory crackdowns by governments all over the world. I reached out |
| 1:23.0 | to Richard Waters for a second time this week to put these big numbers into context. |
| 1:27.5 | Do you know, I feel like we kind of get out the Thessauras every quarter now and try and find new |
| 1:31.7 | superlatives because these numbers really are quite extraordinary. So you have to put this in |
| 1:36.2 | context. There are good reasons why we might think tech earnings and growth would start to slow at |
| 1:42.7 | this point. This is normally a fairly quiet period for Apple or relatively quiet. They had their |
| 1:48.9 | big iPhone launch ahead of the holidays. People are starting to go back to work, |
| 1:54.2 | back to school and so on. And so to some degree, we might expect demand for digital services |
| 2:00.1 | generally to start to fall back a little bit. And yet none of that is happening. What we're seeing |
| 2:05.2 | is just extraordinary growth. And I think this is a quarter that will give comfort or confidence to |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Forhecz Topher, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Forhecz Topher and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.