By Saikat Chatterjee | HONG KONG HONG KONG Asian stocks edged lower on Wednesday after a strong start to the week due to profit-taking as investors lacked conviction to buy risky assets before a U.S. policy meeting next week that may see interest rates rising for the second time in three months. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan eased 0.1 percent in early trade, a […]
March 8, 2017 by: Shawn Donnan and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington ZTE has agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges of violating US sanctions on North Korea and Iran and to pay up to $1.2bn in fines, the largest sanctions-busting penalty levied against a Chinese company by Washington. The Chinese telecommunications group also admitted to obstructing a federal investigation as part of a settlement announced on Tuesday […]
A buoyant stock market and improving US economic growth have given the Federal Reserve cover to lift interest rates three times this year, including when it meets in less than a fortnight, a Financial Times survey of top economists has found. About three-quarters of the 43 economists surveyed in March said the Fed would increase interest rates by 75 basis points in 2017, a capitulation from months […]
By David Morgan | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. Senate Democrats, seeking to capitalise on growing disclosures about the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia, urged a top Republican lawmaker on Tuesday to obtain President Donald Trump’s tax returns as a matter of national security. It was the second request for Trump’s returns by Senate Democrats in as many weeks, part of a Democratic campaign to pressure Republicans in Congress […]
The House of Lords has voted in support of a requirement for the government to bring the final terms of Britain’s exit from the EU before parliament for its approval, inflicting a second defeat on Theresa May’s Brexit strategy in the space of a week. With 634 peers voting — the largest number of peers to participate in a vote in the upper chamber on record, according […]
Banks have structured some unusual and complex deals for European companies to raise capital through a combination of debt and equity derivatives in recent weeks, reflecting investor enthusiasm for convertible securities. Last week BASF launched a $600m bond bundled with warrants, in a so-called neutral structure which effectively makes the chemicals group a middleman between its investors and its banks. The deal, put together by Deutsche Bank, […]
Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday: HEALTHCARE Trump endorses a plan by Republican lawmakers to replace the Obamacare healthcare law but influential conservative groups come out strongly against it, complicating the proposal’s prospects for passage in Congress. Shares of large U.S. pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are selling off after Trump says he is working on a system to reduce prices in […]
Thousands of documents said to be from the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence, a senior elite hacking unit within the US intelligence agency, have been leaked. The documents, released Tuesday by the website WikiLeaks, could not be immediately verified, but as the Associated Press noted, the website has a long track record of releasing classified government documents. WikiLeaks said that the documents span 2013 to the end […]
How do you solve a problem like China’s excess corn stocks? Use it to make translucent film for greenhouses is one answer, its most influential agricultural expert said on Monday, as Beijing casts about for ways to rid itself of unwanted stores of corn and other agricultural commodities built up in recent years. The end of China’s failed minimum price policy for corn has forced a restructuring of […]
Donald Trump is not alone. When the US president complained, just before taking office, at the size of his country’s trade gap with Germany, he highlighted an issue that has long been the source of irritation in Washington and beyond. It is a topic that is now also stimulating debate within Germany — with possible consequences for the country’s trade ties with the rest of the world […]
Few institutions embodied the eurozone crisis more clearly than Bankia, the Spanish lender which was bailed out in 2012. Yet you would have been hard pressed to see any signs of that as the lender tapped debt markets this month. The bond sale by Bankia, still majority owned by the Spanish government, attracted almost €5bn in orders for the €500m of debt it sold. Its “tier 2” […]
CYBERJAYA, Mar 7 (Bernama) — The Cabinet is likely to discuss Malaysia’s trade relations with North Korea at its meeting this Friday following rising tension between the two countries, said Second International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Ong Ka Chuan. Ong, when met after opening the T-Sytems Malaysia Innovation Centre T-Hub here today, said: “I think it (the Cabinet) will make a decision on this (trade).” […]
07 March 2017 Geneva – The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released data for global air freight markets showing that demand, measured in freight tonne kilometers (FTKs), rose 6.9% in January 2017 compared to the year-earlier period. While this was down from the 10% annual growth recorded in December 2016 it still was well above the average annual growth rate of 3% over the past five years. Growth […]
By Nichola Saminather | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Asian shares rose on Tuesday, diverging from New York markets that slipped on concern about President Donald Trump’s ability to focus on economic policies. Oil prices were slightly lower amid fears growing U.S. production will offset OPEC cuts. Futures are pointing to a positive open for Britain’s FTSE 100 .FTSE and France’s CAC 40 .FCHI. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares […]
I recently attended the DNS Privacy Workshop colocated with this year’s NDSS 2017 in San Diego, California. DNS privacy has received considerable attention from researchers and engineers since the Snowden revelations of state-backed pervasive surveillance in 2013 and the workshop covered a lot of ground. For some Internet users, anonymity is critically important and a service like ToR exists to obfuscate the location and browsing habits of […]
By Ernest Scheyder | HOUSTON HOUSTON Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), the world’s largest publicly traded oil producer, said on Monday it would invest $20 billion through 2022 to expand its chemical and oil refining plants on the U.S. Gulf Coast. The investments at 11 sites should create 35,000 temporary construction jobs and 12,000 permanent jobs, Chief Executive Darren Woods said in a speech at CERAWeek, the world’s […]
Monday 21:56 GMT Overview Global equities sold off on Monday, encouraging flows into sovereign debt, after Asian markets were rattled by North Korea firing missiles into the Sea of Japan and the Federal Reserve’s interest rate meeting drew nearer. US President Donald Trump’s latest spat with the country’s security services may also be damping the mood somewhat as markets continue to price in a rate rise by […]
Drastic cuts in oil industry investment risk creating a shortfall in supply that by 2020 will expose the market to a surge in prices, the International Energy Agency has warned. Despite a chorus of analysts predicting a decline in oil consumption in the coming years, as governments push for energy efficiencies, cleaner fuel usage and electric cars, the IEA cautioned in its five-year outlook: “We see no […]
Via Michael Shedlock of MishTalk.com, A quick perusal of Target2 Balances for January shows capital flight from Italy and Spain to Germany intensified again. German target2 imbalances exceed levels hit in the Eurozone crises in 2012. Things improved considerably after ECB president Mario Draghi made his famous statement “Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, […]
If the Galaxy S8 leaks keep coming in at this rate, there won’t be anything left for Samsung to announce at its big March 29 launch event. The latest leak potentially reveals what it’ll be like to use the phone without a physical home button. Three images and a 5-second video posted by Slash Leaks show the Galaxy S8 in, uh, some of its glory. The first […]
By David Lawder | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Trump administration trade adviser Peter Navarro said on Monday the $65 billion U.S. trade deficit with Germany was “one of the most difficult” trade issues, and bilateral discussions were needed to reduce it outside of European Union restrictions. Navarro, the director of the new White House National Trade Council, said at an economic conference in Washington that Germany has used the […]
Bloomberg is fighting to keep the bond house Pimco as a customer on its platform to buy and sell Treasuries, as the advance of automated trading reshapes the $14tn US government debt market. Pimco, one of the most influential debt investors with almost $1.5tn of assets under management, is working on a tie-up with rival trading venue Tradeweb, according to people with knowledge of the discussions, escalating […]
Manila – The Philippine police chief said his forces had “reloaded” and were back fighting their president’s deadly war on drugs, just over a month after they were withdrawn because of widespread corruption. President Rodrigo Duterte said in late January he had suspended all police from his crackdown on illegal drugs, which has claimed more than 6 500 lives, after describing them as “rotten to the core”. […]
FRANKFURT Shares in Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) fell almost 7 percent in early trading on Monday after the lender announced an 8 billion-euro ($8.48 billion) capital increase that Chief Executive John Cryan had previously declared a last resort. The capital hike is its fourth since 2010. Together with a partial listing of the asset-management unit and a sale of other assets, the move should take its core capital […]
