Like an old vinyl record with a well-worn groove, the needle skipping merrily back to the same track over and over again, we repeat: Today’s markets are dangerously overpriced. Being market fundamentalists who don’t believe it’s possible to simply print prosperity out of thin air, we’ve been deeply skeptical of the financial markets ever since the central banks began their highly interventionist policies. Since 2009, they have […]
Late last summer, Kelley Calkins and her team began discussions with Medium to take their burgeoning company in a new direction. The Establishment, a scrappy, four-person outlet funded and run by women, was considering moving its site to Medium. Taking the plunge would mean free hosting, access to the company’s minimalist content management system and a variety of business opportunities. And more money. The Establishment, like other […]
Royal bank of Canada closed accounts of about 40 clients and bolstered tax compliance following an internal review of offshore accounts tied to last year’s leaked documents from Panamanian law firm. The bank was named in the so-called Panama Papers. The Panama City law firm revealed over 11 million documents that showed how lender Mossack fonesca, and other politicians, and business leaders, had set up several offshores […]
Emaar Malls has bid up to $800 million to take over e-commerce giant Souq.com, sources familiar to the offer have have confirmed to Arabian Business. Last week Amazon agreed in principle to a 100 percent takeover of Souq.com, in a deal believed be worth around $580m. The Emaar offer for $800 million is thought to have included a $500 million convertible deposit. However, it is understood that […]
A rush by emerging market governments to sell debt before the US Federal Reserve further raises interest rates this year has propelled issuance in Asia to record levels since the start of January, new data shows. Swelled by a $3bn Indonesian bond launched on Thursday, the total value of sovereign bonds sold in Asia, excluding Japan, reached $8.2bn in the year so far, up from $6.5bn in […]
The head conspiracy theorist has surrendered to a cadre of heavy hitting D.C. lawyers, employed by the humble pizza parlor keeper, James Alefantis. Earlier this week, Alefantis’ former gay lover, David Brock from Media Matters and Shareblue, suffered a heart attack. Today, Alex Jones had a change of heart, especially in light of recent events that has placed Infowars.com in Facebook’s fake news genre and Adroll refusing […]
The SEC filing also said Diamond S Shipping vessels aren’t necessarily prohibited from calling in locales where sanctions and embargoes apply. In the filing, the company said it believed it was in compliance with all applicable sanctions, embargoes, laws and regulations. In a statement to the Center for Public Integrity, the company said its “charter agreements expressly require compliance with all applicable laws, specifically prohibit trading in […]
Click image to enlarge Companies and individuals engaged in legal, real estate, agricultural, commercial and advisory services and consultancies are among the first 120 to be investigated by the Costa Rican tax administration, said the treasury department today. The names were identified in a publicly searchable database released last April during the Panama Papers scandal by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) to publicize various types […]
Authored by Finian Cunningha, via The Strategic Culture Foundation, There was a time when Russophobia served as an effective form of population control – used by the American ruling class in particular to command the general US population into patriotic loyalty. Not any longer. Now, Russophobia is a sign of weakness, of desperate implosion among the US ruling class from their own rotten, internal decay. This propaganda […]
By Nidal al-Mughrabi | GAZA GAZA A senior Hamas militant was shot dead near his home in the Gaza Strip on Friday, the group said, blaming Israel for the killing. An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment on the incident in the Hamas-run Palestinian coastal enclave. Mazen Fuqaha, a militant from the occupied West Bank whom Israel released in a prisoner swap in 2011 and exiled to […]
By Jeff Mason and Ethan Lou | WASHINGTON/CALGARY WASHINGTON/CALGARY U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration approved TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, cheering the oil industry and angering environmentalists even as further hurdles for the controversial project loom. The approval reverses a decision by former President Barack Obama to reject the project, but the company still needs to win financing, acquire local permits, and fend off likely […]
HONG KONG — Middle-class mainlander Laura Zhang found the idea of owning a home overseas irresistible after being bombarded by commercials for an affordable project “near Singapore”. The Forest City project in the southern Malaysian state of Johor, the subject of the advertisement, is being developed by Country Garden, China’s third-largest home builder. Ms Zhang said she was told that a flat in Forest City, the developer’s […]
A new study looking into job automation estimates that millions of human workers around the world might lose their jobs to robots in the future. According to a new PwC report, many jobs worldwide risk automation from artificial intelligence and robotics by the early 2030s. However, the report notes that in many cases the jobs won’t disappear altogether, but rather change and adapt. US Jobs Most At Risk […]
March 24, 2017 by: Eric Platt in New York and Stephen Smith in London The US stock market closed lower on Friday as the Trump administration’s struggle in Congress to repeal Obamacare heightened concerns about its ability to drive through an economic agenda that had spurred equity valuations to fresh records. The S&P 500 ended down 0.1 per cent to 2,344 reversing a 0.4 per cent advance […]
Shares in one of China’s largest dairy groups plunged more than 90 per cent on the Hong Kong stock exchange on Friday, knocking $4.1bn from its market capitalisation. China Huishan Dairy Holdings was granted a trading suspension after its shares saw one of the biggest drops in the exchange’s history, cutting its market capitalisation from $4.85bn to $750m and likely causing paper losses for investors including BlackRock and Vanguard. Hong Kong’s bourse […]
24 March 2017 Sharjah, United Arab Emirates – The sixth International Government Communication Forum (IGCF 2017) concluded its first day of constructive dialogue, debate and engagement at the Expo Centre Sharjah, on a successful note. The event was officially inaugurated with a speech by the patron His Highness Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Mohamed Al Qasimi, UAE Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, who welcomed the participants. […]
The Fed’s most recurring lament over the past 8 years, ever since the Financial crisis, is that there has been no measurable inflation in the US economy when using such conventional indicators as CPI, even though according to recent measurements by PriceStats real inflation, not the BLS’ seasonally-adjusted, goalseeked and politically convenient mutant, is now running at a blistering 3.6%, the highest in five years. That […]
Last year, Donald Trump won the election for president by bemoaning the disappearance of the American factory and pledging to bring back manufacturing from other countries. Now in power, he might have to start worrying about the decline of another traditional pillar of the US economy — the American shopping mall. Fears that the rise of online shopping will lead to substantial dislocation in the retail sector […]
Gold ETFs or gold bars? Bars including one kilo gold bar at bullion dealers Goldcore, in London, U.K. (March 11, 2010). Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg Considering the public’s waning trust in the banking system, many investors find themselves wondering how GLD stacks up to owning the real thing. When you look at both assets more closely, it’s clear that gold ETFs and gold bullion are very different investments. […]
Not everything is Donald Trump’s fault. And by the same token, not everything that goes right in the world can be attributed to him. It can be difficult to remember this, particularly in the US where domestic politics is crowding out almost everything else from the news, and where most people are inclined to view the news through stridently pro- or anti-Trump lenses. Mr Trump seems so […]
By Farah Master and Venus Wu | HONG KONG HONG KONG As visitors sip champagne at Hong Kong’s Art Basel event this week and take selfies with replicas of deceased leaders Fidel Castro and Mao Zedong, a more urgent issue is rumbling through dealers exhibiting – how big an impact China’s capital controls will be in the coming year. Over the past six months, Chinese buyers have […]
By Sumeet Chatterjee | HONG KONG HONG KONG HSBC (HSBA.L) plans to add as many as 1,000 new employees to its Chinese retail banking and wealth management arm this year, the business’s regional head said, most of them in the Pearl River Delta, the heart of the bank’s growth strategy in China. If that target is hit, the new additions will mean HSBC will have hired twice […]
By Andrew MacAskill and Anjuli Davies | LONDON LONDON Britain’s Labour party has won five seats at elections in the City of London, the heart of the country’s financial district, as it seeks to challenge the borough’s centuries-old policy of independence from party politics. Britain’s main opposition party, lagging far behind the Conservatives in national opinion under its current leader, veteran socialist Jeremy Corbyn, has had its […]
Alibaba has joined forces with AusPost, Blackmores, and PwC to explore the use of blockchain technology to combat food fraud. The Chinese ecommerce giant said the goal is develop a “Food Trust Framework” to help improve integrity and traceability on its global supply chains. Australia was chosen to be the test bed for the new framework. Alibaba believes blockchain, best known as the technology behind bitcoin, is […]
