Law Blog rounds up the morning’s legal news: petitions SCOTUS: General Motors asked the Supreme Court to maintain a bankruptcy shield blocking some lawsuits over faulty ignition switches after a lower court ruled the Detroit auto giant’s failure to reveal the safety defect violated consumers’ legal rights. [WSJ] Clinton case: A Manhattan federal judge indicated he […] (via WSJ)
It has been touted as one of the most exciting Dubai mega-projects of recent years and has now come to fruition. The $735m Dubai Water Canal — carved out of land between Business Bay and Jumeirah — opened to the public last month, creating a water-bound ‘mini-Manhattan’ that flows from Downtown Dubai to the ocean. The 3.2km-long canal is the final segment of the Dubai Creek extension, […]
November 30, 2016 by: Joe Leahy in São Paulo Brazil’s economy recorded its seventh straight quarterly contraction between July and September, disappointing hopes the new government of president Michel Temer could engineer a quick turnround in the fortunes of Latin America’s biggest economy. The news on the economy, with gross domestic product contracting at an annual rate of 2.9 per cent during the third quarter, came after […]
A one-two punch of a surging US dollar and rising interest rates sent the price of gold tumbling to its lowest level since February on Thursday, hurting the shares of miners and spurring hefty liquidations of exchange traded funds that track the metal. The price of gold in New York fell as much as 1.8 per cent to $1,122 an ounce, as the dollar rose across the […]
By Alex Whiting ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Curbing poverty and hunger in rural areas is crucial to building lasting peace in Colombia and in turn will help the nation become a breadbasket for the world, President Juan Manuel Santos said on Thursday. Rural reforms to address unequal land distribution and boost development are key to the peace agreement signed last month by the Revolutionary Armed Forces […]
If Donald Trump has made bank stocks great again, Janet Yellen has just made them even greater. US financial stocks were on a tear on Thursday, extending their strong post-election market gains after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates on Wednesday and signalled that at least three more rises are on the cards for next year. The prospect that the US central bank might have to raise […]
The US dollar marched higher on Thursday, reaching its strongest level against the euro for more than a decade, after the US Federal Reserve signalled a more aggressive outlook for interest rate policy. Europe’s single currency was among the hardest hit, falling through the $1.04 level to trade at its lowest level since early 2003. Driving the dollar’s strength is a growing divergence between benchmark interest rates […]
“If they’ve managed to sleep through the night, bonds traders in the US will have quite a shock when they check their screens in the morning,” Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz, tweeted early on Thursday. Wall Street bond traders and investors will have turned in on Wednesday night already jolted by the Federal Reserve, which under Janet Yellen’s leadership has become synonymous with caution on […]
By Natalie Schachar | MEXICO CITY MEXICO CITY Some Mexican banks are lowering credit card spending limits and raising consumer lending standards in the face of an economic slowdown, rising interest rates and the U.S. election victory of Donald Trump. After a period of robust overall credit growth, Mexican banks are cutting credit card exposure to counter a potential rise in consumer defaults and the risks of […]
Thursday 11:00 GMT Overview Stock markets are trading cautiously as Treasury yields hit fresh highs after the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates for only the second time since the financial crisis. The prospect of the US central bank perhaps having to tighten policy faster than expected to reflect any additional boost to growth from president-elect Trump’s fiscal plans is lifting the dollar to a 14-year […]
This Tuesday, July 19, 2016 photo shows a Yahoo sign at the company’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. On Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2016, Yahoo said it believes hackers stole data from more than one billion user accounts in August 2013. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Yahoo said Wednesday more than a billion users may have had data stolen in a hack dating back to 2013—separate from its previously disclosed […]
By Howard Schneider and Lindsay Dunsmuir | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates on Wednesday and signaled a faster pace of increases in 2017 as central bankers adapted to the incoming Trump administration’s promises of tax cuts, spending and deregulation. The increase in the federal funds rate to a range of between 0.50 percent and 0.75 percent was widely expected. But the prospect of […]
Steve Garey, who retired from the Anacortes refinery in 2015 after almost 25 years and served as president of the United Steelworkers local, said that while some positive changes were made after the 2010 accident, upper management at Tesoro remains “contemptuous” of its work force and is “hiding behind incredibly permissive process safety regulations.” Those regulations grew out of a string of catastrophic events in the 1980s, […]
The offshore renminbi exchange rate grew stronger than its onshore counterpart on Thursday after a closely-watched borrowing rate in Hong Kong for loans denominated in China’s currency broke back into the double digits for only the fourth time in 2016. The Hong Kong interbank borrowing rate for offshore renminbi (CNH) overnight loans (CNH Hibor) rose another 4.4 percentage points to 11.8 per cent today, taking the overnight […]
Commercial banks in Qatar will see their profitability fall under continued pressure in the coming years as deposit growth slows and interest rates drop, new research shows. A report by BMI Research, part of Fitch Group, states: “In the first 10 months of 2016, the average interest rate on government securities stood at 2.65 percent, well below the average of 5.96 percent that banks demand on private […]
Katherine Goldstein is stepping down as chief of the securities fraud unit in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office to become a partner at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP. Ms. Goldstein, who has worked as a federal prosecutor for 12 years, will leave the government next month. In 2014, she became the first woman since […] (via WSJ)
Dubai is working with HSBC on the financing of Expo 2020 Dubai, a $7 billion exhibition centre project expected to attract 25 million visitors, sources familiar with the matter said. The site will host Expo Dubai which will run from October 2020 to April 2021 and will be the first World Expo hosted in the Middle East, according to the Expo 2020 website. The project provides more […]
Long-term borrowing costs for lower-quality US investment-grade companies are nearing 5 per cent — the highest level in nine months — as investors anticipate rising inflation and higher growth, reversing from the six-decade low touched earlier this year. The average yield on the closely followed Moody’s Baa index has climbed to 4.9 per cent, the highest since March when the US credit market slowly recovered from a […]
By Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Ron Bousso | COPENHAGEN/LONDON COPENHAGEN/LONDON Talks between shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk (MAERSKb.CO) and DONG Energy (DENERG.CO) to merge their oil and gas business have stalled after the two Danish firms could not agree on a price, industry and banking sources said on Wednesday. The breakdown in talks aimed at creating a joint company worth more than $10 billion may open the door for […]
We’ve all been warned that it is coming, but as SHTFPlan.com’s Mac Slavo notes, what is disturbing is that while technology surrounds us and *some* have concerns about privacy, most shrug at the massive amounts of data they are collecting about our lives, and the incredible level of control the system now has over each individual. This bill passed, clinging to the broadest base of “good intentions” […]
Saudi Arabia’s 2017 state budget is likely to show Riyadh has shrunk a huge deficit caused by cheap oil faster than expected, which may let it spend more to bolster a shaky economy This year was one of the most painful for the Saudi economy in decades. Growth slowed sharply and speculators bet against the Saudi currency as the government fought to curb a deficit that totalled […]
December 14, 2016 by: Robin Harding in Tokyo Optimism at Japanese companies is on the rise for the first time in 18 months after Donald Trump’s election as US president breathed new life into the country’s drive to escape deflation. The Bank of Japan’s closely watched tankan index for large manufacturers rose from +6 to +10 in December, the first increase since the second quarter of 2015, […]
13 December 2016 Riyadh – Over 1,400 digital leaders gathered at the ArabNet Riyadh conference to discuss the latest in digital innovation and entrepreneurship, following the launch of Vision 2030 and the National Transformation Program (NTP). The event was held under the patronage of the General Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEA), and hosted by King Abdulaziz City of Science and Technology (KACST) and the Badir […]
When the bill was considered by the full committee in December 2012, Schumer, who eventually voted in favor of the bill, nevertheless echoed concerns of the tech companies, saying it “still needs a lot of work to assuage the concerns of tech innovators.” Sen. Grassley, who also voted for the measure, said he had the same worries, saying the bill needed to address industry concerns that it […]
