By Bernie Woodall | DETROIT DETROIT Automakers in the United States are ramping up holiday sales promotions ahead of Black Friday, aiming to clear out bulging inventories of unsold cars and dispel investor doubts about consumer demand. Detroit automakers need a strong year-end sales push. They are sitting on hefty inventories of unsold sedans, compact cars and sports cars as consumers shift to pickup trucks and SUVs. […]
A record run of declines; its worst performance since last year’s surprise devaluation and eight-year lows plumbed on a near-daily basis. Whichever way you cut it, China’s currency is having a testing month. However, unlike the infamous devaluation ruckus in August 2015, and the turmoil in markets that followed renminbi weakness in January, investors are not panicking this time. At least not yet. This month the offshore […]
China’s handling of its state reserves of raw materials such as cotton and sugar will be a key factor shaping the direction of agricultural commodities in 2017, according to a major lender to agribusinesses. China is “the most striking wildcard” that will drive agricultural markets, said Stefan Vogel, head of agri commodity markets at Rabobank, the Dutch lender that is a leading financier to farmers and agribusinesses […]
The overview Wednesday 2.20am GMT Asian equities continue to rally on Wednesday after Wall Street notched up another set of record highs overnight, while the US dollar is trading flat. Standout stories The Dow Jones Industrial Average deserves a mention for closing above 19,000 points for the first time, while its peer US stock indices again closed at record highs. Monday was the first time since 1999 […]
SYDNEY Asian stocks crept to one-week highs on Wednesday as investors tried to share in the exuberance of Wall Street, where the three main indices seized record peaks for a second straight session. Australia’s main index led the early action with a rise of 0.5 percent to a one-month top, helped by strength in bulk commodity prices. Japan’s Nikkei .N225 was closed for a holiday after enjoying […]
Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of China’s Alibaba Group, has announced the opening of four new data centres by the end of 2016 in the Dubai, Europe, Australia and Japan. As a major milestone of Alibaba Cloud’s global expansion, the new centres will boost its data centre network to 14 locations, covering key economic centres around the world. The data centre in the Middle East, located […]
November 22, 2016 by: Pilita Clark, Environment Correspondent Scientists are struggling to understand why a burst of “scary” warming at the North Pole has pushed Arctic temperatures nearly 20C higher than normal for this time of year. Experts in the US and Europe say they have been shocked by the soaring temperatures recorded in November, when much of the region is plunged into freezing winter darkness. Temperatures […]
Photo A de-mining operation in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, in February. Credit Javed Tanveer/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Despite a global treaty that bans land mines, casualties from those weapons and other unexploded munitions lurking in current and past war zones rose sharply last year to the highest point in a decade, a monitoring group said Tuesday in its annual report. The group, the International Campaign to Ban […]
The film had been pilloried by conservative Christians for a dream sequence in which Christ has sex with Mary Magdalene. In depicting Christ’s life as a doubt-ridden struggle between his human and divine natures, Scorsese had intended to make a film that was at once an act of doubt and an act of faith. In the novel he was reading, the priest was shown profaning an image […]
Tuesday 08:00 GMT. European stocks are following a positive Asian session as global investor sentiment is buoyed by simultaneous record highs for Wall Street’s main equity gauges. A steadier dollar and further gains for oil prices are supporting the chipper mood. After the FTSE Asia Pacific index rose 0.8 per cent, the pan-European Stoxx 600 is advancing 0.7 per cent. Germany’s Dax is up 0.6 to challenge […]
Photo A view of Aleppo from rebel-held territory. Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations special envoy to Syria, said he feared that the eastern part of the city could be razed before Donald J. Trump is inaugurated. Credit Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters BEIRUT, Lebanon — The United Nations special envoy to Syria offered unsolicited advice on Monday to President-elect Donald J. Trump: Pay attention to what happens between now […]
By Saikat Chatterjee | HONG KONG HONG KONG Asian stocks struck one-week highs with investors undeterred by a powerful earthquake in Japan on Tuesday, but after Wall Street closed at a record peak they were also wary of chasing prices higher until President-elect Donald Trump picks his economic team. Crude oil extended gains in Asian trading with U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) up 1 percent in early […]
The dollar’s post-US election surge has investors contemplating not whether they have overdone the rally but just how far the greenback can rise and how quickly it will get there. A series of currency landmarks, which not long ago investors thought too distant to worry about, have already been trampled by the dollar’s relentless march. The euro fell below $1.06, the yen weakened towards ¥111 against the […]
Samsung kicked off the Android 7.0 Nougat beta program for its flagship Galaxy S7 edge and Galaxy S7 smartphones in early November. Thanks to the beta program, users of the handsets in the United States, China, the UK and South Korea could register and get access to the firmware’s beta version once they were selected. Those excited by the news will be a little disheartened to know that […]
By Timothy Aeppel and Mai Nguyen American companies from appliance makers to auto parts suppliers have lined up to offer a quiet caution to President-elect Donald Trump as he considers pulling the United States from trade deals: most lost manufacturing jobs aren’t coming back, but higher costs for consumers could. Consider the sneaker industry, one of the first to move to Asia because of the sharply lower […]
Investors, central bankers and policymakers are once again talking about investing in infrastructure as a way to stimulate flagging economies around the world. If the zeitgeist is to be believed, 2017 will see a burst of infrastructure investment-related activity. It’s a good idea, but there is plenty of reason to suspect that little will happen. A big reason why infrastructure investment is back in vogue is that […]
Photo President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, center, at a welcome ceremony earlier this month in Karaj, just west of Tehran, has said that his country will remain committed to a nuclear deal with the United States and other world powers. Credit Office of the Iranian Presidency, via Associated Press TEHRAN — At first blush, the election of Donald J. Trump would seem to be bad news for […]
November 21, 2016 by: Peter Wells in Hong Kong and Michael Hunter in London Monday 08.00 GMT. Oil prices are making notable gains, tracking the prospect of a deal on output cuts between major producers, setting Brent crude on course for its first two-session advance since early October. Brent crude, the international benchmark, is up 1.3 per cent at $47.47 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate is […]
TOKYO Asian shares were on the defensive on Monday, undermined by fears that the strength in the U.S. dollar and rising U.S. bond yields since Donald Trump’s election to president could accelerate fund outflows from emerging markets. MSCI’s broadest dollar-based index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS dipped 0.1 percent, staying near four-month lows. In local currency terms, many markets are up slightly. Japan’s Nikkei .N225 rose […]
November 21, 2016 by: Shawn Donnan and Andres Schipani in Lima US President Barack Obama wrapped up his final official trip abroad with a call for his successor Donald Trump to live up to America’s responsibility as an “indispensable nation” in the world, and to bolster the international order it had helped create. Amid fears that Mr Trump’s election victory on the back of a populist anti-internationalist […]
By Mitra Taj and Jeff Mason | LIMA LIMA Pacific rim leaders said on Sunday that they were committed to fighting “all forms of protectionism,” and encouraged signatories of the TPP trade pact to continue supporting it despite fears it may not have a future in its current form. “We reaffirm our commitment to keep our markets open and to fight against all forms of protectionism,” the […]
Our round-up of the week’s best comment and analysis from the Financial Times focuses on how Donald Trump’s election produced an abrupt change of mood in the markets and examines which assets will now benefit. The selection is taken from our Markets Insight and Smart Money columns, written by industry contributors and FT commentators. Was there a financial markets equivalent of the “shy” Trump supporter to explain […]
By Tetsushi Kajimoto and Cynthia Kim | TOKYO/SEOUL TOKYO/SEOUL Asian currency policymakers are worried that the strengthening of the dollar on expectations of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s fiscal policies could be used by his administration as a stick to beat them with on trade protectionist grounds. China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are already on the U.S. Treasury’s monitoring list, along with Germany and Switzerland, having met […]
In late October, when it was still conventional wisdom that Hillary was “guaranteed” to win the presidency, the WaPo explained that among the neo-con, foreign policy “elites” of the Pentagon, a feeling of calm content had spread: after all, it was just a matter of time before the “pacifist” Obama was out, replaced by the more hawkish Hillary. As the WaPo reported, “there is one corner of […]
