BEIJING Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, the world’s biggest smartphone maker, said on Thursday more than 1 million people globally are now using Galaxy Note 7 smartphones with batteries that are not vulnerable to overheating and catching fire. Samsung on September 2 initiated a voluntary global recall of at least 2.5 million Note 7 smartphones due to faulty batteries causing some of the flagship devices to […]
MUMBAI/HONG KONG Wal-Mart Stores Inc is in talks to buy a minority stake in India’s largest e-commerce firm Flipkart, two people familiar with the matter said, as the world’s biggest retailer aims to break into a fast growing but highly competitive online retail market. One of the sources said the U.S. retailer was looking to invest between $750 million and $1 billion in Flipkart, but the final […]
UAE. A new report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) reveals that, when it comes to its current-level Sustainable Economic Development Assessment (SEDA) scores, the UAE outperforms the GCC and the rest of the world in most dimensions—including income, employment, education, infrastructure, civil society, governance, and environment. Across these dimensions, the UAE topped the average scores of both the GCC and the rest of the world. The […]
|By Matein Khalid| The Federal Reserve did not disappoint the financial markets after Janet Yellen’s FOMC conference on Wednesday. The US central bank did not raise the overnight borrowing (or Fed Funds rate) to 0.5% on the eve of the November election. This triggered a wild rally in the US stock market with the Dow Jones up 163 points, gold up to $1342 and oil to $46 […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has witnessed a 210.8% growth in the use of Chinese currency for payments in the last two years, data released by SWIFT has shown. More than 80% of the direct payments made between the UAE and China and Hong Kong in August 2016 were in CNY, representing one of the highest increases worldwide. Data also shows that the EMEA […]
/Klaus Wille/Bloomberg/Singapore-based hedge funds outperformed Asian rivals during the first seven months of the year thanks to a greater focus on India and global markets, according to data provider Eurekahedge Pte. Funds headquartered in Singapore returned 2 percent through July, while Hong Kong-based funds declined an average 2.3 percent, Eurekahedge said in a report Tuesday. Funds based in Australia rose 1.9 percent, while Japan-based funds declined 2.5 […]
|By Matein Khalid| When Ben Bernanke uttered the word “taper” in May 2013, he triggered a bloodbath in emerging markets and a free fall in “fragile five” currencies that included the Indian rupee and the Indonesian rupiah. However, Asian equities markets, while not immune to a Fed rate hike, are far better positioned for higher US dollar interest rates than in 2013, let alone 2007 or 1998. […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The global oil market will most likely remain oversupplied for the rest of 2016 and well into 2017, rating agency Standard & Poor’s has forecast. The view has been attributed to global oil production remaining in excess of demand, and the resulting persistently high crude oil and product inventories putting spot prices and near-term futures under significant pressure. Members of the Organization of […]
WASHINGTON — The United States’ accidental bombing of Syrian troops over the weekend has put it on the defensive, undercutting American efforts to reduce violence in the civil war and open paths for humanitarian relief. The United States had thought that if a deal to ease hostilities in Syria, struck by Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart in Geneva nine days ago, fell apart, […]
President Obama arrived in New York City on Sunday evening for three days that will mix election-year politics with a farewell to the world stage at the United Nations. But the visit comes against a suddenly tense backdrop, after a powerful explosion rocked a Manhattan street and a man claiming fealty to the Islamic State stabbed several people in a Minnesota shopping mall. The president’s diplomatic schedule […]
By Adam Jourdan and Tom Westbrook | SHANGHAI/SYDNEY SHANGHAI/SYDNEY Apple Inc fans from Sydney to Shanghai, the first customers worldwide to snap the new iPhone 7 off the shelves, cheered as they left stores on Friday brandishing their purchases, flanked by applauding sales staff. But underneath the usual fanfare, the crowds of enthusiasts and overnight campers were smaller than in past years. Some customers complained after the […]
By Mark Hosenball and Joseph Menn | WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO The Federal Bureau of Investigation is intensifying efforts to find enough evidence to enable the Justice Department to indict some of the Russians that U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded are hacking into American political parties and figures, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials said on Thursday. Building legal cases is difficult, largely because the best evidence […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The generations of Millennials, meaning people between the ages of 19 and 35, as well as Centennials, denoting young people aged up to 18, will most probably end up poorer than their parents and grand parents, a Bank of America-Merrill Lynch report titled Thematic Investing: The New Kids on the Block has predicted. Gen Y (“Millennials”, 19-35Y) and Gen Z (“Centennials”, 0-18Y) are […]
|By Matein Khalid|I had written a column two weeks ago outlining my view that US equities faced a dangerous autumn and the S&P 500 index was set for a fall of 150 points. However, even I did not expect the S&P500 index to fall 52 points on Friday (the Dow dropped 394 points and NASDAQ 133 points), its worst performance since the Brexit shock. It was even […]
FRANKFURT Volkswagen’s luxury car unit Audi has agreed to deepen collaboration with Chinese internet technology groups to offer more digital services in the world’s largest car market. Audi and FAW-Volkswagen, VW’s joint venture with FAW Car Co Ltd, have signed letters of intent with Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent, Audi said on Sunday. Financial terms were not disclosed. Parent Volkswagen has been hobbled by a scandal over the […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| With the Algiers meeting of OPEC drawing closer, the approach of the price boost initiatives is itself apparently evolving into something totally different from the initial idea of some sort of an output freeze. The new buzz word seems be ceiling rather than the freeze. Of course, the overriding consideration is voluntarism. According to reports, the OPEC producers, particularly the camp led by […]
By Terje Solsvik and Yasmeen Abutaleb | OSLO/SAN FRANCISCO OSLO/SAN FRANCISCO Facebook Inc on Friday reinstated a Vietnam War-era photo of a naked girl fleeing a napalm attack, after a public outcry over its removal of the image including harsh criticism from Norway’s prime minister.In a clash between a democratically elected leader and the social media giant over how to patrol the Internet, Norway Prime […]
|By Steve Austin| At first sight it appears that low oil prices are good for society. A low oil price helps us save dollars at the pump, acts as an economic catalyst making exchanges cheaper and thereby stimulating the economy. However, there are downsides as well, often out-of-sight-out-of-mind and we will address these today. Change in economic model For the first time we have entered an era […]
/By Matein Khalid/The oil market has been a rollercoaster in 2016. A global financial panic triggered by China’s yuan depreciation caused Brent crude to fall below $30 a barrel in late January. I was amazed at the sheer scale of the speculative short positions accumulated by oil traders and hedge funds in both West Texas and Brent futures markets, the highest since the oil crash of 2008. The […]
SAUDI ARABIA. Saudi Arabia’s non-oil private sector continued on its upward trajectory in August, with business conditions improving to the greatest extent in a year. Output and new business remained the key growth drivers – both rose sharply and more quickly than in July. Employment and input stocks also increased, with a number of companies looking to expand capacity in line with rising workloads. Meanwhile, price pressures […]
Despite dark conspiracy theories in Turkey linking the United States government to the military coup attempt on July 15, Turkish leaders see no signs of American complicity with the plotters, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Tuesday. But Mr. Kurtulmus also said it was “the expectation of the people of Turkey” that the American judicial process would lead to the extradition of the person they regard […]
By Adam Jourdan and Paul Carsten | SHANGHAI/BEIJING SHANGHAI/BEIJING Judging by the volume of online chatter, there’s a lot less buzz in China ahead of this week’s expected launch of the new Apple Inc iPhone, and people on the street say they’re more likely to “wait and see” what the latest device offers than rush out to buy. Posts on China’s popular Sina Weibo microblogging site show […]
/by Arabian Post Staff/The global growth of asset management stalled as the industry in 2015 recorded its worst year since the 2008 financial crisis, according to a report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Growth in assets under management (AuM) stalled—or in the case of the Middle East declined 10%—and net new flows of assets, revenue growth, and revenue margins all dipped lower in 2015, according to […]
By Se Young Lee | SEOUL SEOUL Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) will replace all Galaxy Note 7 smartphones equipped with fire-prone batteries and halt sales of the flagship product in 10 markets, a devastating blow for what had been a revival in the firm’s mobile business. Koh Dong-jin, head of the South Korean company’s smartphone business, spoke at a news conference jam-packed with reporters and cameras […]
