Suppliers to Tesla and other electric carmakers are scrambling to secure shipments of the key battery material cobalt after a group of hedge funds amassed a large stockpile of the scarce metal. In a bold wager on higher prices, half a dozen funds, including Swiss-based Pala Investments and China’s Shanghai Chaos, have purchased and stored an estimated 6,000 tonnes of cobalt, worth as much as $280m, according […]
The five largest banks in the UAE are forecast to see profitability remaining “solid” over the next 12-18 months, according to ratings agency Moody’s. In the fourth quarter of 2016, Emirates NBD, National Bank of Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, First Gulf Bank and Dubai Islamic Bank posted solid profitability, said Moody’s Investors Service in a report. “We expect the five large United Arab Emirates banks’ […]
Hyderabad: The Panama Papers are back here to haunt city industrialists. Following directions issued by the Centre, the Enforcement Directorate has begun a probe into 11 companies named in the Panama Papers, the global media investigation into alleged tax evasions which has brought 415 Indians under the scanner of investigating agencies. Sources said that the probe was initiated under the Foreign Exchange Management Act. A top ED […]
SoFi, the biggest and the brashest of a new breed of online lenders in the US, has sealed a $500m funding round, giving it firepower to push into new products and markets including Canada and Australia. The private San Francisco-based company last received a big shot of funds — its fifth — in September 2015, when SoftBank of Japan led a $1bn round, the biggest in the […]
Sign up to receive Authers’ Note daily by email here Despite appearances to the contrary, the Trump trade may be moving into reverse as the president’s maiden State of the Union address approaches. The overall level of the stock market is, of course, at fresh records. But the pattern within it is shifting again. The end of the week saw sharp falls for almost all equity markets […]
By Lewis Krauskopf | NEW YORK NEW YORK U.S. President Donald Trump’s planned economic agenda has fanned the flames for Wall Street’s record-setting run, but some investors worry that his first major address to Congress next week risks dousing it if his plans look slow to execute or are overly vague. The benchmark S&P 500 .SPX has surged 10 percent since Trump’s Nov. 8 election, with optimism […]
As with the worlds of haute couture and prêt-à-porter in fashion, France’s small-cap companies depend vitally on the success of the main Paris bourse. Yet as the country braces itself for the presidential election, and as US and other international investors start reducing their French holdings, a flight from the small-caps to the larger, more liquid French companies might be expected. But the opposite has actually been […]
Every year, Inrix releases its Global Traffic Scorecard, which ranks congestion on roads in 1,064 cities in 38 countries. And every year the report tells urban commuters what they already know—traffic sucks and is getting worse. But at least Inrix’s Global Traffic Scorecard uses data—500TB from 300 million sources covering over 5 million miles of road—to let us know exactly how much it sucks. And […]
In this photo taken Thursday, Feb. 2, 2017, Yvonne Felix wears eSight electronic glasses and looks around Union Square during a visit to San Francisco. The glasses enable the legally blind to see. Felix was diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease after being hit by a car at the age of seven. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) Jeff Regan was born with underdeveloped optic nerves and had spent most of his […]
Brazilian software firm Totvs has reported a revenue drop of 3.5 percent to R$2,2 billion ($707 million) in 2016. The company – the largest provider of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in Brazil – has suffered with poor financial performance in all quarters last year, compared to historic yearly growth of 10 percent. Traditionally a popular choice when it comes to ERP within the small and medium […]
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman starts a month-long Asian tour on Sunday to build ties with the world’s fastest growing importers of Saudi oil and promote investment opportunities, including the sale of a stake in its giant state firm Saudi Aramco. The octogenarian monarch, who has overseen the launch of an ambitious economic reform plan since his accession two years ago, is expected to visit Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan […]
RIYADH Saudi Arabia’s King Salman starts a month-long Asian tour on Sunday to build ties with the world’s fastest growing importers of Saudi oil and promote investment opportunities, including the sale of a stake in its giant state firm Saudi Aramco. The octogenarian monarch, who has overseen the launch of an ambitious economic reform plan since his accession two years ago, is expected to visit Malaysia, Indonesia, […]
For years, it was something in the olive oil. Scientists, puzzled by the lengthy lifespans of Mediterranean communities, pointed to the condiment as a key ingredient in the elixir of life. Then there was Japan, whose lengthy spell at the top of global longevity rankings was put down to its citizens’ low-fat diet and love of raw fish. Now, with South Koreans storming to the top of […]
The onset of the Trump era forced economists to confront their doubts about their usefulness to the public. They shared this ordeal with political forecasters, Democrats, logicians and journalists. Maybe we all deserved the anguish. Those economists who remain in a funk should nonetheless snap themselves out of it. One reason is that the sappy self-loathing economist is now embarrassingly cliché. Take it from a sappy self-loathing […]
Should we try to time the market? And has the boom in passive investments brought any problems in its wake? The problems are linked and urgent. The move from traditional actively managed funds to passive indexed funds, which aim merely to track and index and reduce costs, continues to intensify. Meanwhile, if ever there was a point when it might seem right to time the market, and […]
So much for sticking “nuclear weapons” in carriers’ dumb pipes. Shine, last year’s enfant terrible of mobile ad blocking is pivoting (again!) — in both tone of voice and business model. It’s also rebranding to, er, Rainbow. So, to keep tabs, since 2011 this Disrupt startup battlefield alum has moved from trying to sell mobile antivirus (Shine Security), to threatening network-level mobile ad blocking (Shine Technologies), to — its latest pivot — […]
We may be about to witness the extinction of a very rare bird indeed: the $1m Monaco home. Savills agent Irene Luke hasn’t seen one on her books for several years. “We’re selling a parking space for €190,000,” she says, “so you’re not going to get very much for a million dollars.” Luke taps at a computer, trawling through all sorts of listings the public doesn’t have […]
Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would soon know his political fate with the SupremeCourt on Thursday saying that it would come out with a detailed judgement in the high-profile Panama Papers case. File image of Nawaz Sharif. Reuters The apex court, which completed hearing the case on Thursday, reserved its verdict to a later date. The case pertains to investments allegedly made by Sharif and members of his family in Mossack […]
AirMap has raised $26 million in a Series B round led by Microsoft Ventures. The investment arms of Airbus, Qualcomm, Rakuten, Sony, and Yuneec also contributed to the round, as well as existing investors General Catalyst and Lux Capital. The latest round brings the total amount raised by the Santa Monica, California-based startup to $43.6 million. The Internet of Things 10 types of enterprise deployments As businesses […]
By Brian Love and Michel Rose | PARIS PARIS France’s presidential race took a new turn on Thursday as opinion polls began to show centrist Emmanuel Macron benefiting from an alliance with a veteran politician that could help him beat the far-right’s Marine Le Pen and win power at the age of 39. Macron, a fresh-faced ex-investment banker who has never held elected office, met his new […]
By Lucia Mutikani | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits rose slightly last week but the four-week average of such claims, considered a better gauge, fell to a 43-1/2-year low in a sign of a strengthening labor market. Other data on Thursday showed house prices increasing solidly in December amid strong demand for housing even as mortgage rates rose. The reports highlighted strength […]
“What’s up with the dollar?” has been the recurring question for investors lately as the reserve currency has slipped from a 14-year high set at the start of January. The answer may lie in the link between the dollar and real yields, a proxy for how investors in the bond market view prospects for stronger economic growth and the normalisation of interest rates. Whereas nominal yields give […]
For footloose international money, the safest place to hide in the European financial system may be two-year German debt. The government of Europe’s largest economy not meeting such obligations in euros is as close to inconceivable as things get. The debt is also easy and cheap to trade, which means it can be a market signal of investor angst. The price of such safety set a record […]
By Mehreen Zahra-Malik | LAHORE, Pakistan LAHORE, Pakistan Pakistani real estate giant Rafi Group made a ten-fold profit last year from its sale of hundreds of acres of land in the remote fishing town of Gwadar, acquired soon after the government announced plans for a deep-sea port there. The windfall came after 12 years of waiting patiently for the Gwadar port to emerge as the centrepiece of […]
