BEIJING Sri Lanka aims to finalise a free trade agreement with China this year and the country’s prime minister will visit Beijing in May, the Sri Lankan ambassador said on Saturday, amid rising concern in the South Asian nation about Chinese investment. Hundreds of Sri Lankans clashed with police at the opening last month of a Chinese-invested industrial zone in the south, saying they would not be […]
Every time I take a spin through my Facebook or Twitter feeds, I’m reminded that there’s only one big story right now: Trump, Trump, Trump. For news organizations that wrestle with what coverage their community is most likely to consume, this is one of those rare moments when the mystery is solved. Give ‘em Trump. Love him or loathe him, they can’t get enough. But if the […]
By Chuck Mikolajczak | NEW YORK NEW YORK U.S. stocks climbed on Friday, with the S&P 500 closing just short of a record high, boosted by gains in financial shares as President Donald Trump moved ahead with deregulation action and by a strong payrolls report. The S&P financial sector .SPSY jumped 2 percent to score its best day since mid-November after Trump signed an executive order to […]
There is a wide range of commercial applications for AR in both consumer and enterprise use. Josh Miller Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are becoming integral components of modern smartphones, and experts say mobile devices will help drive demand for these technologies. special feature VR and AR: The Business Reality Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are going to be useful for far more than just […]
Submitted by Mike Maharrey via The Tenth Amendment Center, A bill introduced in the Utah legislature would build on the state’s Legal Tender Act, creating a foundation for further action to encourage the use of gold and silver as money, and take another step toward breaking the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money. Rep. Ken Ivory (R-West Jordan) introduced House Bill 224 (HB224) on Jan. 27. The legislation would add […]
Amazon.com Inc’s (AMZN.O) shares fell as much as 4.2 percent on Friday after the company missed Wall Street targets for its closely watched cloud computing business. Shares fell to $804 in early trading, a day after the company reported lower-than-expected fourth-quarter revenue and said it would continue to spend heavily this year, as it looks to take control of its delivery chain and expand its video service […]
Apple clinched $10bn of debt financing on Thursday as capital market activity remained robust, with Microsoft and AT&T also borrowing hefty amounts from investors this week. Apple’s latest bond sale follows a bumper start to the year for corporate and bank borrowings, with more than $185bn raised by investment-grade groups in the US, according to Dealogic. This week Microsoft borrowed $17bn in the largest bond offering of […]
In a potential boost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” initiative, tech giant Apple Inc. is nearing a deal with Taiwanese contract manufacturer Wistron Corp. to start making products in the southern state of Karnataka, a senior state official said. “The contractual agreement between the two companies is on the verge of being signed,” the Karnataka government official who has direct knowledge of the matter […]
European stocks and S&P futures rose modestly ahead of January US payrolls data, along with the dollar, while Asian shares dropped after China returned from a week-long holiday. Bonds slid, oil rose while the JGB intervened in the bond market to prevent a bond rout, in one of two major surprises during the Asian session. As reported last night, having closed at 0.109% yesterday the 10y JGB […]
By Emily Stephenson and David Shepardson | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President Donald Trump will huddle with chief executives of major U.S. companies on Friday as the business community finds itself increasingly split over how to respond to his policies. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick on Thursday quit the business leaders’ group, a panel selected by Trump in December, under pressure from activists over Trump’s week-old executive order halting travel […]
Conservative Republicans are girding themselves for a clash with Donald Trump’s administration, warning that lax spending plans could put national debt on a steeper upward trajectory. The president has wrongfooted Republican deficit hawks by proposing to slash tax, protect social security and Medicare, boost defence spending and build a wall along the border with Mexico. Some lawmakers fear even fiscally conservative colleagues will buckle in the face […]
Passive investors could control over half of US stock and bond markets by 2021, according to Moody’s research — a trend that is illustrated by the strong start to this year for exchange traded funds. US actively-managed funds faced net outflows last year of $340bn as investors poured $505bn into passive products such as ETFs that track indices, according to data from Morningstar, a research service. The momentum […]
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has made the final decision to continue regulating wholesale ADSL internet services for the next five years during the migration of customers onto the National Broadband Network (NBN), saying it will help promote competition against Telstra’s continuing dominance. The regulation of ADSL is designed to ensure any-to-any connectivity and the long-term interests of end users (LTIE), encourage the economically efficient […]
Employees select and dispatch items in the huge Amazon ‘fulfilment centre’ warehouse.Image: Getty Images/oli scarff By Patrick Kulp2017-02-03 04:33:17 UTC Amazon just had its best holiday season ever, pulling in the highest quarterly sales in the company’s history and capping off a year in which it tripled profits from the previous one. Wall Street greeted this news with a definitive “meh.” The online shopping behemoth’s stock fell […]
SHANGHAI China’s top diplomat said the country’s ‘Silk Road’ push would help boost international cooperation at a time when the risk of “isolationism” is growing. The ‘One Belt, One Road’ scheme, promoting infrastructure projects along historical land and sea trade routes, is helping “align China’s development with that of other countries”, State Councillor Yang Jiechi said in a commentary on Friday in the official China Daily newspaper. […]
By Chris at www.CapitalistExploits.at Market dislocations occur when financial markets, operating under stressful conditions, experience large widespread asset mispricing. Welcome to this week’s edition of “World Out Of Whack” where every Wednesday we take time out of our day to laugh, poke fun at and present to you absurdity in global financial markets in all its glorious insanity. While we enjoy a good laugh, the truth is that the first step to […]
02 February 2017 For years, mid-tier banks have been told they’re potentially heading for extinction The barbell effect dictates that the middle will be significantly challenged by an increasingly tough business environment, with only the very large and the very niche institutions being able to succeed. And indeed the outlook does look challenging, if one adds up the increased cost of regulatory compliance, the pressure on fees […]
The Bank of England upgraded UK growth forecasts significantly for the second time in six months on Thursday in the latest indication the central bank’s once-dire outlook for the economy after June’s Brexit vote has been proven overly pessimistic. The bank said it now predicts gross domestic product will grow 2 per cent this year, the same as last year and up from 1.4 per cent forecast […]
02 February 2017 MARC has removed the ratings on WCT Holdings Berhad’s (WCT Holdings) RM1.0 billion MTN Programme and RM1.5 billion Sukuk Murabahah Programme from MARCWatch Developing. The ratings were placed on MARCWatch Developing on November 4, 2016 to enable the rating agency to reassess WCT Holdings’ business plan and the impact on its credit metrics following a major change in shareholders after the group’s founding members […]
The Bank of England kept its key interest rate at 0.25%, gilt purchase program at GBP435BN, and corporate-bond plan at GBP10b, voting 9-0 on all 3 decisions. The BOE also raises growth forecasts, while keeping its inflation forecasts broadly unchanged, and said the current policy stance “depended on the trade-off between above-target inflation and slack in the economy.” The central banks also reiterated that “monetary policy could […]
ULAANBAATAR/HONG KONG Private citizens in Mongolia are donating cash, jewelry, gold and even horses to help the government make a near $600 million payment to bondholders next month. The cash-strapped nation has been embroiled in an economic crisis brought about by a collapse in foreign investment, slowing growth in China and weak commodity prices. Its currency, the tugrik, lost nearly a quarter of its value last year. […]
ABU DHABI // Fatima Al Marzouqi is helping to steer the next generation of Emiratis toward careers in science, technology, engineering and maths. As head of Mubadala’s education and training division, she plays a crucial and direct role in developing academic programmes that introduce pupils to Stem, and professional training opportunities that offer students and recent graduates hands-on experience with major engineering and manufacturing companies at home […]
The number of high earners across the EU’s financial institutions leapt in 2015 compared with a year earlier, increasing by 33 per cent. The European Banking Authority, which collated the data, attributed the rise to the weak euro against the pound at the time. Since the UK’s vote to leave the EU last June sterling’s strength against the euro has been battered. The vast majority of those […]
Grab has announced plans to invest US$700 million in Indonesia over the next four years, as part of efforts to increase its footprint in a market where it has seen growth. The Southeast Asian ride-sharing operator said Thursday the new investment would support the Indonesian government’s ambition of becoming the region’s largest digital economy by 2020. It would include plans to set up a research and development […]
