Despite the Trump administration’s chaotic start, there is one man who has every reason to thank the new US president — Haruhiko Kuroda, governor of the Bank of Japan. At a policy meeting this week, Mr Kuroda’s BoJ is set to edge upwards its growth forecasts for Japan, reflecting a Japanese economic outlook transformed by Mr Trump’s election and subsequent weakness in the yen. The US election […]
An activist fund with a history of pressuring Japanese management has emerged as the largest minority shareholder of PanaHome — the housebuilder at the heart of a spiralling proxy battle and pivotal test of Japan’s corporate governance code. As of Friday, Oasis Capital, which is led by Seth Fischer, held some 4.83 per cent of PanaHome, putting the fund ahead of Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (which […]
Friday 08:25 GMT Overview The US dollar is in the ascendancy as the currency once again benefits from hopes for a stronger US economy — optimism that also has helped push Wall Street to record levels. European bourses are mixed after a holiday-thinned Asian session. Commodities are muddled, with oil firmer but gold on the back foot. Hot topic The US dollar is in focus as it […]
Wednesday 14:35 GMT Overview Major global stock markets are rallying as the Dow Jones Industrial Average breaches 20,000 amid revived hopes for faster US growth. Benchmark sovereign bonds yields are rising, but oil and gold prices are moving lower despite a weaker dollar. Hot topic The “Trump trade” is back on and it has the Dow through 20,000 for the first time? The average, though a price-weighted […]
Wednesday 05:05 GMT Overview Major stock markets across Asia were mostly positive, buoyed by a record high for the S&P 500 in the US and by stronger prices for base metals supporting materials stocks. Hot topic The Australian dollar was the big loser among Asian currencies, down 0.5 per cent at $0.7541 against its US counterpart after inflation data for the December quarter fell short of economists’ […]
The world’s largest pension fund, Japan’s GPIF, is under intensifying pressure to draw a “line in the sand” on corporate governance standards in the country as other investors rail against a controversial takeover deal. The imbroglio centres around Panasonic’s proposed purchase of PanaHome. Investors say it represents one of the sternest tests to date of Japan’s stewardship and governance codes, guidelines introduced in 2014 as part of the “Abenomics” drive to […]
MANILA Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is sending a cabinet-level delegation to Beijing this week to meet with China’s Vice Premier Wang Yang and other top Chinese officials to discuss investment deals and his country’s chairmanship of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) this year. The January 23-24 trip by Philippine officials includes Duterte’s finance, budget, economic, public works and transport secretaries, according to a […]
Friday 05.10 GMT Overview Equities markets were mixed in Asian trading on Friday as the dollar ceded ground to regional currencies and China reported on-target economic growth ahead of the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump. Hot topic The dollar index measuring the greenback against a basket of peers fell 0.2 per cent after a two-day winning streak left it 0.8 per cent higher at Thursday’s close. […]
Cambodia is to scrap an annual joint military exercise with the US in the latest shake-up in security co-operation between Washington and Southeast Asian capitals. The cancellation comes as Beijing and Washington battle for influence in Southeast Asia amid signs that president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration could take a tougher line over China’s maritime territory claims in the region. Countries including the Philippines and Malaysia have already […]
Monday 02.10 GMT Overview Asian markets were mostly lower despite bank-led gains for Wall Street on Friday but the spotlight was on the British pound as it tumbled to a four-month low amid heightened expectations of a “hard Brexit”. Hot topic Sterling was down 1.3 per cent at $1.2027 after falling as low as $1.1986 in early Asian trading, ahead of a speech on Tuesday in which […]
Friday 04:50 GMT Overview Asian stocks were mixed in the wake of a retreat by US stocks and the dollar as investors continued to assess the fallout from Donald Trump’s combative press conference on Wednesday. What to watch Shares in Nintendo were down 2 per cent after the company announced details about its new Switch video game console, including price and technical specifications. The device, a hybrid […]
Jan 12, 2017 11:45 am IST Amazon.com Inc. pulled doormats emblazoned with the Indian flag from its Canadian website after the South Asian nation’s foreign minister threatened to oust the Seattle company’s employees. “This is unacceptable,” Sushma Swaraj, India’s foreign minister, wrote on Twitter Wednesday in response to a posting from a user showing an image of the doormats for sale. Ms. Swaraj, who has 7 million […]
Wednesday 08:30 GMT Overview European stocks and US index futures are lacking momentum, while government bond yields see minimal moves, as traders appear wary of making bold bets ahead of a press conference later in the day from US president-elect Donald Trump. The dollar is steady against the euro but the Turkish lira has hit another record low. Industrial commodity prices mostly are holding recent gains. Hot […]
Jan. 10, 2017 DUBAI, United Arab Emirates– (BUSINESS WIRE/ME NewsWire) GMO GlobalSign K.K., a leading provider of trusted identity and security solutions and one of the longest established Certificate Authorities in the world, today announced the inauguration of its new office in Dubai. The local entity, GMO GlobalSign FZ-LLC, based in Dubai Internet City, is strategically located to cater to further strengthen GlobalSign’s presence in Asia, particularly […]
“We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” So Henry Temple, the third Viscount Palmerston, described British foreign policy in 1848, at the height of its imperial pomp. “England is a power sufficiently strong, sufficiently powerful to steer her own course.” It is more than fanciful to imagine US […]
After seven years of stock markets climbing ever upwards, investors found a new reason to buy in November: the shock election of Donald Trump. One oft-repeated anecdote is how the billionaire investor Carl Icahn left Mr Trump’s victory party to buy US stocks. A few days later Stanley Druckenmiller, who earlier in the year told a conference for fellow hedge fund managers to “get out of the […]
After December’s No vote in the Italian referendum, the rise of Donald Trump and the British vote to leave the EU, it appears that the political landscape of the developed world is being redesigned by the victims of globalisation and technological change. Anger towards political elites is pervasive. Yet a few rage-free zones remain, of which Japan is the most conspicuous. How come this country, whose economy […]
On October 17, every employee at Dentsu — Japan’s biggest advertising agency and arguably the country’s most influential company — received the same, catastrophic-sounding message from the company’s president, Tadashi Ishii. “The approved way of working at our company cannot be accepted by stakeholders, including the authorities,” said the memo, according to media reports. Coming a month after Dentsu was caught overbilling hundreds of clients, and just […]
Shares in Toshiba fell 17 per cent to ¥257 on Thursday, taking the total loss of equity value to more than 40 per cent since the Japanese company announced that it was facing a multibillion-dollar writedown at its US nuclear division Westinghouse. As investors continued to digest Tuesday’s warning, shares in some of Japan’s biggest banks slid after the electronics-to-nuclear conglomerate raised the prospect of losses on their […]
Shares in Toshiba sank by their daily limit of 20 per cent on Wednesday morning as investors scrambled to reassess the company’s financial stability and questioned the future of one of Japan’s most celebrated industrial names. The stock plunge followed Toshiba’s warning to the market the previous evening that it could book multibillion-dollar impairment losses on part of its Westinghouse nuclear business in the US – a […]
Toshiba warned the market that it could book an impairment loss of “several billion dollars” at its troubled US nuclear division and reconsider its presence in that industry as accounting issues returned to blight one of Japan’s biggest industrial names. With Toshiba’s financial position becoming more clouded by the announcement, its chief executive, Satoshi Tsunakawa, told a press conference on Tuesday night in Tokyo that the company […]
The UAE will host the FIFA Club World Cup tournament in 2017 and 2018, it has been confirmed following the 2016 final which saw Real Madrid crowned world champions. The FIFA Club World Cup 2016 final, played in Yokohama International Stadium, saw the Spanish giants beat Japan’s Kashima Antlers, thanks to a Cristiano Ronaldo hat-trick. The UAE was previously host to the tournament in 2009 and 2010. […]
A round up of some of 2016’s most significant corporate events and news stories. Smartphone sales © EPA A bright start to the year for Samsung Electronicswent up in smoke, after it took the unprecedented decision to axe its Galaxy Note 7 line, following a spate of safety issues that saw the smartphone banned from aircraft, writes Nic Fildes. The 2016 Galaxy Note iteration won substantial praise […]
More than four decades after a sweeping British military withdrawal from bases “east of Suez”, the UK is scaling up its defence engagement in the Gulf and Asia in what analysts regard as a recognition of the region’s growing global importance. Britain is reopening a naval support facility in Bahrain, creating a permanent army presence in Oman and establishing new defence staff centres in Dubai and Singapore. […]
