By Makiko Yamazaki | TOKYO TOKYO Japanese conglomerate Toshiba Corp swung to an operating profit in the July-September quarter, driven by strong demand for NAND flash memory chips from Chinese smartphone makers. That boom in demand has been a blessing for Toshiba, which is seeking to recover from a $1.3 billion accounting scandal by turning itself into a company more focused on chips, nuclear energy and social […]
By Naomi Tajitsu and Chang-Ran Kim | TOKYO TOKYO Toyota Motor Corp is looking at mass-producing long-range electric vehicles (EVs) that would hit the market around 2020, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Monday, in what would be a dramatic reversal of strategy for the world’s top-selling automaker. Even as rivals such as Nissan Motor Co, Volkswagen AG and Tesla Motors have touted pure electric cars as the […]
|By Matein Khalid| The fall in oil prices since 2014 has triggered a liquidity crunch and higher funding costs in the UAE banking system. EIBOR is almost double the London interbank rate LIBOR. Non-performing loan (NPL) have begun to rise as property prices have fallen 20% from their peak and corporate/SME borrowers are hit by a sharp downturn in the business cycle. DIB shares reflect these macro […]
|By Matein Khalid| The Algiers pact was a game changer in the international oil markets. Crude oil prices have risen to three month highs above $50 Brent after OPEC agreed to cut output to the 32.5 – 33 MBD range, with the symbolic Saudi-Iranian deal reinforced by a sharp drop in US inventories and Hurricane Matthew’s havoc in the Caribbean. Unfortunately for OPEC, the US land rig […]
By Se Young Lee | SEOUL SEOUL Samsung Electronics Co slashed its quarterly profit estimate by a third on Wednesday, soaking up a $2.3 billion hit from ditching its flagship smartphone in what could be one of the costliest product safety failures in tech history. Quantifying the financial pain of Tuesday’s move to scrap the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone after a global recall and weeks of mounting […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Saudi Arabia said it was holding investor meetings in London, Los Angeles, Boston and New York from Wednesday to sell benchmark bonds maturing in five, 10 and 30 years. The issue is expected to be at least $10 billion. “It’s very good timing,” Bloomberg quoted Angelo Rossetto, a trader at GMSA Investments Ltd. in London, as saying. “I wouldn’t say now or never as […]
The UAE was ranked first regionally and 16th globally in the latest Global Competitiveness Report issued by the World Economic Forum (Davos) in Switzerland. The report is one of the most important global competitiveness reports, which monitors annual performance and competitiveness of the economies of countries in terms of strength, weakness, impact on quality of life, prosperity and well-being of people. Switzerland, Singapore and the United States […]
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 […]
|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 […]
/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. […]
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 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 […]
|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 […]
/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 Matien Khalid/I have been bullish on emerging market debt as an asset class since last autumn. Even though the Chinese yuan devaluation was toxic, this asset class is up 12% in 2016, thanks to almost $5 billion in cash inflows. The tax amnesty in Indonesia, the political changes in Brazil after President Dilma’s impeachment, the election of a center-right pro-business government and $16 billion sovereign debt […]
TOKYO Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp said Tuesday it will review its TV brand licensing deals overseas in an effort to boost its global presence under the aegis of Taiwan’s Foxconn. “We have decided to review our current brand licensing business in Europe and Americas, and are currently examining various possibilities,” Sharp said in a statement. The comment follows a report by the Yomiuri […]
By Ben Gruber | CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. NASA scientists are putting the finishing touches on a spacecraft designed to rendezvous with Asteroid Bennu in 2018 to find clues about the origins of life. “We are days away from encapsulating into our rocket faring and lifting this spacecraft on to the Atlas V vehicle and beginning the journey to Bennu and back,” Dante Lauretta, the […]
INTERNATIONAL. Nearly all of the Chief Strategy Officers (CSOs) surveyed by Accenture (NYSE: ACN) around the world acknowledge that digital disruption will reshape their industries, but very few are equipped to navigate the change. Those who feel most prepared are embracing new strategic alliances, devising more collaborative ways of operating with partners, and making themselves indispensable within a broader ecosystem. For the report ‘Thriving on Disruption’, the Accenture […]
INTERNATIONAL. Global bank rating trends were negative again in 1H16 for the fourth consecutive negative six-month period, says Fitch Ratings. The global distribution of Outlooks deteriorated in 1H16 as Negative Outlooks (22%) far outweighed Positives (5%), a level not seen since 2009. Emerging market (EM) banks experienced the majority of negative ratings trends, heavily influenced by rating actions in Brazil, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. In EMs, […]
INTERNATIONAL. What would your ideal robot be like? One that can change nappies and tell bedtime stories to your child? Perhaps you’d prefer a butler that can polish silver and mix the perfect cocktail? Or maybe you’d prefer a companion that just happened to be a robot? Certainly, some see robots as a hypothetical future replacement for human carers. But a question roboticists are asking is: how […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Residential batteries, together with battery applications in commercial, industrial and utilities, are considered to be the next big opportunity in batteries besides electric vehicles. Indeed, this will become a $6 billion market by 2026 as predicted by the new IDTechExResearch report “Batteries for Residential, Commercial, Industrial and Utility Applications 2016-2026: Technologies, Markets, Players and Opportunities”. On April 30, 2015, Tesla officially launched its residential and commercial/utility-scale […]
