The $15 trillion rout in global equity markets since May is reawakening the lure of gold for investors seeking safety. Hedge funds more than doubled their net-long position in bullion last week, just three weeks after they were the most-bearish ever. Investor holdings of gold through exchange-traded products are expanding at the fastest pace in a year, and the value of the ETPs has jumped by $3 […]
With Star Wars: The Force Awakens being the biggest in the series, it’s gotten me thinking about the influence of this incredible franchise on our lives. It defined a movie genre, of course, and no doubt inspired many a young kid to want to become a pilot or astronaut (me included, even if NASA still won’t return my calls). And just think how many cultural references we have […]
Compared to rival tech companies like Google and Facebook, Apple doesn’t say much publicly about its virtual-reality ambitions. Occasionally, though, the company’s aspirations are revealed through a business acquisition or a new hire. This time, speculation is being fueled by Apple’s recently revealed hiring of Doug A. Bowman, a leading VR researcher who has until now been director of Virginia Tech’s Center for Human Computer Interaction. Bowman’s […]
|By Lawrence Williams| With an increase of 21.8 tonnes in its gold reserves in December, Russia continues to build its central bank bullion holdings – largely through buying in its most of its own domestic production. Russia was the world’s third largest gold producer (after China and Australia) in 2014 in producing 266.2 tonnes – only 6 tonnes less than Australia. It will be interesting to see […]
|By Matein Khalid| I had called for Brent crude to fall to $30 in successive columns since the November 2014 OPEC conclave in Vienna, when Saudi Arabia abandoned its traditional role as the “swing producer” the central bank of black gold. The world oil markets now face a supply shock, a demand shock, epic volatility and the loss of the “swing producer”. The world is running out […]
|By Tyler Durden| Back in June 2013, when Deutsche Bank opened a gold vault in Singapore which could hold up to 200 metric tons, the German bank was euphoric about the prospects for storing physical gold: “Gold has traditionally been stored in London, Zurich and New York, but there is a serious shift in dynamics going on as the global financial crisis continues to evolve,” Mark Smallwood, […]
|By Matein Khalid| Emerging markets were an entirely predictable horror story once again in 2015. The oil/mining bust, currency meltdowns, China’s hard landing, sovereign credit downgrades, banking system crises, corruption scandals and geopolitical crises from Ukraine to Syria, the Black Sea to the South China Sea devastated investor wealth in emerging markets. India’s Sensex and Nifty were down 9% while the rupee has depreciated to 66 […]
Emirates Global Aluminium (Emal) a joint venture between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, is said to be paying almost 40 percent more for a loan compared with last year as liquidity in the Gulf tightens after the plunge in oil prices. The state-controlled company will pay 200 basis points, or 2 percentage points, above the London Interbank Offered Rate on a $4.9 billion, seven-year conventional loan and an […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Buoyed by sharp fall in gold prices globally, India is likely to see a jump of 11 per cent in imports of the metal to 1,000 tonnes this year, according to the All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation. The world’s second-biggest gold consumer imported around 900 tonnes in 2014. “Gold import is estimated at around 1,000 tonnes in 2015 calendar year, compared […]
|By Matein Khalid| In retrospect, the last six years were a unique period in global central banking, an epic monetary experiment that averted a Great Depression after Lehman’s failure and interbank/credit contagion plunged the world into recession in 2008-9. Yet the Fed (and later Bank of Japan, ECB and even PBOC) quantitative easing also led to asset bubbles, credit market excesses, currency wars and the mispricing of […]
There is an old cliché that goes, “they don’t make them like they used to.” With the pronounced computerization of contemporary cars in mind, that adage certainly stands tall. More than 50 percent of vehicles sold this year connect to the Internet in one or more ways, and it is predicted by 2025, every car will be connected in multiple ways. That brings up the issue of car hacking. […]
As South Africans endure their deepest economic crisis since 2009, it’s not just President Jacob Zuma they blame. There’s a family whose name is increasingly the target of protest: the Guptas. As tens of thousands marched in October in South Africa’s biggest wave of nationwide anti-government protests since the African National Congress came to power, one poster, broadcast on the nation’s television channels, captured the public anger: […]
STRATEGICALLY TWO COUNTRIES NEED TO BE CLOSER
By Nantoo Banerjee
Trust is the key. Japanese Prime Shinzo Abe seems to have finally recognized that India could be fully trusted with technology transfer and large fund investments. It may have taken almost a quarter of a century since Osamo Suzuki chose India for small car production in equity collaboration with the government-owned Maruti Udyog for Japan to finally trust India to engage itself with the country for civil nuclear cooperation. But, Japan today is convinced that slow-and-steady-moving democratic India is probably the most trusted country for economic and technology cooperation outside the USA. The huge $12-billion Japanese long term soft credit commitment for a single project in India – the 550 km Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train service – along with proposal of technology transfer in defence production among 14 other ec
|By Lawrence Williams| The ‘Nobody Cares’ quote was the theme of Grant Williams’ polished performance at Mines & Money London last week. Grant (no relation) is a Senior adviser to Vulpes Investment Management in Singapore – but is perhaps better known as the author of the always entertaining and enlightening Things that make you go hmm… newsletter. This has been published since 2009 and has become one […]
Docker support. OpFlex backing. A stronger focus on layer 4-7 service. These are among the upgrades Cisco is rolling out with the new software release for its Application Centric Infrastructure, or ACI. Cisco’s bigger picture goal is to improve its Software Defined Networking (SDN) portfolio built on open APIs, open standards and a flexible ecosystem. The move could appease some Cisco critics that have accused the firm […]
Gold prices rebounded off five-year lows on Monday as some investors rushed to grab a bargain while others closed out bets on weaker prices to lock in gains on the recent slide. The most actively traded gold-futures contract, for February delivery, was recently up $6.10, or 0.6%, at $1,062.20 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices slid to $1,056.20 an […]
|By Lawrence Williams| Let’s face it, the gold price seems to bear little correlation to global physical metal demand. In the face of reducing supply (low gold prices keep scrap sales depressed, new mined gold supply is plateauing and beginning to fall and sales out of the big gold ETFs this year are a fraction of those seen back in 2013) and increasing demand – China, India […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The price of gold futures hit their lowest levels since October 2009, below what Goldman called a crucial level and at current prices half of the gold coming from mines may not be viable, industry sources warned. “The more we continue to produce unprofitable gold, the more pressure we put on the gold price,” said Randgold Resources Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Mark Bristow. […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| It is a double whammy for gold this Thursday. The metal was trading near its lowest in nearly six years while Reuters reported from Mumbai that third-quarter gold buying in India, the world’s biggest consumer, is likely to fall to the lowest level in eight years. Gold is hurt by poor investment demand as the dollar held at multi-month highs after U.S. economic […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The gold deposit scheme launched with great fanfare by Prime Minister Narendra Modi two weeks ago has so far attracted only 400gm, Indian newspapers reported.This is against a national hoard estimated at 20,000 tons. Modi has urged people to put gold stashed in homes and temples in the bank, offering modest rates of interest that earlier schemes have lacked. The government has also […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Saudi nationals engaged in gold and jewellery business believe that the new foreign investment law, which allows expatriates to set up fully-owned businesses in the kingdom, would ultimately drive them away from their traditional business. According to Saudi media reports, they complain that some Arab expatriates have entered the market by obtaining Saudi citizenship, GCC passports and foreign investment license. A Abdul Ghani […]
Gunmen and bombers attacked restaurants, a concert hall and a sports stadium at locations across Paris on Friday, killing at least 120 people in what a shaken President Francois Hollande called an unprecedented terrorist attack. A Paris city hall official said gunmen systematically slaughtered nearly 100 people attending a rock concert at the Bataclan music hall. Anti-terrorist commandos eventually launched an assault on the building, killed the […]
|By TAP Staff| The GFMS Gold Survey for the third quarter is bearish on the short term prospects of gold and expects the metal to trade back down below $1,100/oz for the remaining months of the 2015. According to the survey, published by Thomson Reuters, gold is set to remain under pressure until there is more clarity on the timing and the scale of US rates normalisation. […]
Gold is starting to shed its reputation as a dead asset, and bulls can thank signs that the U.S. economy is starting to sputter for the boost. The metal climbed above its 200-day moving average on Wednesday for the first time in about five months. A gauge of inflation dropped by the most since January and retail sales missed forecasts, increasing traders’ bets that the Federal Reserve […]
