Gold fell for the first time in five days, heading for its biggest annual loss in three decades as investor holdings extended their decline to the lowest since 2009. Silver retreated for the first time in more than a week. Bullion for immediate delivery slid as much as 0.5 percent to $1,206.81 an ounce and was at $1,207.69 by 2:23 p.m. in Singapore. Prices climbed to $1,219.28 […]
The Index tower on Dubai’s answer to Wall Street has 23 floors of empty offices out of the 25 it opened in 2011. A few hundred feet away, buildings controlled by the Dubai International Financial Centre are almost full. The difference is ownership. The office space in the Index on Sheikh Zayed Road was sold in pieces to nine different investors under a system known as strata […]
Japan and Southeast Asian countries called for freedom of the air and sea on Saturday, as China’s military assertiveness raises regional tensions and after U.S. and Chinese warships narrowly avoided collision in the disputed South China Sea. China’s recent announcement of an air defense zone covering disputed islands in the East China Sea and its territorial claims in the South China Sea have raised concerns that a […]
India’s (SENSEX) benchmark stock index surged to a record and the rupee climbed to a four-month high after the nation’s main opposition party won the state polls. The S&P BSE Sensex rose 1.5 percent to 21,311.03 at 12:03 p.m. in Mumbai and the currency touched 60.8475 per dollar, the strongest level since Aug. 12. Ten-year bonds ended a seven-day losing run. ICICI Bank soared 4.6 percent, sending […]
Dubai’s government has to make sure its property market is driven by fundamental factors, not speculation, and be ready to act if it sees very rapid increases in asset prices, a senior International Monetary Fund official said on Tuesday. “When you begin to see very rapid increases in any asset prices then you just need to be prepared to act,” said Masood Ahmed, the IMF’s Director for […]
Emerging Asian currencies took a battering and regional shares tumbled to six-week lows on Wednesday as mixed signals from Federal Reserve officials raised fresh concerns about an imminent rollback of the U.S. central bank’s asset-buying stimulus. The dour mood looked set to carry over into Europe, where financial spread betters predicted Britain’s FTSE 100 to fall as much as 0.7 percent, Germany’s DAX off 0.4 percent and […]
Jignesh Shah resigned from the board of Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd., the nation’s biggest commodity trading platform, amid an investigation into the failure of a related spot bourse. Shah, 46, quit as non-executive vice chairman, according to a filing yesterday from the company he founded in 2003. He said he’s leaving to help ensure investors aren’t harmed by “mud-slinging” over the probe. India’s commodities futures […]
Asian oil refiners are facing slumping profits as China is expected to ramp up exports of diesel and gasoline this quarter. The margin from refining diesel in Asia has fallen almost 10 percent in the last 10 trading days, although it would have to drop another 13 percent to plumb the levels reached just after the first quarter, when the Chinese were last major exporters. While Chinese […]
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is facing attacks from the opposition for being too soft in trade and border disputes with China ahead of a visit to the world’s second-biggest economy that comes months before a general election. Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate for the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, told an audience four days ago that Singh’s weakness had encouraged China’s army to encroach on […]
Investors are becoming more discerning about where they put their money, shying away from countries such as Brazil, India (SENSEX), Indonesia, Turkey and South Africa. Behind the discrimination is a new-found focus on current-account deficits and structural weaknesses exposed by the likelihood of less stimulus from the Federal Reserve and cooling demand in China, according to economists from HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and International […]
Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), owner of the world’s biggest refinery complex, reported the slowest profit growth in four quarters after refining margins declined. Net income rose 1.5 percent to 54.9 billion rupees ($894 million), or 17 rupees a share, in the three months ended Sept. 30, from 54.1 billion rupees, or 16.70 rupees, a year earlier, according to a stock exchange filing yesterday. That beat the 54.2 […]
Asian shares rose to their highest in nearly five months on Tuesday on heightened hopes for a deal in Washington to reopen the U.S. government and avert a possible debt default, though investors will remain wary until they see the final outcome. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.8 percent to its highest since May 23. Japan’s Nikkei share average added 0.5 percent, hitting […]
International Finance Corp., the World Bank’s investment arm, plans to sell a record $1 billion of rupee bonds offshore to fund its investments as India struggles to lure capital amid the slowest growth in a decade. The bond sale aims to “attract greater foreign investment in a time of renewed economic uncertainty across the world,” the Washington-based IFC said in a statement yesterday. The so-called synthetic debt […]
Asian shares, oil prices and the dollar came under pressure on Monday as politicians in Washington showed no signs of making progress to resolve the U.S. budget standoff, while safe-haven gold inched higher. Financial bookmakers expected European shares to follow Asia lower and open down between 0.4 and 0.5 percent. Democrats and Republicans remained far apart on ending the government shutdown, let alone reaching a deal on […]
International funds selling investments in the UAE plan to lobby financial regulators to ease new product registration fees which they complain are much higher than the charges on local operators and could run into tens of thousands of dollars. “You do not create an efficient and competitive landscape by charging different amounts for local and international firms,” said one Dubai-based head of a global asset management firm […]
Reserve Bank of India data showed the highest ratio of short-term external debt to currency reserves in more than a decade, raising alarm bells at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Nomura Holdings Inc. The $97 billion maturing in less than a year amounted to 34.3 percent of reserves as of June 30, the highest since at least March 2001, RBI figures released Sept. 30 show. The ratio […]
The dollar held near a 7-1/2 month low against a basket of currencies on Tuesday as much of the U.S. government began to shut down after Congress failed to agree a compromise bill to fund government operations. Competing spending measures flew back and forth between Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Democratic-led Senate late into Monday night in Washington but Congress deadlocked over efforts by some Republicans to […]
The hospital sector is capable of yielding four times of the revenue generated by the hotel industry for the same amount of investment, a leading hospital management expert told the Hotel Show Dubai 2013 at the Dubai World Trade Centre on Sunday. The cost of putting up a hospital bed is almost the same as the cost of creating a room in a five-star hotel, but there […]
Cash-rich Asian and Middle Eastern lenders are taking a larger share of the $100 billion global aircraft financing market as Western rivals step back due to the liquidity crunch and stricter regulations, a top executive at Airbus said. European commercial banks, previously the primary funding source for airlines, have substantially cut their exposure to the aviation sector after the continent’s debt crisis, leaving a funding gap for […]
Hedge funds cut bullish gold bets, reducing long contracts to the lowest since June, before prices rose the most in a month as the Federal Reserve unexpectedly decided not to taper stimulus. The net-long position held by speculators fell 17 percent to 70,113 futures and options in the week ended Sept. 17, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Long wagers fell 6.8 percent to 109,217, the […]
Apple Inc. is poised to announce record opening-weekend sales as throngs of excited customers waited through long lines in Sydney, Tokyo, London and San Francisco to pick up the latest iPhones. Sales for the iPhone 5s and 5c started yesterday with crowds in Sydney and extended through stores in the U.S., Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the U.K. In London, the […]
Payment defaults by grounded Indian carrier Kingfisher (KAIR) Airlines Ltd. are prompting aircraft lessors to demand a premium to cover risks in the South Asian country. Companies leasing out planes are insisting on a one-year security deposit instead of the usual three-month cover in addition to a commitment to hire the aircraft for as long as nine years, said two officials of Air India Ltd. The state-owned […]
Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) has mandated Citigroup, HSBC, Mizuho and RBS to arrange a series of fixed income meetings ahead of a potential US dollar denominated senior bond. The state-owned company, rated A1/A+/A+, will hold meetings in Europe, Middle East and Asia between September 22 and September 25. A Reg S only senior guaranteed note may follow subject to market conditions via a special purpose vehicle […]
Asian shares ran out of steam on Friday as investors pondered what policy the U.S. Federal Reserve will pursue after it triggered a global market rally by leaving its stimulus level unchanged. The dollar drifted off a seven-month low against a basket of major currencies and U.S. Treasury yields rose after a string of upbeat U.S. data provided a reminder to markets that the day the Fed […]
