While the year ahead could prove to be a bumpy one for global financial markets amid ongoing political and policy risks, there is reason for optimism over the outlook for stocks in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Compared to 2016, a number of structural tailwinds should give investors greater confidence in MENA’s fundamentals. The implementation of major fiscal and capital market reform throughout the […]
Photo Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump at the presidential swearing-in ceremony at the United States Capitol on Friday. It was not clear whether Mr. Trump would keep in place civilian-protection rules established by Mr. Obama in 2013. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times WASHINGTON — Before ceding power, the Obama administration quietly removed a former extremist stronghold in Libya from a list of combat zones where […]
After years of excess supply the global aluminium market may be turning a corner, as China seeks to cut capacity and the incoming Donald Trump administration ratchets up trade threats against the world’s largest producer of the lightweight metal. A glut of aluminium in recent years has decimated the US aluminium industry, where smelters were forced to shut down as Chinese imports rose. Now, after tackling excess […]
As the nation’s capital prepared to celebrate the inauguration of the nation’s 45th President, Senators confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominees for Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Retired Generals James (“Mad Dog”) Mattis and John F. Kelly were approved by votes of 98-1 and 88-11, respectively. Attorney General nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican, did not vote for either candidate. […]
President Trump’s brief inaugural speech was a declaration of war against the entirety of the American Ruling Establishment. All of it. As Paul Craig Roberts details, Trump made it abundantly clear that Americans’ enemies are right here at home: globalists, neoliberal economists, neoconservatives and other unilateralists accustomed to imposing the US on the world and involving us in endless and expensive wars, politicians who serve the Ruling […]
Donald Trump launched a promised assault on “burdens” imposed by government within hours of becoming US president on Friday by moving to loosen rules tied to Obamacare and halting the introduction of any new regulations. Between the end of the daytime inaugural parade and the start of evening balls, the Trump administration took its first major policy moves by ordering government agencies to do all they could […]
Donald Trump’s November victory ignited the steepest rally from election day to inauguration for a first-term president since John F. Kennedy won the White House in 1960. The charts below tell the tale of the vigorous, and in many ways unexpected, reaction to the rise of the billionaire property developer to the pinnacle of American politics. The S&P 500 index, a broad measure of the performance of […]
President Trump signs his first executive order in the redecorated Oval Office of the White House © AP Anti-Trump protestors confront police in Franklin Square, Washington DC, not far from the White House © EPA President and Mrs Trump walk a short part of the inaugural parade along Pennsylvania Avenue © AP President Trump’s limousine moves along the route of the inaugural parade flanked by security © […]
Just hours after President Trump was sworn into office, amid Chuck Schumer’s jabs over HUD, the Senate has confirmed retired Marine General James Mattis as defense secretary and retired Marine General John Kelly as homeland security secretary. They were both expected to be confirmed easily, and were, but Democrats promised fights over several other nominees. Mattis was the first to be confirmed by a vote of 98 […]
We’ll soon know more about President Donald Trump’s criminal-justice agenda. But a law-enforcement policy statement posted Friday on the newly Trump-controlled White House webpage offered a preview of his administration’s priorities and how they could break from those of Barack Obama. Titled: “Standing Up For Our Law Enforcement Community,” it’s a relatively short overview that echoes […] (via WSJ)
Friday 21:00 GMT Overview Financial markets gave a relatively muted response to Donald Trump’s inaugural speech as US president, with US stocks edging higher, Treasuries putting in mixed performances and the dollar easing back against its main rivals. Oil prices rose sharply amid hopes that producers would show compliance to a global deal to cut output. Gold initially struggled for traction but held above the $1,200 an […]
It’s official: at exactly noon on January 20, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the US. Supreme Court Chief Justice United States John Roberts administered the oath of office to Trump, as he vowed to “faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States.” As he took the oath, Trump placed his hand on the Bible used by President Lincoln at […]
As Donald Trump moves into the White House, it would be hard to dream up a cabinet friendlier to fossil fuels. His nominees include Rex Tillerson, the former ExxonMobil chief tapped for secretary of state; Scott Pruitt, picked to run the environmental watchdog he fought as Oklahoma attorney-general; and Rick Perry, a former Texas governor set to head the energy department. “Folks in the fossil fuel industry […]
Billionaire investor George Soros spoke to Bloomberg TV in Davos, and said the euphoria among stock investors since the victory of President-elect Donald Trump will end as uncertainty takes over. In an interview that may have been even gloomier than his last address to Davos in January 2016, when he said he was short the market, predicted a Chinese hard landing, and said the Fed’s hike was […]
January 20, 2017 by: Jude Webber in Mexico City One the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration, Mexico has extradited Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the country’s most powerful drug lord, to face trial in the US. Mr Guzmán, at one time credited with smuggling half of all the illicit drugs entering the US, twice escaped from maximum security jails in Mexico, most recently in 2015 through a tunnel […]
When it comes to bare-knuckle political lobbying, 12-year-old Claudia Conway is a chip off the old block. Today her mother, Kellyanne Conway, the Republican pollster credited with turning round Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, will be celebrating her 50th birthday at the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States. As his special counsellor, Conway is looking forward to life as the most powerful woman in the […]
Many worry it would only set off new fighting with the Palestinians as well as the rest of the Arab world, a big price tag for a symbolic change that would hardly move the ball on the broader conflict. Continue reading the main story “I don’t know what’s in it for Trump,” said Akiva Eldar, a longtime Israeli columnist and co-author of a book on the issue […]
WASHINGTON Rob Cortis calls it the “Trump Unity Bridge” – a bulky, metal 45-foot structure welded to two wheels and bedecked with red, white and blue signs echoing President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign themes. He has towed it more than 20,000 miles (32,000 km) across the country. But as he arrived in Washington on the eve of Trump’s inauguration on Friday as America’s 45th president, he struggled to […]
Investor optimism faded in the week preceding the inauguration of Donald Trump as US president, with equity funds suffering their largest outflows since the surprise result of November’s election. Close to $2.5bn fled US equity funds in the week ending Wednesday, according to data from EPFR Global, extending outflows of $250m from the prior week and demonstrating that the investor demand that drove more than $60bn of […]
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico Notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been extradited from a prison in northern Mexico to the United States, the Mexican government said on Thursday, one day before Donald Trump assumes the U.S. presidency. Guzman was one of the world’s most wanted drug kingpins until he was captured in January 2016. Six months earlier, he had broken out of a high-security penitentiary […]
Lawmakers, government officials, and aid workers are bracing themselves for a broad offensive from President-elect Donald Trump against federal programs that support family planning and gender equality around the world. As one of his first acts in the Oval Office, the Republican president-elect plans to restore the “Mexico City policy” as soon as Sunday, a congressional staffer told Foreign Policy. Also known as the “global gag rule,” […]
Submitted by Peter Schiff via Euro Pacific Capital, There is much we don’t know about how the Trump presidency will play out. Will the Wall get built? Who will pay for it? Will it have at least some fencing? Will repeal and replace happen at exactly the same time? Will Trump throw a ceremonial switch? Will there be a Trump National Golf Course in Sochi? It’s anyone’s […]
President-elect Donald Trump is keeping his trademark lawyers busy. The incoming commander-in-chief has filed his first trademark application since he was elected president. Mr. Trump’s trademark holding company is seeking to secure rights over the term “KEEP CONNECTING.” It’s for a class of goods that encompasses communications and hotel services, according to a Jan. 12 filing to the federal […] (via WSJ)
Steven Mnuchin, Donald Trump’s nominee to be Treasury secretary, clashed with Democrats over the business practices of the lender he once chaired, saying he had been wrongly accused of taking advantage of unfortunate borrowers and that he would work “tirelessly” to boost the economy and US hiring. The former banker told the Senate finance committee that he had been maligned and that OneWest, the bank, had extended 100,000 […]
