Stock markets across the Middle East tumbled on Sunday, led by Dubai and Saudi Arabia where the main indexes sank 6.5 percent, as declines on global bourses and falling oil prices sparked a broad sell-off in the region. Global markets took a big hit on Friday as investors fled to the safety of government bonds after a raft of weak indicators from Europe and China collided with […]
Hugh Grant in Four Weddings and a Funeral Photo: Alamy Anyone who thinks Hugh Grant is not an accomplished actor is surely underestimating how difficult it is to do light comedy. It’s harder than drama, but the secret is making it look effortless, and effortless performances are rarely appreciated – it’s the showy mannerisms and thundering speeches that win awards, not comic timing (which you only notice when […]
|TAP Special| The oil market scene is turning murky, with indications of a price war developing among major producers to defend their market shares. Crude futures tumbled to a 17-month low on signs that global supply is outstripping demand and by all indications, crude oil is poised to extend the biggest slump in more than two years. To make things worse, Saudi Arabia is said to be […]
Hedge funds extended this year’s longest exit from bullish gold bets as slumping prices and investor outflows since June erased $6.7 billion from the value of exchange-traded funds backed by the metal. The net-long position in New York futures and options fell for a fifth straight week, with speculators boosting short bets to the highest since June, U.S. government data show. Investors sold 7.75 metric tons of […]
A rush by Dubai’s retail investors to take part in the initial public offer of Emaar Properties’ malls unit put pressure on the emirate’s stock market on Tuesday, while successful fund-raising for the Suez Canal expansion lifted stocks in Egypt. Emaar said late on Monday that institutional investors had committed to buying all the shares offered to them in the flotation of its shopping malls business, only […]
By Nivedita Bhattacharjee MUMBAI Wed Sep 3, 2014 11:01am IST Android mascots are lined up in the demonstration area at the Google I/O Developers Conference in the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California, May 10, 2011. Credit: Reuters/Beck Diefenbach/Files MUMBAI (Reuters) – Google Inc’s (GOOGL.O) partnership with three Indian phone makers is set to rev up fast-growing demand for lower priced smartphones, and spell more trouble for […]
The Floating Cinema drops anchor on the Grand Union Canal at King’s Cross, London Photo: HYDAR DEWACHI ‘It’s really captured people’s imagination,” enthuse producer Anna Ramsay and curator Laura Harford as they sit on the deck of the Floating Cinema, their 60ft wide-beam canal boat fitted out as a mini-Odeon. “I think it’s because it’s something so unusual, not at all what they expect to see on a […]
A year after a $920 million payment default at a spot commodities bourse cut trading from gold to soybeans futures, jolting India’s biggest brokerages, investors are returning as newer regulations buoy confidence. The volume of commodities traded on the Multi Commodity Exchange Ltd. (MCX), India’s biggest commodity bourse, has rebounded from a five-year low after the regulator tightened warehousing and shareholding norms in response to the payment […]
Emerging-market stocks fell as the European Union and U.S. said they’re imposing tougher sanctions against Russia to punish President Vladimir Putin for supporting Ukrainian rebels. The Ibovespa fell the most in a month after Brazilian industrial production declined. India’s S&P BSE Sensex Index dropped for a second day as motorcycle manufacturer Hero MotoCorp Ltd. slid 1.6 percent. Stocks in South Korea and China advanced as automakers and […]
Office rents in Dubai’s central business district surged 25 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier amid strong economic growth and rising business confidence, according to CBRE Group Inc. Prime CBD rents, which account for 20 percent of the overall market, rose to 1,884 dirhams ($513) per square meter a year, CBRE said in a report today. Rents in secondary locations climbed 24 percent. “The […]
The commodity markets regulator has launched a fresh attempt to rebuild volume on domestic commodities exchanges, after their credibility was dented by last year’s failure of the National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL). The regulator said it had asked its capital market counterpart to require companies to disclose their commodity trading positions on domestic futures markets, seeing this as a way of boosting the credibility of those markets, […]
Financial Technologies (India) Ltd. slumped by its trading limit in Mumbai after Chairman Jignesh Shah was arrested by the police as part of an investigation into the biggest payment default in India’s commodity market. The shares fell 5 percent to 276.30 rupees, the lowest close since Feb. 13. Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd. (MCX), in which Financial Technologies owns 26 percent stake, declined 6.7 percent to […]
Hedge funds lowered bullish bets on gold for a fourth week, the longest streak this year. The net-long position contracted to the lowest since mid-February as speculators sold bullion on signs of accelerating U.S. economic growth. The investors more than doubled bets on lower prices in the past month while reducing wagers on a rally in six of the past seven weeks. Prices fell 7.6 percent since […]
Dubai’s benchmark stock index fell the most in a month, tracking a decline in global markets last week, on investor concern this year’s rally was overdone given prospects for earnings growth. Saudi Arabia’s gauge dropped. The DFM General Index tumbled 1.7 percent, the most since March 12, to close at 4,759.15 in the emirate. Dubai Islamic Bank , the United Arab Emirates’ biggest shariah-compliant bank, declined for […]
U.S. stocks fell, with the Nasdaq Composite Index sliding the most in two months, after large technology stocks from Google Inc. to Yahoo Inc. plunged as investors sold the bull market’s biggest winners. Google Class A shares sank 4.6 percent in the biggest drop since October 2012. Facebook Inc. lost 4.6 percent, bringing its two-day slide to 9.5 percent. Yahoo Inc. declined 4.2 percent to the lowest […]
The S&P 500 closed at another record high on Wednesday as signs of steady private-sector hiring suggested that the economy was slowly building momentum after a winter-related pullback. That also put more focus on Friday’s government jobs data, which is among the most widely watched economic indicators. “There’s positioning ahead of that report,” said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president of BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama. He […]
A year after Citigroup Inc. declared the decade-long run of commodity gains over, wacky weather, dead piglets and Vladimir Putin have gotten in the way. While Citigroup rang “death bells” in April 2013 for the synchronized super cycle fueled by economic growth in China, extreme weather and supply squeezes led to surprise rallies in 2014’s first three months. Coffee hit a two-year high, cattle and hogs rose […]
As U.S. and European officials threaten sanctions in their face-off with Russia over Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s $160 billion in oil and natural gas exports may be his most potent weapon to limit punitive measures. The U.S. and its European allies, set to meet today in Brussels, have few levers to deter Putin even as they warn Russia not to annex Crimea after a referendum in Ukraine’s southern […]
Dubai refinanced $20 billion at a quarter of the original cost, freeing cash to service liabilities and fund expansion plans. The emirate rolled over $10 billion of bonds owed to the central bank and a loan of the same amount due to Abu Dhabi’s government, and will pay a fixed interest of 1 percent on both, according to a statement on state-run WAM news agency yesterday. The […]
|By Rajhkumar K Shaaw and Santanu Chakraborty| For the first time in five years, Nilesh Dedhia is buying Indian stocks. The 48-year-old owner of a die-casting factory in Mumbai is among a growing number of local investors returning to the $1.2 trillion equity market on speculation national elections in May will deliver a government with the mandate to revive economic growth from a decade low. That optimism […]
The world’s most-profitable banks have never been so unloved by stock investors. China’s four-biggest lenders, which reported $126 billion of earnings in the 12 months through September, sank to the lowest valuations on record in Hong Kong trading yesterday. The MSCI China Financials Index dropped to an almost decade low versus the global industry benchmark while the market value of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., […]
Singapore’s shrinking brokerage industry is set to get even smaller as trading restrictions planned by regulators dent profits, according to a body that represents individual brokers. The average daily value of shares traded in the city, which slumped 40 percent in the first two months of 2014 from a year earlier, will decline further should rules be implemented that include requiring collateral for some trades and shortening […]
Gold is getting more attractive to hedge-fund managers even as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. says the metal’s surprising rally this year will soon fizzle. Hedge funds and other speculators expanded bets on higher prices for a fourth week in New York futures and are now the most bullish since December 2012, government data show. While gold is off to its best start in six years after topping […]
Dubai’s benchmark led a retreat among Persian Gulf stock indexes, tracking a decline in emerging markets after Russia’s intervention in Crimea raised concerns of armed conflict. The DFM General Index slipped 1.9 percent, the most since Jan. 26, to 4,105.90 at the close in Dubai. The measure, which more than doubled last year, dropped on 44 percent of three-month average daily volume. Abu Dhabi’s gauge closed 1.8 […]
