Thursday 08:00 BST What you need to know ● European bourses soft despite positive Asia session and as US futures steady● Energy shares under pressure as oil struggles to recover from sell-off ● Dollar soft as sterling and euro shrug off election concerns● Sovereign bond yields hold near recent lows ● Gold prices add 0.1 per cent to $1,281 an ounce——————- Hot topic Oil prices are steadier […]
SYDNEY Austria and Australia are 16,000 km (9,940 miles) and two keystrokes apart, as European aircraft manufacturer Airbus discovered to its chagrin this week. The Financial Times, citing fine print in the company’s 2016 financial accounts, reported on Monday that Airbus was being investigated by authorities in Australia for offences such as bribery or fraud. The Airbus accounts did indeed say Australia, but a company spokesman said […]
BEIJING Britain will lose more than the European Union from its decision to leave the bloc, the EU’s top diplomat said on Thursday, and talks with London were expected to be difficult. Prime Minister Theresa May formally began Britain’s divorce from the EU last month, declaring there was no turning back, ushering in a tortuous exit process that will test the bloc’s cohesion and pitch her country […]
Britain’s benchmark stock index dipped into negative territory for the year on Wednesday, as investors worry that a stronger pound saps the foreign-based revenues for many of the FTSE 100’s multinational companies. The blue-chip gauge slipped as much as 0.5 per cent on Wednesday by the close of trading. The pound retraced some gains in late trade from session highs above the $1.2850 level after surging on […]
The Samsung Galaxy S8, top, and S8 Plus are displayed, Monday, April 17, 2017, in New York. The 5.8-inch S8 and the 6.2-inch S8 Plus both have nearly 15 percent more display space than last year’s comparable models. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) Samsung’s new Galaxy S8 phone is stunning. But its $100 price hike is hard to swallow. That’s how much extra you’ll shell out for the S8, […]
Virtu Financial is set to emerge victorious in its effort to buy rival high-frequency trading group KCG Holdings, with a deal expected to be announced on Thursday, according to people briefed on the matter. KCG and Virtu declined to comment. With the announcement of the takeover imminent, Charles Susi, head of institutional sales and electronic trading at KCG, announced internally that he was leaving the company, other […]
Qualcomm beat Wall Street’s sales and profit forecasts for its second quarter as the mobile chipmaker’s performance was boosted by the launch of new smartphones including Samsung’s Galaxy S8. However, the company on Wednesday warned of greater uncertainty in its outlook for the next quarter because of its legal battle with Apple, some of whose contract manufacturers have withheld about $1bn in royalty payments to Qualcomm in […]
Fund managers are buying eurozone equities and shunning Wall Street, as a major survey of global money managers this month revealed the fifth-biggest rotation from US to European stocks since the start of monetary union in 1999. The survey of 203 fund managers by Bank of America Merrill Lynch showed a record number — a net 83 per cent — believe US stocks are overvalued and that […]
19 April 2017 Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and the Federal Republic of Nigeria have discussed potential collaboration in Science & Technology, innovation and food security. The discussion took place at the IsDB headquaters led by Mr. Sayed Aqa, IsDB Vice President, Cooperation and Country Programming, with Chief Ogbonnaya Onu, Nigeria’s Minister of Science & Technology. “IsDB is scaling up in the […]
April 19, 2017 by: Vinay Pande and Gerald Lucas The most prominent beneficiary of the so-called Trump trade has been equities, with total returns of 10.5 per cent from the S&P 500 and 10 per cent from the MSCI All-Country World Index since the US election. However, pinning a global bull market on one individual is dangerous. Several other drivers have supported it, making it even more […]
Theresa May received overwhelming backing from MPs for a snap UK election that the prime minister said would give her more room for manoeuvre in Brexit negotiations if her Conservative party wins the poll. The prime minister won a vote in the House of Commons on Wednesday by 522 to 13, allowing her to press ahead with an early general election on June 8. The motion overrode […]
ANKARA Turkey’s ruling AK Party set out plans on Wednesday for President Tayyip Erdogan to gradually take back the party reins, in a sign it would begin implementing changes approved in Sunday’s referendum despite opposition attempts to annul it. Prime Minister and AKP leader Binali Yildirim said Erdogan can rejoin the party he founded in 2001 once official results of the plebiscite, granting him sweeping powers, are […]
MANILA Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte warned on Wednesday he might “invade” an island stronghold of the Islamic State-linked Abu Sayyaf to “finish the game” following a thwarted attempt by the group to kidnap tourists on a resort island last week. Duterte offered cash rewards for the capture, dead or alive, of six Abu Sayyaf militants still at large following a day-long clash last week on Bohol island, […]
The near-5 per cent advance in the $20tn benchmark S&P 500 this year has been reliant on the performance of only a few dozen stocks — with gains by the likes of Apple and Facebook accounting for more than 20 per cent of the index’s climb. Ten stocks in the index, including ecommerce behemoth Amazon, Google owner Alphabet as well as the more defensive cigarette maker Philip […]
Here is how the markets are reacting to UK prime minister Theresa May’s announcement that there will be a snap general election on June 8. Sterling The pound has rebounded strongly off session lows and is now up 1.6 per cent to $1.2755, its highest since December, as dealers reckon that the ruling Conservative government is likely to increase its parliamentary majority. This could strengthen Mrs May’s […]
Last summer Betsy O’Donovan, the incoming Executive Director of The Daily Tar Heel, wrote an essay on Medium charting the dire financial situation of UNC-Chapel Hill’s student newspaper. It started pretty bluntly: “The Daily Tar Heel is a news organization, and we don’t dodge the facts: This 123-year-old institution has two years to figure out its finances.” The Daily Tar Heel, like many news organizations these days, […]
A new study advocated that vaccinating one’s child is beneficial and may be instrumental in saving their life. Vaccination for children has its share of controversies all around the world. While doctors say this method is necessary to protect people from many harmful diseases, others question the effectiveness, necessity, and safety of the same. This argument has effectively led some communities to disown the vaccination practice completely, leading […]
Iceland’s finance minister has admitted it is untenable for the country to maintain its own freely floating currency, just days after it lifted capital controls imposed in the wake of its near financial collapse in 2008. Benedikt Johannesson told the Financial Times that the Nordic island of just 330,000 people would look at options to link Iceland’s krona to another currency, most likely the euro or pound. […]
North Korea has fired a missile into the Sea of Japan, with the latest provocative gesture from Pyongyang coming just days before US President Donald Trump meets his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. The Pentagon said North Korea had fired the missile at 6.42am local time on Wednesday and that it had landed in the sea nine minutes later. It said the rocket, believed to be a medium-range […]
Investors are refusing to call time on expectations of a sustained recovery in the global economy, after propelling global markets to their best quarterly performance since 2013. Money managers say they are willing to look past rising political uncertainty in France and the US and bet on what they view as an acceleration in activity and synchronised economic advances across developed and emerging markets. Expectations of US fiscal stimulus […]
By Ingrid Melander and Michel Rose | PARIS PARIS The two leading candidates in France’s presidential election clashed sharply over Europe in a televised debate on Tuesday night, with centrist Emmanuel Macron accusing the far right’s Marine Le Pen, his anti-European Union rival, of lying. The three-hour debate involves all 11 candidates, some of whom draw one percent or less of support in polls, and a majority […]
Fox News is facing fresh legal and financial challenges after a third employee joined a racial discrimination lawsuit while a dozen brands stopped advertising on Bill O’Reilly’s top-rated programme following new allegations of sexual harassment and verbal abuse. The allegations that the cable network knew of complaints from black employees two years ago and failed to investigate them, coupled with the news of advertisers distancing themselves from […]
Italian government bond prices were lower on Monday, as investors focused on signs of political sclerosis rather than economic data pointing to strength in manufacturing and a drop in the ranks of the unemployed. The difference between Italian 10-year sovereign bonds and the benchmark German Bund — a key measure of investor confidence as it shows the premium traders are demanding to buy Italian debt — hit […]
AIRPORT DUTY A woman immigration officer welcomes arriving passengers at Ninoy Aquino International Airport. —LYN RILLON The Bureau of Immigration will assign more employees to the airports to deal with a staff shortage caused by mass resignations and leaves of absence involving immigration officers. President Duterte’s order to stop payment for overtime work has led to the departures, according to Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II. Malacañang said […]
