November 24, 2016 by: Jamie Chisholm, Global Markets Commentator Thursday 08:30 GMT. European equity markets are trading cautiously in the wake of solid US data that bolstered the case for a near-term rate rise from the Federal Reserve and which has triggered another bout of dollar strength. The rampant buck is battering many emerging market currencies and leaves gold down $5 to $1,182.5 an ounce, the metal’s […]
November 24, 2016 by: Yuan Yang in Beijing and Peter Wells in Hong Kong Ctrip International has agreed to pay £1.4bn ($1.7bn) for Skyscanner, the Scottish airfare comparison website, in move that will help the Chinese online travel group target the country’s booming outbound tourism industry. Some 120m Chinese tourists went abroad last year — more than double the number of 2010, according to the China Tourism Research […]
So Brexit was not a historical accident after all. The Trump victory seals it. A complacent, mainly urban liberal class, has been undone by a revolt. Nationalists are in charge of Washington and London now. These “strongmen” and “strongwomen” will control borders, restrict the movement of labour and subject cross-border M&A to ever tighter public scrutiny tests. Security will come first. The twin freedoms of capital and […]
November 24, 2016 by: Neil Hume, Commodities and Mining Editor The new chief executive of Rio Tinto said on Wednesday that he would focus on sweating the company’s assets and improving productivity rather than transformational mergers and acquisitions. Ahead of his first in-depth strategy presentation, Jean-Sébastien Jacques said that the Anglo-Australian miner could boost cash generation by as much as $5bn by the end of 2021 by […]
Nasdaq is asking regulators to approve a new order type in the latest example of how the dynamics of speed are changing in the world’s largest equity market. In a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US exchanges operator proposed a so-called extended life priority order attribute, which would give priority to retail orders seen by the whole market when traders agree not to cancel […]
Photographs capture mere fractions of seconds, but a series of them taken by an Egyptian journalist has cost him more than three years of his life. Mahmoud Abou Zeid, known as Shawkan, has been in Tora Prison in Cairo for more than 1,100 days. He has been detained without trial since he was arrested while photographing the deadly antigovernment protests that roiled Egypt in the summer of […]
Pokémon Sun and Moon players have been up and about in catching those shiny Pokémon, and some have even been clocking in hours just to get a shiny version of the starters Rowlet, Litten or Popplio. On that note, capturing a shiny Pokémon is no easy feat, as the odds of encountering one is said to be one out of 4,096. That means you’ll probably spend a lot of time […]
The US government bond market suffered a renewed sell-off and the dollar powered to a fresh 13-year high on Wednesday, as stronger economic data bolstered the case for an interest-rate increase and reinforced the view that the multi-decade bond bull market has reached a turning point. The Republican sweep of the White House and Congress, coupled with president-elect Donald Trump’s promise to unleash a $1tn economic stimulus […]
An experimental Alzheimer’s medicine has flunked a large clinical trial, wiping more than $10bn off the market value of its developer Eli Lilly and dealing a significant setback to the hunt for a drug to delay the fatal disease. Investors and analysts had tipped the medicine, known as Solanezumab, or Sola, to be the first drug that could delay dementia in Alzheimer’s patients, after earlier studies appeared […]
Photo High-school-football games showcase so much more than just athletics. Credit Jonno Rattman for The New York Times Kenny Byrd broke one tackle, then another, and soon he had nothing in front of him but end zone. The crowd roared with delight; the marching band lifted its horns and belted out a celebratory rendition of “Shut Up and Dance.” Cowbells clanged. Behind me, the superintendent of schools […]
At the Bundesbank’s Frankfurt offices, its dealers sit in front of rows of Bloomberg and Reuters terminals and search for €10bn-worth of their government’s bonds to buy each month. As prices for the debt hit record highs earlier this year, they struggled to find bonds cheap enough to meet their target, set as part of the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing programme. Now, as investors anticipate higher […]
Mexico can expect a windfall of as much as $2.9bn next month from its annual oil hedging programme, but that will be dwarfed by an expected bonanza from the central bank that could pour close to $20bn into government coffers in April, analysts say. For a government facing bitter spending cuts, an increasingly uncertain economic outlook, sharply lower growth prospects next year and the threat of a […]
Impala Asset Management, the $2.2bn hedge fund run by George Soros’s former chief investment officer, is benefiting from bets that an overhaul of America’s infrastructure and sustained demand from China will buoy appetite for commodities. Robert Bishop, who founded Impala in 2004, said they decided infrastructure would be a win whoever won the US election, but doubly so in the case of Donald Trump, a real estate […]
Eurozone corporate bond risk premiums have jumped to their highest level since July, as Donald Trump’s victory in the US election effectively erases gains generated by the European Central Bank’s policy of buying companies’ debt. A sharp rise in global bond yields since Mr Trump’s triumph has also spurred an underperformance of European credit relative to the US corporate debt market. Higher corporate credit spreads in euros, […]
As night fell on June 15, volunteers at the Birstall Wellbeing Centre in West Yorkshire were preparing for their usual Wednesday group session. The centre offers Reiki healing, palm readings and holistic massage. Rebecca Walker, who opened the centre eight years ago, is haunted by that night in June. At about 6.30pm, a man in his 50s walked through the door. He was thin, on the short […]
A record run of declines; its worst performance since last year’s surprise devaluation and eight-year lows plumbed on a near-daily basis. Whichever way you cut it, China’s currency is having a testing month. However, unlike the infamous devaluation ruckus in August 2015, and the turmoil in markets that followed renminbi weakness in January, investors are not panicking this time. At least not yet. This month the offshore […]
The vicious battle roiling India’s once-admired Tata Group has escalated further with Cyrus Mistry, the recently deposed chairman, saying the conglomerate’s ill-fated $12bn acquisition of Corus in 2007 was mainly to satisfy the “ego” of his predecessor Ratan Tata. In his latest salvo, Mr Mistry — who is resisting attempts to force him off the board of several Tata operating companies — also claimed Tata Consultancy Services […]
Photo The Tanin, one of five submarines that make up Israel’s current fleet, at a naval base in Haifa in 2014. Credit Pool photo by Amir Cohen JERUSALEM — Dogged for decades by scandals ranging from the funding of family trips to enormous ice cream bills, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is again under scrutiny, this time over a billion-dollar deal with Germany for the acquisition […]
China’s handling of its state reserves of raw materials such as cotton and sugar will be a key factor shaping the direction of agricultural commodities in 2017, according to a major lender to agribusinesses. China is “the most striking wildcard” that will drive agricultural markets, said Stefan Vogel, head of agri commodity markets at Rabobank, the Dutch lender that is a leading financier to farmers and agribusinesses […]
Jay Sean has come a long way in the past decade and a half – from emerging with saccharine pop and R&B tracks, such as 2004’s Stolen and Got My Eyes On You, to collaborating with some of the biggest names in the music business, including Sean Paul and Lil Wayne, on fast-paced dance tracks and chart-toppers. The British-born singer, who comes from a Punjabi background, makes […]
South Korea on Wednesday signed a military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan aimed at better managing the threat from North Korea’s increasingly active missile and nuclear weapons programmes. The deal, which comes as Seoul scrambles to adjust to the region’s shifting geopolitical landscape, has faced fierce domestic opposition from critics who slam it as an example of embattled President Park Geun-hye’s unilateral decision-making. Ms Park is embroiled in […]
The overview Wednesday 2.20am GMT Asian equities continue to rally on Wednesday after Wall Street notched up another set of record highs overnight, while the US dollar is trading flat. Standout stories The Dow Jones Industrial Average deserves a mention for closing above 19,000 points for the first time, while its peer US stock indices again closed at record highs. Monday was the first time since 1999 […]
Global lenders’ need to cut the mounting cost of running their swaps portfolios has turned what was once a cottage industry into a cornerstone of the global derivatives industry. BGC Partners, the US interdealer broker, became the latest to underline this trend after revealing the value of interest rate swaptions it had torn up for banks this year more than trebled to $3.5tn. A swaption gives a […]
Donald Trump on Monday posted a video describing plans for his first 100 days as US president. “On energy, I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy,” he said. The US president-elect plans to open more federal lands and waters to oil and gas leasing, streamline permits for new energy projects and rescind executive actions of President Barack Obama. Deregulation forms the core of his […]
