The political comeback of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy ended abruptly on Sunday when he conceded he would not be reaching the run-off of the centre right primaries to fight the presidential campaign next year. A late surge of support for François Fillon caused a major upset, as about 4m voters headed to the polls in the first step of a process expected to give France its […]
The global bond market rout triggered by Donald Trump’s US election victory looks overdone, according to bond investors now betting that the sell-off was too violent and that borrowing costs will remain contained into the start of the new year. Mr Trump is expected to unveil a large, inflation-fuelling economic stimulus package of infrastructure spending and tax cuts, which has stoked fears of an end to the […]
ABU DHABI // Nepalese expatriates are worried that friends and family at home are being caught up in the currency crisis engulfing India. India and Nepal share a border and travel between them is free and easy, meaning many Nepalis who earn or accept Indian rupees are struggling to exchange their 500 and 1,000 notes since the bills were withdrawn on November 8. “We don’t have big […]
Our round-up of the week’s best comment and analysis from the Financial Times focuses on how Donald Trump’s election produced an abrupt change of mood in the markets and examines which assets will now benefit. The selection is taken from our Markets Insight and Smart Money columns, written by industry contributors and FT commentators. Was there a financial markets equivalent of the “shy” Trump supporter to explain […]
Angela Merkel has said she will seek a fourth term as German chancellor, less than two weeks after Donald Trump’s election in the US left her as the west’s pre-eminent liberal leader. The German news agency DPA reported that she had told the leadership of her CDU party, which is meeting in Berlin, that she would stand again as a candidate for chancellor and party leader. The […]
A protest rally in Malaysia against the government of Najib Razak — who is fighting allegations of grand corruption linked to a troubled state investment fund — brought thousands onto the streets of Kuala Lumpur but also spurred a widening official crackdown. Although Saturday’s rally passed off peacefully, 15 activists and opposition politicians have been arrested on charges which human rights campaigners described as “manufactured”. The charges […]
India’s government is taking a hardline stance over renewing a trade deal with the Netherlands just days before it expires, which European officials warn could undermine business ties with the rest of the EU. The bilateral investment treaty between the two countries will end on November 30 — the first in a succession of such agreements that New Delhi has decided to terminate as it looks for more […]
Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts and staunch critic of Donald Trump during the recent presidential campaign, left the clubhouse at Mr Trump’s New Jersey golf course with no announcement about whether he will join the new administration. Donald Trump is holding meetings with prospective members of his administration at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey this weekend. Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president […]
Chinese president Xi Jinping vowed on Saturday to open the door even wider to foreign business and play an even greater role in the process of globalisation as Beijing moved to take advantage of Donald Trump’s election and fears that he may herald a new era of US disengagement from Asia. Speaking to business leaders on the sidelines of a 21-country Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru, […]
HTC took the wraps off its Sprint-exclusive 5.5-inch HTC Bolt smartphone on Nov. 11, which runs on Android 7.0 Nougat. Now the buzz is that the flagship HTC 10 is also poised to get updated to the latest OS. While many HTC smartphones may be languishing on Android 6.0 Marshmallow even now, and are yet to get a taste of Android Nougat, this is set to change soon. The […]
ABU DHABI // A No 1 limited edition licence plate commemorating Abu Dhabi Government’s Golden Jubilee was sold to an Emirati for Dh31 million on Saturday at Emirates Palace hotel. The winning bidder for the coveted plate, Abdullah Al Mahri, 32, said he bought it in honour of the country’s Rulers, who worked tirelessly to make the UAE No 1 in the world. “I’m very proud to […]
November 19, 2016 by: Neil Hume and Tom Burgis The former Lazard banker who helped Rio Tinto secure rights to a giant iron ore deposit in Guinea was also working as an informal adviser to the country’s president and had access to “highly confidential” information. The disclosure raises the question of whether the Anglo-American mining company broke anti-corruption laws when it paid François Polge de Combret $10.5m […]
China’s domestic stock markets look set to be denied entry into international benchmarks for the fourth year in a row next year unless Chinese regulators remove “major obstacles” before June. Dimitris Melas, head of equity research at MSCI, provider of the benchmark MSCI Emerging Markets index, gave a downbeat assessment on Thursday of the prospects for China’s A-shares to be included in the index next year in […]
November 19, 2016 by: Jeevan Vasagar in Kuala Lumpur Malaysian authorities have intensified their crackdown on anti-corruption protesters, detaining the leader of a campaign group under antiterrorism legislation as thousands of demonstrators gathered on the streets of the capital demanding the resignation of prime minister. Protesters in yellow T-shirts flooded the streets of Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, waving Malaysian flags and caricatures of Najib Razak, who has […]
The pace of global debt sales this year is running at a record level, surpassing $6tn this week, as companies from Pfizer to MasterCard rush to lock in borrowing costs on fears that a Donald Trump stimulus package will send interest rates even higher. A flurry of new sales this week caps a tumultuous period for bond investors, who are counting more than $1.5tn of losses, as […]
Facebook unveiled a share buyback scheme on Friday, saying it would repurchase up to $6bn of its stock as its investors brace themselves for slower growth next year. In a regulatory filing, Facebook said that the board had approved the buyback on Friday. It will begin in the first quarter of 2017 but the scheme has no set expiration, leaving Facebook the flexibility to be opportunistic if […]
Greencore, Britain’s biggest sandwich maker, has been planning to “deepen its leadership of food-to-go”. As Lucy Kellaway has pointed out, sandwiches don’t need leadership (they need fillings) but this week Greencore deepened its leadership by paying $747m for Peacock, a US sarnie supplier. The deal went down like a fresh BLT and the shares rose at the sight of food-to-go leadership in action. Despite the grisly record […]
Pacific Rim leaders pledged on Friday to resist a new wave of protectionism as US President-elect Donald Trump loomed large over the opening of the 21-country Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit. Mr Trump’s surprise victory in this month’s US presidential election has upended the Obama administration’s plans for a Trans-Pacific Partnership with Japan and 10 other countries and opened the door to Chinese rivals. It has also raised […]
Both Google and Apple rely on its individual app stores as an added selling point for its smartphone products, because what’s a smartphone without the apps? Simply banking on a huge library, however, is only a small part of the equation. Apps need to have an inherent retention power. They must provide enough features and perform excellently in order to remain situated in a user’s app tray. […]
The Trump trade — sell government bonds because his policies might cause inflation and require huge new borrowing — has already produced a common counter reaction: do not get carried away, this is an opportunity to buy Treasuries before yields collapse again. What it shows is a conditioned response. The first time your dog barks in the night, you leap out of bed with a head full […]
The cast of artists, curators, architects and academics who assembled to speak at this year’s Abu Dhabi Art are doing so, primarily, with local or regional themes as their focus. Idris Khan, the British artist behind the UAE’s new national memorial, is speaking about his role in the project, and the Italian sculptor, Giuseppe Penone, is talking about his commission for the new Louvre Abu Dhabi, while […]
China has weakened the renminbi’s trading band for a record 11th straight day, taking its currency to an eight-year low as expectations of US interest rate rises buoyed the dollar against the region’s currencies. This puts the renminbi within a hair’s breadth of suffering a 10 per cent decline versus the dollar since the People’s Bank of China caught markets by surprise with its one-off devaluation in […]
Neel Kashkari picked a bad day to try to fix the financial system. As the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis unveiled a plan to safeguard the biggest banks on Wednesday morning, shares in the likes of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup were coming off five days of frantic gains. Analysts, meanwhile, were still pumping out research notes, trying to guess what a […]
President-elect Donald Trump, who faces dozens of lawsuits from his business dealings, has agreed to pay $25m to resolve claims brought by New York state and thousands of students alleging he ran a fraudulent real estate course. The settlement includes a lawsuit filed by Eric Schneiderman, New York’s attorney-general, who sued Mr Trump, The Trump Entrepreneur Institute, formerly known as Trump University, and Michael Sexton, the former […]
