Gold will extend declines this year as gains in equity markets reduce the need for haven assets and increased regulation hurts risk appetite, according to Morgan Stanley, which lowered its bullion forecasts. The 2014 target was cut 12 percent to $1,160 an ounce and the prediction for 2015 reduced 13 percent to $1,138, analysts Peter Richardson and Joel Crane wrote in a report today. Gold remains under […]
Asian markets sprang higher on Tuesday as Japanese stocks rebounded and Chinese money rates eased, while the U.S. dollar got a fillip from a report the Federal Reserve would again trim its bond buying next week. A drop in the yen helped Tokyo’s Nikkei rally 1.5 percent and dragged up markets from Seoul to Singapore. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS swung round to […]
Gold extended gains to a third session on Monday to hit its highest in a month after a surprisingly weak U.S. jobs report stoked expectations that the Federal Reserve could temper the pace of its stimulus wind-down. A weaker U.S. dollar also supported prices, although physical demand in China – the world’s biggest bullion consumer – dropped off due to the rally in prices. Spot gold was […]
By Abhinav Ramnarayan Debt capital markets bankers covering the Middle East say a bond issue by Dubai may be imminent as part of the emirate’s plan to refinance some of its existing debt. The emirate was one of the first issuers from the Gulf in 2013 with a dual tranche 10-year sukuk and 30-year conventional note, and may be one of the early issuers this year as […]
As the tidal wave of global central bank liquidity recedes in 2014, emerging market investors are growing more anxious about local political risks – and how to spot them early on. Developing economies have had a rough ride since the U.S. Federal Reserve first mooted a wind-down of its money printing last year. The looming withdrawal of easy cash worldwide pushed the dollar and Treasury yields up […]
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index touched a four-month high as signs of improvement in the labor market support expectations the U.S. economy will be strong enough for the Federal Reserve to end bond purchases this year. The dollar remained higher versus most major peers before government data today forecast show initial claims for unemployment benefits fell. A report tomorrow may say U.S. employers continued to add positions […]
Dubai’s Emaar Properties will redeem the outstanding amount of its $500 million convertible bond issue on February 6, the developer said in a bourse filing on Monday. Paper worth $237.5 million was still outstanding following an earlier conversion of the bonds into stock late last year. Board members of Emaar had approved conversion of the instrument in December. The conversion price for the bond would be 4.38 […]
Nakheel PJSC’s plan to pay more than $1 billion of bank debt early may herald further gains for the Dubai real-estate developer’s Islamic bonds. Mashreq Capital DIFC Ltd. and Quantum Investment Bank Ltd. said Nakheel’s payments might help extend a rally that cut its sukuk yield by 215 basis points in the past 12 months to a record 6.58 percent Jan. 3, according to data compiled by […]
The United Arab Emirates issued rules for the issuance and trading of covered bonds, potentially a major step towards developing its debt market and giving commercial banks a new source of funding. The Securities and Commodities Authority, the UAE’s financial market regulator, set conditions for banks and other companies to obtain licences allowing them to issue covered bonds, state news agency WAM reported on Sunday. The SCA […]
If the medicine tastes bad, it’s probably doing you good. Emerging economies might console themselves with that thought when they’re suffering market cramps and hemorrhaging capital as the U.S. ends its monetary stimulus. The Federal Reserve will begin winding down, or tapering, its $85 billion-a-month money-printing program this month, and emerging markets are seeing foreign investment pull back as a result. Last year, around $30 billion fled […]
Dubai developer Nakheel plans to repay up to 4 billion dirhams ($1.1 billion) of bank debt due in 2015 this year, with around 2.35 billion dirhams earmarked for payment in the first quarter of this year, its chairman said on Saturday. Nakheel was taken over by the government as part of a $16 billion rescue plan completed in 2011, following the bursting of a real estate bubble […]
Hedge funds got less bullish on gold for the seventh time in eight weeks as signs of accelerating U.S. economic and tame inflation growth drive prices to the worst annual drop in more than three decades. The net-long position in gold fell 12 percent to 28,702 futures and options in the week ended Dec. 24, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Short holdings gained 1.1 percent […]
Gold fell for the first time in five days, heading for its biggest annual loss in three decades as investor holdings extended their decline to the lowest since 2009. Silver retreated for the first time in more than a week. Bullion for immediate delivery slid as much as 0.5 percent to $1,206.81 an ounce and was at $1,207.69 by 2:23 p.m. in Singapore. Prices climbed to $1,219.28 […]
Dana Gas, the energy producer that restructured debt last year due to delayed payments, rose the most in eight years after it received $53 million from Egypt, stoking bets of better cashflow. The stock surged almost 15 percent, the most since December 2005, to 86 fils at the close in Abu Dhabi. More than 311 million shares were traded, almost nine times the three-month average daily volume. […]
Bond issuance from the Gulf Arab region is set to surge next year on the back of heavy infrastructure spending and refinancing needs, while the Abu Dhabi sovereign may return to the market after an absence of nearly five years. The region’s issuance of conventional bonds and sukuk fell to $28.97 billion this year from $36.90 billion in 2012, according to IFR, a Thomson Reuters unit. That […]
Commercial Bank of Qatar is open to tie-ups with local financial institutions and could sell bonds next year to fund infrastructure lending in the Gulf Arab state, its recently appointed chief executive was quoted as saying. The lender, which earlier this year completed the purchase of a 74.2 percent stake in Turkey’s Alternatifbank, is also open to further foreign acquisitions but will wait to see the performance […]
Holders of Dubai-based developer Emaar Properties’ convertible bonds have asked the company to convert them into shares, Emaar said in a bourse statement on Sunday. Emaar said its board would discuss the matter at a meeting on December 17. Emaar issued a $500 million convertible bond in 2010. The sale marked the Dubai developer’s return to the debt markets after more than a year and an opportune […]
The BSE Sensex is forecast to scale new highs next year after elections, attracting offshore funds despite an expected rough period for emerging markets when the U.S. Federal Reserve shifts monetary policy, a Reuters poll showed. The poll predicts a better performance than this year’s 9 percent increase but far more modest than the 25 percent surge in 2012 when foreign investors bought a massive $24.4 billion […]
By Lewis Braham Don’t try to catch a falling knife. It’s one of the oldest saws on Wall Street. But to make a lot of money, sometimes you have to get a little bloody. So say contrarians like Brian Singer. The risk is great, “but the return is of such an astounding magnitude, you’re willing to do it,” says Singer, manager of the William Blair Macro Allocation […]
India’s (SENSEX) benchmark stock index surged to a record and the rupee climbed to a four-month high after the nation’s main opposition party won the state polls. The S&P BSE Sensex rose 1.5 percent to 21,311.03 at 12:03 p.m. in Mumbai and the currency touched 60.8475 per dollar, the strongest level since Aug. 12. Ten-year bonds ended a seven-day losing run. ICICI Bank soared 4.6 percent, sending […]
Booming housing markets in emerging Asia have pushed global residential property prices to a new peak, according to a report on Friday. Consultancy Knight Frank’s global house price index rose 4.6 percent over the 12 months to the end of September, taking it 4 percent higher than its previous peak in the second quarter of 2008. “The index’s strong performance has been assisted not just by headline […]
Asian shares were in a buoyant mood, with Japanese stocks hitting their highest close in nearly six years after the yen fell sharply on relatively positive U.S. economic data, while two major regional currencies slumped. Financial bookmakers expected major European indexes to open flat to modestly higher on Thursday . U.S. jobless claims unexpectedly fell last week and the November Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer confidence improved […]
When the British government said last month it would issue its first Islamic bond, the implications went far beyond the debt market: it was a signal that London will not back down in an escalating tussle among cities for Islamic financial business. London has long been the default center for international firms to issue sharia-compliant bonds, part of a fast-growing Islamic finance sector that will be worth […]
Emerging Asian currencies took a battering and regional shares tumbled to six-week lows on Wednesday as mixed signals from Federal Reserve officials raised fresh concerns about an imminent rollback of the U.S. central bank’s asset-buying stimulus. The dour mood looked set to carry over into Europe, where financial spread betters predicted Britain’s FTSE 100 to fall as much as 0.7 percent, Germany’s DAX off 0.4 percent and […]
