Vodafone redials its Indian impairment numbers. FT Opening Quote, with commentary by Matthew Vincent, is your early Square Mile briefing. You can sign up for the full newsletter here. Hailing from the country that gave India cricket, Victorian railway architecture and a penchant for bureaucracy, Vodafone might have expected a little goodwill on the subcontinent. Instead, India has given the British mobile phone operator a price war, […]
Puerto Rico’s once-influential Government Development Bank has won agreement from some of its creditors to cut its debt burden and restructure its obligations. The organisation, which for years acted as the territory’s primary fiscal agent and evolved into a lender of last resort in times of distress, will transfer its assets into a new entity and issue new bonds in a deal that will see creditors take […]
France has today announced a 31-year government bond, in a sign of further market optimism after the victory of Emmanuel Macron in the recent presidential election. The debt, which is expected to price later this week, had been previously planned as part of the country’s funding programme for the year. The timing of the syndicated deal comes just over a week after Mr Macron’s victory in the […]
15 May 2017 The legal departments at Pepsi-Cola International, Total Marketing Middle East and Qatar Financial Centre Authority were among the big winners at the Middle East Legal Awards, which took place at The Ritz-Carlton, Dubai, on Thursday (11 May). The trio were named Legal Department of the Year in the large team, small team and government, department, agency or public body categories respectively. The award for […]
While equity volatility has collapsed to record lows (amid the biggest increase in net VIX shorts in 9 months), positioning across bond, FX, money market, and commodity markets has been shifting massively in recent weeks. As US Macro data has crashed to its weakest and most negative in 12 months… US equity complacency has hit record lows… As Speculators add to VIX shorts by the […]
The Federal Reserve is actively considering a profound change in US monetary policy, in effect the reversal of quantitative easing (QE). In its March meeting, the FOMC discussed its strategy for the future run down of its balance sheet, and said that further debate would take place in upcoming meetings. The FOMC has already concluded that “a change in the Committee’s reinvestment policy would likely be appropriate […]
When we looked at subprime auto delinquencies most recently, we found some troubling trends: first, in February, we showed that 61+ day delinquencies in General Motors’ subprime securitization book would support a rather bleak thesis for future auto sales, and specifically the demand side of the equation, with January 2017 delinquency rates soaring to the highest levels since late 2009/early 2010. Ironically, this hasn’t stopped lenders from […]
Bonds issued by commodity trader Noble Group have fallen, mirroring a sharp decline in its share price, amid growing concerns about the company’s ability to manage its debt load and secure liquidity from banks. Noble’s recently issued 8.75 per cent 2022 notes have fallen from 97 cents on the dollar this week to just 53 cents, pushing the yield up to about 27 per cent, according to […]
For the first time, scientists have succeeded in studying the strength of hydrogen bonds in a single molecule using an atomic force microscope. (via WSJ)
Oman was cut to junk by S&P Global Ratings, which said a drop in crude could hamper exports from the largest Arab oil producer outside OPEC and jeopardize its finances. S&P lowered the Gulf state’s sovereign debt long-term rating to BB+, one level below investment grade, from BBB- and changed the outlook to negative, the New York-based firm said in a statement Friday. “The negative outlook reflects […]
Europe’s investment community has barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief following Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the French presidential elections before starting to fret about other latent threats to the eurozone. Some investors have hailed the election — in which Mr Macron, a pro-EU liberal defeated Marine Le Pen, the Eurosceptic rightwing candidate — as a sign that Europe’s economic recovery remains on track. This […]
If you are an investor wanting a safe, unexciting asset to make a bit of money, avoid South Africa’s rand. It is not that you cannot make money trading the currency. You very much can, and you might make it big and quickly. The problem is you can also lose much more than you gain and at a frightening pace. To play the rand, investors need not […]
By Chris at www.CapitalistExploits.at What in God’s name is happening? It’s not a high. It’s a record high. Sweet mother of Mary… As we can see from the above chart courtesy of the FT, emerging markets sold a record amount of government debt in the first quarter of this year. More from the FT here: “Data from Dealogic, a research firm, show that sovereign bond sales from emerging markets rose […]
Greece inched closer to a return to public market finance for at least part of its Sisyphean debt burden this week, with benchmark bond yields dropping to levels seen when the country last issued new debt three years ago. Enthusiasm for the small portion of Greek debt held in private hands and available to trade followed a long-delayed agreement on fiscal and structural reform measures with European […]
By Matt Spetalnick | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President Donald Trump will express support for Palestinian “self-determination” during a Middle East trip this month, a senior aide said on Friday, suggesting Trump is open to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict despite not having publicly embraced the idea so far. The comment by U.S. national security adviser H.R. McMaster came just nine days after a White House visit […]
Dana Gas profit nearly doubled in the first quarter as the UAE-based natural gas producer boosted output. Net income rose to 40 million dirhams ($11 million) from 22 million dirhams a year earlier, the company said Thursday in a statement to the Abu Dhabi stock exchange. Sales climbed 44 percent to 432 million dirhams. Dana Gas, which pumps most of its gas at fields in Egypt and […]
The bond between mother and daughter is special, made even more so when a daughter has children of her own. A sense of mutual understanding clicks in that helps to bridge the gap between generations. In honor of Mother’s Day on May 14, we spoke to some mothers and their daughters about how motherhood has changed, what they’ve learned from each other, how technology has shifted […]
S&P Global Ratings on Friday lowered its long-term rating on Oman to BB+ from BBB- with a “negative” outlook, indicating the agency could further reduce its rating. The move to cut Oman’s credit rating below investment-grade status “reflects our view that the Omani government’s heightened external financing needs have resulted in the economy’s large net external asset position, (external assets exceeding external liabilities) declining to a level […]
The yield on Chinese five-year government bonds hit its highest since 2014 on Friday, as tight liquidity and a regulatory crackdown on leveraged investment caused a rarely seen inversion of the yield curve. Bond yields, which move inversely to price, have been on the rise since last October as the People’s Bank of China moves to discourage the use of borrowed money for bond investment. The bond […]
Profits take a hit at Entertainment One. FT Opening Quote is your early Square Mile briefing. You can sign up for the full newsletter here. Efforts to strengthen Entertainment One’s film division will hit its full-year profits by almost £50m, the company announced today, after it renegotiated one of its main distribution agreements, writes FastFT. Entertainment One is best known for producing television programmes such as Peppa […]
While China growth has been slowing, and monetary conditions tightening, few (if any) have predicted any prolonged deflation (let alone a recession), yet overnight – for the first time ever – the $1.7 trillion Chinese bond market inverted, flashing a warning signal to the world that something is wrong. Early on Thursday, the five-year yield rose to 3.71%, breaking above the 10-year yield for the first time […]
For IT executives and professionals, adoption of Agile and DevOps approaches is a no-brainer — encouraging collaboration on software projects at all stages helps get projects out the door faster, with the blessings of the business. Everybody feels better about the deliverable. Photo: HubSpot However, it’s not clear how much value businesses are actually seeing out of such efforts. It’s not that DevOps and Agile are not […]
Adjustments to closely tracked corporate bond indices have “clear” trading and pricing impacts, a new study from credit rating agency Fitch showed on Thursday. The US rating agency found that changes to the Bloomberg Barclays US Aggregate Index earlier this year resulted in “dramatic increases” in trading volumes for bonds set to be dropped from the index and that prices for those bonds underperformed larger credits. Bloomberg […]
Moon Jae-in’s presidency of South Korea began with admirable pledges to handle an unpredictable and belligerent next-door neighbour, North Korea, and tackle economic problems. He will also tackle broader regional tensions, China’s outrage at the United States THAAD missile defence system in South Korea and rising fears over that same northern neighbour‘s nuclear programme. But one other challenge may be almost as crucial in determining the success […]
