By Jonathan Stempel | NEW YORK NEW YORK Former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine defended his big bet on European sovereign debt that was a major factor in the collapse of his company MF Global Holdings Ltd, and said the auditor of the futures and commodities brokerage should have flagged any accounting problems. Corzine, also a former New Jersey senator and Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) co-chairman, […]
Thursday 14:30 GMT Overview The euro is firmer and Bund yields are trundling higher with Treasuries after the European Central Bank stood pat on interest rates and indicated it was not looking to ease policy further. Oil prices tried to rally but have resumed their sell-off, putting energy stocks under pressure and weighing on equity benchmarks. Hot topic (1) After a period when politicians seemed to rule […]
A new urgency is gripping financial markets. Talk of a Federal Reserve rate increase next week is no longer the main conversation, with interest rate futures now pricing it as a near certainty. How quickly the Fed moves after March is now the hot topic. US jobs growth has been the catalyst. A survey by ADP revealed on Wednesday that 298,000 private sector jobs were created in […]
|By Matein Khalid| Janet Yellen confirmed the Wall Street consensus that the Federal Reserve will raise its overnight borrowing (Fed Funds) rate at the March FOMC. Wage growth, inflation, crude oil, asset prices, economic data momentum and Trump’s fiscal stimulus all reinforce the dual mandate logic of a rate hike. Only a really awful February non-farm payroll shock (consensus is 200,000 jobs) will avert a rate hike […]
By Jonathan Barrett and Aaron Bunch | SYDNEY SYDNEY Notices in several languages emblazoned with the symbol of the skull and crossbones caution against the risk of being swept off the rocks at Maroubra Beach in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. But the warnings were not enough to prevent Nepali university students Shristi Bhandari, 23, and Sudeep Uprety, 26, from walking beside an ocean pool towards a rocky ledge […]
We have just lived through the most spectacular global bullmarket run for the fixed income markets. This bull market rallied the bond market tothe lowest yields ever! Over a third ofall global fixed income was trading with a negative yield. The most accommodative central bank policiesmade heroes out of bond fund managers. Bond investors that stayed fullyinvested with fingers crossed, hoping for the greater fool theory to […]
While many have blamed today’s spike in yields for the broader underperformance of the REIT sector, which sent the Bloomberg North American REIT index down 1.4%, its biggest one-day drop since December in a widespread selloff across all property sectors with 194 of the 214 stocks in the index lower today, it’s more than just the jump in rates that is slamming the rate-sensitive sector. While longs […]
Here are the big questions set to frame a new trading week for markets. How frothy are equity and junk bond valuations looking?Another record-breaking week for equities and a red hot reception for the Snap initial public offering is not the only sign of investor optimism running wild. Junk bond spreads — the premium investors demand to hold the bonds over Treasury yields — are heading towards […]
By Saikat Chatterjee | HONG KONG HONG KONG Asian stocks edged lower on Wednesday after a strong start to the week due to profit-taking as investors lacked conviction to buy risky assets before a U.S. policy meeting next week that may see interest rates rising for the second time in three months. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan eased 0.1 percent in early trade, a […]
A buoyant stock market and improving US economic growth have given the Federal Reserve cover to lift interest rates three times this year, including when it meets in less than a fortnight, a Financial Times survey of top economists has found. About three-quarters of the 43 economists surveyed in March said the Fed would increase interest rates by 75 basis points in 2017, a capitulation from months […]
By Jennifer Ablan | NEW YORK NEW YORK Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive officer at DoubleLine Capital, said on Tuesday he expects the Federal Reserve to begin a campaign this month of “old school” sequential interest rate hikes until “something breaks,” such as a U.S. recession. Gundlach, who oversees more than $101 billion at Los Angeles-based DoubleLine, said U.S. economic data support a rate increase as soon as […]
Banks have structured some unusual and complex deals for European companies to raise capital through a combination of debt and equity derivatives in recent weeks, reflecting investor enthusiasm for convertible securities. Last week BASF launched a $600m bond bundled with warrants, in a so-called neutral structure which effectively makes the chemicals group a middleman between its investors and its banks. The deal, put together by Deutsche Bank, […]
Few institutions embodied the eurozone crisis more clearly than Bankia, the Spanish lender which was bailed out in 2012. Yet you would have been hard pressed to see any signs of that as the lender tapped debt markets this month. The bond sale by Bankia, still majority owned by the Spanish government, attracted almost €5bn in orders for the €500m of debt it sold. Its “tier 2” […]
A healthy and active sex life could be behind a happy and productive worker. Sex And Work Findings of a new study which involved 159 married employees surveyed everyday over a two-week period revealed that those who had sex tend to engage themselves in their tasks at work and more likely to enjoy their job the next day. Based on the study’s findings, researcher Keith Leavitt, from […]
Tuesday 02:00 GMT Overview Markets were in wait-and-see mode in Asia trading with investors in Australia awaiting an interest rates decision from the country’s central bank. Hot topic Tokyo’s Topix index was flat, while the Nikkei 225 index was off 0.1 per cent. Nintendo was a bright spot with its shares climbing just over 2 per cent, on track for a third straight day of gains following […]
Monday 21:56 GMT Overview Global equities sold off on Monday, encouraging flows into sovereign debt, after Asian markets were rattled by North Korea firing missiles into the Sea of Japan and the Federal Reserve’s interest rate meeting drew nearer. US President Donald Trump’s latest spat with the country’s security services may also be damping the mood somewhat as markets continue to price in a rate rise by […]
Via Michael Shedlock of MishTalk.com, A quick perusal of Target2 Balances for January shows capital flight from Italy and Spain to Germany intensified again. German target2 imbalances exceed levels hit in the Eurozone crises in 2012. Things improved considerably after ECB president Mario Draghi made his famous statement “Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, […]
Bloomberg is fighting to keep the bond house Pimco as a customer on its platform to buy and sell Treasuries, as the advance of automated trading reshapes the $14tn US government debt market. Pimco, one of the most influential debt investors with almost $1.5tn of assets under management, is working on a tie-up with rival trading venue Tradeweb, according to people with knowledge of the discussions, escalating […]
For an organisation to succeed, there’s no room for petty fighting between marketing and tech. Image: Przemyslaw Koch, Getty Images/iStockphoto Long gone are the days when the CIO alone was responsible for buying technology in a business. Just as likely now is that the marketing chiefs will be expected to procure and use digital tools to build brands and boost customer experiences. So how can CIOs and […]
By Balazs Koranyi | FRANKFURT FRANKFURT Two of the world’s biggest central banks are likely to find themselves with a bigger policy gap by the end of the coming fortnight The European Central Bank on Thursday will resist calls to start tightening policy against surging inflation but robust U.S. jobs data on Friday could seal the case for another Federal Reserve hike the week after. So, let’s […]
– Issuance is a Call to Kuwaiti Corporates to take Advantage of Sukuk for Financing Projects – 7-Fold Oversubscription evidence for EQUATE’s robust position, Sukuk Importance 05 March 2017 Kuwait – Chief Executive Officer -KFH Capital, affiliated to Kuwait Finance House Group, Abdulaziz Nasser Al-Marzouq said that KFH Capital acted as a global coordinator and book runner for EQUATE SUKUK SPC Limited’s (“EQUATE SPC”) in […]
China’s banking system has surpassed the eurozone’s to become the world’s largest by assets, a sign both of the country’s increased influence in world finance and its reliance on debt to drive growth since the global financial crisis. While China’s gross domestic product surpassed the EU’s economic bloc in 2011 at market exchange rates, its banking system did not take over the top spot until the end […]
China has lowered its annual economic growth target to “around” 6.5 per cent, as Beijing plans to focus on risk control in the final year of President Xi Jinping’s first term. The figure, down from the government’s target growth range of 6.5 to 7 per cent for 2016, was revealed on Sunday morning by Premier Li Keqiang in his annual “work report” to China’s parliament, the National […]
Standard Life is in late-stage discussions to acquire Aberdeen Asset Management in an all-stock deal that would create the UK’s largest money manager with £660bn of assets and be worth around £11bn. The companies confirmed the talks on Saturday evening in a joint statement that said a deal would “leverage Standard Life and Aberdeen’s combined strengths to create a world class investment company”. They added that Standard Life […]
