Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. Imagine the reporters who must cover daily a bombastic New Yorker who has inherited a fortune, exudes a sense of entitlement, disdains much of the press, trafficks in half-truths, has overseen properties in huge disrepair, routinely overrules underlings, disdains public […]
Record sales of non-performing loans are expected in Europe this year with a more urgent approach from policymakers driving increased activity, according to Deloitte. As much as €200bn of debt could be sold during 2017, almost double last year’s total of just over €100bn of sales, said the professional services group, which advises banks and investors on NPL transactions. Europe’s banking sector is weighed down by more […]
Thursday 05.10 GMT Overview The dollar was on the back foot in afternoon Asia trading on Thursday as US Treasuries steadied and oil prices found their footing after dipping on news of growing US stockpiles. Hot topic The dollar index tracking the greenback against a basket of peers was off as much as 0.3 per cent, as a rally spurred by US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen’s […]
Joo Kim Tiah, the son of one of Malaysia’s wealthiest tycoons, sat on stage in the summer of 2013 as his new business partner announced their plans for a C$360m luxury condominium-hotel project on Vancouver’s most prestigious downtown thoroughfare. With characteristic salesmanship, Donald Trump bragged that the 63-storey glass tower on West Georgia Street would be “one of the great buildings, not only in Canada and the […]
The reflation trade is back, in earnest. On Wednesday, all-world stock indices traded at all-time highs for the first time since spring 2015. US 10-year bond yields rose back to 2.5 per cent. Bank stocks rallied, with Goldman Sachs at an all-time high for the first time in a decade. So did tech stocks — Apple is back at a record. All of this after a hawkish […]
Apologies for earlier error in title. Surging inflation, plunging real wages, jumping mortgage delinquencies, and record crude and gasoline inventories… then Trump drops the ‘t’ word and the market melts up… Intraday, March rate-hike odds hit 46%, seemingly surging off “off the table” levels before the week began… Record all-time highs across everything… It’s all banks all the time… The Dow topped 20,600 – […]
Wednesday 14:30 GMT Overview Global equities were on track to close at all-time highs as Wall Street hovers near record levels in the wake of comments from Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen. And Ms Yellen’s more hawkish than forecast rhetoric has been backed up on Wednesday by stronger than expected US retail sales and inflation data that are pushing up the dollar and bond yields, while leaving […]
The emirate of Abu Dhabi is in no rush to issue an international bond this year after completing a non-deal roadshow for investors in Asia, and may not issue at all this year, sources close to the matter said on Wednesday. Government representatives met Asian fixed income investors at the end of January, but “the non-deal roadshow was just that: a non-deal roadshow. They won’t issue this […]
Submitted by Don Quijones via WolfStreet.com, Spain’s three biggest banks, Banco Santander, BBVA and Caixa Bank, have got off to a flying start this year having issued €8.6 billion in new debt, seven times the amount they sold during the same period of last year. The last time they rolled out so much debt so quickly was in 2007, the year that Spain’s spectacular real estate bubble […]
As central bankers seek to wean markets off quantitative easing and exit the dangerous experiment of negative rates, they increasingly fret about the resilience of credit markets. How worried should they be? The US Treasury’s Office for Financial Research, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England have all issued warnings in their financial stability reports voicing concern over whether we might see fire sales that […]
When Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen testifies before a Senate committee on the state of the economy on Tuesday, there will be plenty tuning in who believe the epitaph for the three-decade rally in the bond market has been rightly written. US president Donald Trump’s plan to ramp up government spending and axe corporate taxes threatens to accelerate inflation, push up interest rates and widen the deficit […]
By Patricia Zengerle | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Benjamin Netanyahu’s first Trump-era Washington visit offers a chance to repair ties to Democrats that frayed during years of chilly relations under the Obama administration, but many party members said they do not expect much improvement given the Israeli prime minister’s close alignment with Republicans. “There’s a lot of mending of fences that has to happen between the Netanyahu government and […]
Janet Yellen continues to demonstrate that she is either profoundly ignorant or dishonest. Neither of those are positive qualities for a Fed Chair. Having maintained interest rates at essentially ZERO for seven years during the Obama years, Yellen suddenly believes it would be “unwise” to wait too long to raise rates now. It’s a bizarre claim, particularly when you consider: 1) The US economy is limping along […]
By Lucia Mutikani | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. producer prices recorded their largest gain in more than four years in January amid increases in the cost of energy products, but a strong dollar continued to keep underlying inflation at the factory gate tame. Rising raw material costs are boosting producer prices across the globe, notably in China, which is the biggest source of U.S. imports. But economists still […]
Winter is coming to Battlefield 1. Developer DICE released the patch notes of the “Winter Update” of its World War first-person shooter Battlefield 1. The game was launched on Oct. 21, 2016 to positive reviews, with most of the praises heaped on the game’s WWI theme and single player campaign. Electronic Arts published Battlefield 1 developed by DICE, a Swedish studio. The ‘Winter Update’ will be out […]
Greece is planning to appoint Rothschild to advise on its debts as the country attempts to end a long-running creditor stand-off and avert default. Government officials hope to finalise the appointment before a gathering of eurozone finance ministers on February 20 that has been described as the last chance for Greece’s lenders to overcome their differences before European attention shifts to general elections in eurozone countries. Unless […]
Submitted by Milton Ezrati via The Strategic Culture Foundation, Just about every adult on earth has seen this show before. Greece faces a debt repayment that it cannot meet: for this performance, €86 billion due in July. It needs fresh bailout funds from the European Union and/or the International Monetary Fund because borrowing directly on global capital markets comes at too high a cost—10 percent to replace […]
Researchers have entered the ‘Wild West’ of the periodic table to finally solve a decades-old scientific challenge — and have revealed that an important but niche chemical bonding principle may be much more widely applicable than previously thought. (via WSJ)
SYDNEY Asian shares inched to 19-month highs on Tuesday as the potential for economic stimulus in the United States underpinned the dollar, bond yields and Wall Street stocks. Yet caution bled into markets ahead of testimony by the head of the Federal Reserve, which could highlight the likelihood of two or more U.S. interest rate hikes this year. Japanese shares also ran into trouble after Toshiba Corp […]
Tuesday 04:40 GMT. Overview Equities in Asia were struggling ahead of comments by Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen and as oil prices climbed back from a drop spurred by a report indicating output from the US was set to pick up. Hot topic Stock markets in the region deteriorated in afternoon trading, with Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 flat after giving up an early gain of 0.4 per cent, […]
|By Matein Khalid| The US Dollar Index has now fallen 3.5% since it peaked on January 3. Donald Trump and his White House aides broke the 20 year taboo against speaking out against the “strong dollar” policy platitudes. The Federal Reserve did not raise interest rates and signaled no rate hike is imminent at the March FOMC. It is significant that the US dollar has fallen against […]
By Jamie McGeever | LONDON LONDON World stocks and bond yields rose on Monday, lifted by a re-emergence of so-called “Trump trades” as investors bet that the U.S. president’s tax reform plans will boost economic growth and corporate profits. Following on from Friday’s record high closes on Wall Street, Asian stocks rallied to 1-1/2-year peaks and European stocks rose for the fifth consecutive session on Monday, their […]
Submitted by Nick Kaman of Letters from Norway Introduction: Norwegians are just now starting to grapple with the effects of their “single cylinder” economy, mostly dependent on oil and gas (ca. 60% of exports). Despite optimism about $50-$70/barrel oil, American crude output is surging, on track to be the highest ever, since 1970, while cracks start to form in OPEC’s latest agreement. In addition to the oil […]
Monday 04:15 GMT Overview Equities climbed and the yen softened after Japan reported gross domestic product figures for the final quarter of 2016 that suggested any monetary policy settings will remain on hold for now. Hot topic Japan’s economy closed out 2016 with growth of 0.2 per cent in the fourth quarter, below estimates of 0.3 per cent despite a boost to exports from a weaker yen […]
