Barclays Bank on Monday launched the first exchange traded fund in east Africa when it listed the Barclays NewGold ETF on the Nairobi stock exchange. The product is a cross-listing of the $1.4bn NewGold ETF that sits on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2004 and is also publicly traded on five other African markets. Its initial size in Kenya will be Ks500m ($4.8m) with capacity for expanding […]
A Beijing court has overturned a ruling that Apple’s iPhone 6 violated a patent owned by local manufacturer Shenzhen Baili, the South China Morning Post has reported. The Beijing Intellectual Property Office ruled last May that the tech giant violated design patents of the local device with its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and as a result was ordered to cease selling the smartphone in Beijing. […]
In July 2011 an unusual fascination had gripped some members of New York’s financial community. Walk into a Manhattan office expecting to discuss the US stock market with an investor who exclusively backed equity hedge funds, and they instead had Italian government debt on the brain. Selling short bonds of the eurozone’s third-largest economy had become so popular that non-debt specialists had started to notice, and rising […]
Monday 04:30 GMT Overview Dollar weakness weighed down Asia-Pacific equities while government bonds and gold gained as investors in the region sought havens in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s failure to repeal Obamacare. Hot topic The US dollar was lower against a variety of currencies in Asia as investors tempered expectations of pro-business reforms from the Trump administration after Republicans failed to unify around healthcare […]
Last week saw the largest drop in aggregate Treasury short positions since Brexit. Ironicaly, while bond bears felt the squeeze, traders piled into Eurodollar shorts (increased rate-hike bets) sending the short-end’s positioning to record highs. Across the entire Treasury bond futures complex, shorts covered over 200,000 10-year-equivalent contracts (around $20 billion notional), but as is clear below, the net short – while the smallest since December 2nd […]
By Tsvetelia Tsolova and Angel Krasimirov | SOFIA SOFIA Bulgarians were voting in a snap general election on Sunday, with the centre-right GERB party challenged for power by Socialists who say they will improve ties with Russia even if it means upsetting the country’s European Union partners. Many Bulgarians feel a strong cultural affinity for Russia, with which they share the Cyrillic script and Orthodox Christianity and […]
Like an old vinyl record with a well-worn groove, the needle skipping merrily back to the same track over and over again, we repeat: Today’s markets are dangerously overpriced. Being market fundamentalists who don’t believe it’s possible to simply print prosperity out of thin air, we’ve been deeply skeptical of the financial markets ever since the central banks began their highly interventionist policies. Since 2009, they have […]
BOAO, China The world’s major nations are responsible for maintaining global peace, and all countries should remain committed to a road of stable and peaceful development, China’s Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli said on Saturday. His comments followed media reports this week that North Korea was in the final stages of preparing for another nuclear test. Earlier this month, Pyongyang launched four ballistic missiles in response to joint […]
HONG KONG — Middle-class mainlander Laura Zhang found the idea of owning a home overseas irresistible after being bombarded by commercials for an affordable project “near Singapore”. The Forest City project in the southern Malaysian state of Johor, the subject of the advertisement, is being developed by Country Garden, China’s third-largest home builder. Ms Zhang said she was told that a flat in Forest City, the developer’s […]
March 24, 2017 by: Eric Platt in New York and Stephen Smith in London The US stock market closed lower on Friday as the Trump administration’s struggle in Congress to repeal Obamacare heightened concerns about its ability to drive through an economic agenda that had spurred equity valuations to fresh records. The S&P 500 ended down 0.1 per cent to 2,344 reversing a 0.4 per cent advance […]
By Farah Master and Venus Wu | HONG KONG HONG KONG As visitors sip champagne at Hong Kong’s Art Basel event this week and take selfies with replicas of deceased leaders Fidel Castro and Mao Zedong, a more urgent issue is rumbling through dealers exhibiting – how big an impact China’s capital controls will be in the coming year. Over the past six months, Chinese buyers have […]
Friday 06:00 GMT Overview Asian stock markets continued to recover after a midweek sell-off and as a highly anticipated vote on US healthcare reform was pushed back until later on Friday. European bourses are expected to open on the front foot, with spreadbetters predicting the UK’s FTSE 100 will add 8 points to 7,349 and Germany’s Dax to advance 20 points to 12,060. Hot topic Global markets […]
Federal investigators are looking at whether the $81 million stolen from a Bangladesh central bank account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York last year has links to North Korea. This is due to similarities in the code used in the online heist and in an earlier breach of Sony Pictures, according to two insiders quoted by Bloomberg and who asked to remain unidentified since the […]
The pound turned in the best performance among major currencies on Thursday, gearing up for next week’s Article 50 activation by rallying to its highest level for a month following buoyant retail data. Having momentarily regained the $1.25 level on Wednesday, sterling climbed a third of a per cent against the dollar after a 3.7 per cent rise in February retail sales, well above analysts’ forecasts. Sterling […]
Investors rushed to participate in Volkswagen’s return to European bond markets on Thursday, with the German carmaker’s first benchmark issue following the emissions scandal attracting huge demand. The €8bn euro-denominated bond attracted €24bn of orders by late afternoon, when books were closed ahead of final pricing. Bankers said the deal was launched with a spread 15 basis points tighter than initial indications. “There was a lot of […]
March 23, 2017 by: Peter Wells in Hong Kong Thursday 02.15 GMT Overview Asian markets were in a more subdued mood and making a tentative recovery from a midweek sell-off in which many global stock markets suffered their worst session since the US presidential election. A terror attack in London on Wednesday also kept investors in a cautious mood. Hot topic A jolt to global financial markets […]
The euro came close to its highest level against the dollar in almost four months on Wednesday, as investors waited nervously ahead of Donald Trump’s first key legislative test over the repeal of Obamacare. This week the euro has gained 0.8 per cent against the US currency, taking its rise this month to 2.6 per cent and leaving it worth $1.0825 late on Wednesday. Euro strength is, […]
If you have some cash to spare, then Mass Effect: Andromeda can offer you some nice perks. When the space shooter releases, people will find out that they can buy in-game items using real-world money. Very much like in other AAA multiplayer games like Overwatch and For Honor, microtransactions will appear in Andromeda to give players some quick boosts in multiplayer mode. Mass Effect: Andromeda is coming out March 21 on Xbox […]
Markets now and again behave in ways least expected, none more so than the resilience of emerging market currencies against the US dollar. Two of the main factors underpinning EM foreign exchange flows — globalisation and oil — are going the wrong way. Globalisation looks more vulnerable than ever following the G20 finance ministers’ meeting that pointedly failed to include the need to fight protectionism in its […]
Stock markets suffered their worst falls since the election of Donald Trump as Wall Street worries about the prospects for the US president’s pro-business agenda triggered a rush for financial havens. US markets led the declines, with the benchmark S&P 500 index tumbling 1.2 per cent and breaking a run of 109 trading days without a drop of 1 per cent or more. The Dow Jones Industrial […]
Stock markets suffered their worst falls since the election of Donald Trump as Wall Street worries about the prospects for the US president’s pro-business agenda triggered a rush for financial havens. US markets led the declines, with the benchmark S&P 500 index tumbling 1.2 per cent — and breaking a run of 109 trading days without a drop of 1 per cent or more. The Dow Jones […]
This image provided by Google shows a screen grab of a smartphone demonstrating the use of a new search feature by Google called Shortcuts. Shortcuts are a new row of icons that appear below the Google search box that can be tapped so people can see the latest weather in the area, movie times, suggestions on places to eat or scores of their latest teams without typing […]
Tuesday 18:30 GMT What you need to know ● Sell off in financials drives S&P 500 down 1 per cent● Euro climbs to $1.08 and dollar index slips below 100● 10-year Treasury yield at lowest since start of month● Oil prices come under renewed pressure● Gold heads for fifth daily rise in a row——————- Overview A sharp and sudden sell-off for US financial stocks helped put the […]
By Elisabeth O’Leary | EDINBURGH EDINBURGH While the economic case for Scottish independence once centred on oil, people like company director Niall McLean now argue that trade is the way to ensure their country’s future prosperity – and avoid the damage of the United Kingdom leaving the EU. Turning Scotland, which sells two thirds of its exports to the rest of Britain, into a heavyweight international trader […]
