When the Nasdaq Composite index first spent two days above the 5,000 mark, it signalled the last gasp of a spectacular bull market. Confidence in internet companies’ power to change the world and mint fortunes was about to collapse. Seventeen years later the market has hit a milestone of 6,000, part of a run of record highs for global equity markets. While stocks have again been rising […]
Alphabet/Google announced first quarter financial results that beat Wall Street estimates. But the jump in revenues hides a large problem that hasn’t been solved. From Matthew Lynley at Techcrunch The Google core business is, as usual, quite boringly efficient. We tend to see the same story every quarter – the value of each ad (cost-per-click) goes down while the number of ad impressions goes up, and Google […]
North Korea tested a ballistic missile on Saturday morning local time, in a provocative move that came just hours after Rex Tillerson, US secretary of state, called on UN member states to impose “painful” sanctions on the regime in Pyongyang. US Pacific Command, which oversees US forces in Asia, said North Korea launched a missile at 5.03am local time on Saturday from a location near Pukchang airfield, […]
Photo Army soldiers carried the remains of Army Sgt. Joshua Rodgers on Friday. Sgt. Rodgers and Sgt. Cameron Thomas were killed in Afghanistan during a raid on Wednesday. Credit Cliff Owen/Associated Press WASHINGTON — Two American soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan during a raid Wednesday night may have been struck by so-called friendly fire, the Pentagon said. The Defense Department identified the soldiers as Army Rangers, […]
Nobody should ever attempt to judge an investment over a period of just 100 days. It is far too short a time to assess the quality of performance and far too prone to random effects. And in any case, most of us need results over very much more than 100 days. It is therefore a little random to be judging the Trump presidency’s impact on investors after […]
NEW YORK Stocks edged lower on Wall Street on Friday after data showing the U.S. economy grew at its weakest pace in three years in the first quarter gave traders a reason to cash in recent gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 40.82 points, or 0.19 percent, to 20,940.51, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 4.58 points, or 0.19 percent, to 2,384.19 and the Nasdaq Composite […]
After a dismal fourth quarter, it seems that Europe’s investment banks have got some of their swagger back. Switzerland’s UBS grew investment bank profits by more than 50 per cent in the first quarter, even though it is hard to imagine a recovery less well-suited to the Swiss bank which is short on the US exposure and the markets businesses that have driven the strong results of peers. Credit Suisse […]
Microsoft’s latest Fast Ring PC Insider build brings back a feature that the company cut from the Creators Update: My People. Windows 10 Build 16184 for PCs, which Microsoft released to testers on April 28, includes this feature which makes it easier to communicate with selected contacts. My People allows users to pin specific people (current limit is three) to the taskbar; view multiple communication apps together; […]
Our round-up of the best comment and analysis from the Financial Times during the week focuses on US corporate earnings, eurozone interest rates and the future of US economic reforms. The selection is taken from our Markets Insight and Smart Money columns, written by industry contributors and FT commentators. The FT’s John Authers says US corporate earnings have reached a turning point — the earnings recession that […]
The US economy expanded at its weakest pace in three years during the opening months of the year, underlining the daunting task facing Donald Trump’s administration as it seeks to attain ambitious growth targets. Gross domestic product grew at a 0.7 per cent annual rate in the first three months of 2017, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, a sharp drop from 2.1 per cent at […]
‘Demagogic’ populism does not help cause of peace. The pope invoked Egypt’s “glorious history” as an ancient cradle of civilization to argue on Friday that the delivery of a more peaceful future required a new civility that appreciated differences, resisted the violent path of close-minded absolutism and condemned extremists who camouflage terror in religious language. Continue reading the main story “An education in respectful openness and sincere […]
New day, new leak. A US online pet store has exposed the details of more than 110,400 credit cards used to make purchases through its website, researchers have found. In a stunning show of poor security, the Austin, TX-based company FuturePets.com exposed its entire customer database, including names, postal and email addresses, phone numbers, credit card information, and plain-text passwords. Several customers that we reached out to […]
Violence erupted in Macedonia’s parliament as tensions between ethnic Albanian minorities and nationalists boiled over, prompting sharp rebukes from Western governments. Protesters supportive of the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party, as well as individuals clad in identity-concealing hoods, stormed parliament on Thursday night local time, violently accosting at least lawmakers and journalists. Police say the violence left 102 inside and outside parliament injured. Parliament had just managed to break […]
I’m a PC gamer who hasn’t owned a home video game console in five years. I don’t mention that to obnoxiously flex my PC Master Race muscles or look down upon filthy console peasants. Instead, it’s to highlight how thoroughly done I am with those generic black boxes that sit in entertainment centers and simply…exist. I may not be the most hardcore PC gamer, but […]
By Lucia Mutikani | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The U.S. economy likely hit a soft patch in the first quarter as an unseasonably warm winter and rising inflation weighed on consumer spending, in a potential setback to President Donald Trump’s promise to boost growth. Reduced business investment in inventories and government spending cuts also crimped gross domestic product growth. A Reuters survey of economists conducted last week forecast GDP […]
Deutsche Bank said on Friday that it had appointed Citigroup treasurer James von Moltke as its new chief financial officer. Germany’s biggest lender has been looking for a new finance director since it announced last month that Marcus Schenck would take on a new dual role as co-head of the investment bank and joint deputy chief executive. Citi declined to comment on the news, which was first […]
Emerging market equities have been the darling asset class de jour in 2017, mainly in Asia and Latin America, despite the March FOMC rate hike, a US Dollar Index at or above 100 and a mini-swoon in crude oil after a Saudi-Russian output cut spat. Earnings growth (India/Thailand) a stabilized currency (China), policy reforms (India, Brazil, Indonesia) local interest rate cuts (Brazil) and lower US protectionist policies […]
Distribution agreement boosts Eikon’s robust research offering with economic sovereign reports London, 28 April 2017 – Users of Thomson Reuters flagship financial platform Eikon can now access Oxford Business Group’s full range of research on emerging economies, following a distribution agreement between the two firms, giving financial professionals instant access to OBG’s extensive range of reports and economic updates. OBG content is available through Eikon’s real-time and […]
File Photo The head of Uber’s self-driving car project is stepping away from the leadership role as a lawsuit embroiling Uber and his former employer Waymo relating to the theft of trade secrets continues. Anthony Levandowski is a talented engineer who is believed to have been a key player in former Google unit Waymo’s success in developing the technology. While working in Google’s Street View maps unit […]
Short-term borrowing costs in China have climbed to their highest level in two years as comments from President Xi Jinping fan investor expectations that a “regulatory windstorm” is part of a broader crackdown on the financial sector. China’s premier on Thursday described finance as the “core of a modern economy”, according to state news agency Xinhua, adding that “accurate judgment of potential financial risks serves as a […]
Barclays has reported a doubling of underlying quarterly profits, excluding a big hit for selling its African unit, as its chief executive sought to shift attention away from a row over his treatment of a whistleblower. Jes Staley, who is being investigated by British and American regulators for trying to discover the identity of a whistleblower, said: “We are now just two months away from completing the […]
That small drama points to the bigger issue confronting Francis as he lands in Cairo against a backdrop of swirling anxiety and turmoil. Christians across the Middle East are under intense pressure. After years of persecution by Islamist militants, half of Iraq’s Christian population has fled, and a lonely beach in Libya was the setting for the 2015 beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians in orange jumpsuits. Continue […]
An early player in drone-tech, 3D Robotics Inc., announced that it has raised $53 million in a Series D round of funding on Thursday, including new equity funding and conversion of debt equity. Atlantic Bridge led the round joined by Autodesk Forge Fund, True Ventures, Foundry Group, Mayfield and other undisclosed investors, according to the company statement. The company didn’t break out how much new capital it saw […]
Putting a turbo engine into an old car gives it an entirely new life — suddenly it can go further, faster. That same idea is now being applied to neuroscience, with a software wrapper that can be used on existing neuron tracing algorithms to boost their ability to handle not just big, but enormous sets of data. The wrapper is called UltraTracer. (via WSJ)
