Industry eyes opportunity to reinvest at higher yields and leave low rate era behind ©Noam Galai/WireImage/Getty Donald Trump may be just what the global insurance industry needs. Shares in several of the sector’s largest companies have outperformed the market strongly since the US election, on hopes that a prolonged squeeze on their returns is finally drawing to a close. Years of ultra-low rates have eaten away at […]
TOKYO Oil prices tumbled on Monday on fears that producer countries may fail to agree an output cut, pressuring U.S. stocks and the dollar as traders reversed their “Trumpflation” trade as weak oil prices would reduce pressure on U.S. interest rates to rise. That gave some relief to Asian shares, which had underperformed on worries about capital flight to higher-yielding U.S markets in the weeks since Donald […]
In these volatile times, gold is more important than ever. Bonner & Partners’ Bill Bonner explains in this two-part series, the importance of ‘real money’ and why you need it now… Many years ago, before the invention of modern money or capitalism, people still had wealth – although limited. And they still had ways of keeping track of it. The principle of “fair trade” seems to be […]
By Henning Gloystein | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Oil prices fell over 1 percent on Monday, extending declines from last Friday as doubts re-emerged over the ability of major producers to cut output at a planned meeting on Wednesday aimed at reining in global oversupply. Brent crude futures LCOc1 were trading at $46.40 per barrel at 0035 GMT (7.35 a.m. ET), down 84 cents, or 1.8 percent, from their […]
It was not just the manner in which Rosberg succeeded, and his generosity in praising his teammate, but also the contrasting style with which Hamilton lost the title, that defined this final duel of the 2016 season. Continue reading the main story With just 12 points between them before the race, and Rosberg leading the series, Hamilton, who started from the pole position — with Rosberg starting […]
By Tom Westbrook | SYDNEY SYDNEY The ability of Australian telecoms company Telstra Corporation (TLS.AX) to offset the fall in its traditional revenue streams by diversifying into a range of technology and other businesses is in doubt. So far, Telstra’s funding of 44 startups since 2013, the A$235 million ($175 million) spent acquiring 18 health-related companies, the purchase of more than 30 companies by its venture-capital division, […]
Chinese electronics company Xiaomi witnessed a clear decline in its smartphone profit lately. The company, however, is not afraid of the drop, as it announced it derives its profits from other products aside from smartphones. Furthermore, company executives believe that the regression in its smartphone trade would have no significant negative impact to the company. Despite experiencing a fallback in terms of revenue as of late, Xiaomi […]
Farmers in India are enjoying a privilege denied to the rest of their countrymen–permission to use old 500-rupee currency notes to buy seed. Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this month announced the replacement of high-denomination bank notes worth 500 rupees ($7.33) and 1,000 rupees ($14.66), to get rid of corruption, eliminate counterfeit money and make people pay taxes. The move has led to a cash shortage, with […]
November 27, 2016 by: Kiran Stacey in New Delhi and David Keohane in Mumbai Indian banks will have to deposit as cash all the extra money they have been given as a result of demonetisation with the Reserve Bank of India, the central bank announced this weekend. The RBI made its sudden move after the country’s banks, flush with cash, went on a bond-buying spree, bringing down […]
By Gina Cherelus An Atlanta man shot and killed his brother while on a hunting trip in South Carolina after mistaking him for an animal, media reported. Brian Pickle, 30, and his brother Scott Pickle, also from Atlanta, were with their father in a heavily wooded area, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution said. Scott’s age was not given. Union County Sheriff David Taylor told the newspaper […]
By Edward Taylor and Jan Schwartz | FRANKFURT/HAMBURG FRANKFURT/HAMBURG Just as Porsche and Audi have fought for supremacy on the race track, the Volkswagen brands are now locked in a cut-throat battle to develop and manufacture the next generation of electric cars at a group embroiled in the “Dieselgate” scandal. Volkswagen Group denies that the kind of internal rivalry that it encouraged at the Le Mans 24 […]
Hotel demand will outpace supply by 2020, according to STR’s client relationships director Sarah Duignan. She made the pronouncement at the Accommodating growth in the Middle East presentation at the Hotelier Express Summit 2016, held on November 23 in Dubai. Duignan said Middle East hotels’ revenue per available room (RevPAR) levels had peaked in October 2009 at AED1,300 ($353.9) and today current average rates over the last […]
When Ioan Gornic suddenly starts blasting out 1990s dance hit “No Limits”, the assembled group of about 20 European factory managers shift nervously in their seats and try to avoid eye contact. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to sing,” says the Shenzhen-based general manager for Zobele, an Italian maker of air freshener and insect repellent. “I just want to make the point that the only limits are […]
AMSTERDAM Royal Dutch Shell expects to pump out all the fossil fuel reserves listed on its balance sheet, its chief executive said, dismissing concerns that production limits in the wake of the Paris climate accord could hit the energy giant’s valuation. In an interview with Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad, Ben van Beurden said the issue of “stranded” reserves – deposits in the ground that cannot be […]
KUWAIT CITY: Kuwaitis turned out in large numbers Saturday for the first election contested by the opposition in nearly four years amid fresh disputes over cuts in subsidies due to falling oil revenues.Turnout was high with some polling stations reporting that 80 percent of eligible voters had cast their ballots by the time polls closed at 8 p.m. (1700 GMT), according to Kuwait Television. Vote counting started […]
With violence escalating in Aleppo and elsewhere across war-ravaged Syria, the United Nations said Saturday that the number of children trapped in besieged areas had doubled in less than a year to half a million. A report by Unicef, the United Nations Children’s Fund, said the children were among hundreds of thousands of civilians in 16 areas under siege across the country who had been “almost completely […]
Sales and traffic at U.S. brick-and-mortar stores on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday declined from last year, as stores offered discounts well beyond the weekend and more customers shopped online. Internet sales rose in the double digits on both days, surpassing $3 billion for the first time on Black Friday, according to data released on Saturday. Data from analytics firm RetailNext showed net sales at brick-and-mortar stores […]
By Alexandra Ulmer | CARACAS CARACAS Venezuela’s ruling socialists mourned former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, while opposition hardliners exulted over the death of a man they call a dictator who helped wreck the economy and whose country has for years got an easy ride with subsidized oil. The two leftist Latin American governments became intimate allies under Castro and his younger disciple, the late Venezuelan leader Hugo […]
Photo Residents of the Tahir district of Mosul, which had been liberated from the Islamic State a few hours before, on Nov. 16. Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times CHICAGO — The ancient Assyrians considered the Tigris River the division between East and West, and the city I come from in Iraq is called Mosul — connection point, in Arabic — because it connects these […]
By Noel Randewich | SAN FRANCISCO SAN FRANCISCO Wall Street expects consumers to open their wallets a little wider this holiday shopping season but bargains among red-hot retail stocks could be hard to find, especially as profit growth proves elusive for many big names. Retailers, including Best Buy, Kohls Corp and Macy’s, that were pummeled in last year’s disappointing holiday quarter have seen their shares surge recently […]
ABU DHABI // Soul survivor Lionel Richie took centre stage at Du Arena Saturday night to serve up a satisfying set of golden oldies. Following the fast-paced dance-pop of Pitbull and the ominous beats of The Chemical Brothers at the preceding concerts, Richie’s slot in the Yasalam After-Race Concert Series offered a throwback to pop’s purer times. The sense of anticipation was high among fans queueing up […]
By Supriyo Hazra | KOLKATA, India KOLKATA, India An overpass under construction in the bustling Indian city of Kolkata collapsed on Thursday on to vehicles and street vendors below, killing at least 14 people with more than 100 people feared trapped. Residents used their bare hands to try to rescue people pinned under a 100-metre (110-yard) length of metal and cement that snapped off at one end […]
By Vladimir Soldatkin and Diego Oré | MOSCOW/CARACAS MOSCOW/CARACAS World leaders paid tribute on Saturday to Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolutionary leader who built a communist state on the doorstep of the United States, but in death just as in life he divided opinion, and critics labelled him a “tyrant”. Castro died on Friday aged 90, his younger brother and successor Raul Castro announced on state television. […]
He seized power audaciously in 1959 and commanded to the last a powerful personal following inside and outside Cuba. But during more than half a century in office Fidel Castro, who has died at the age of 90, metamorphosed from a popular and charismatic guerrilla leader into a traditional caudillo, an autocratic holdover from another age. At his life’s end, although bolstered by the emergence of a […]
