|By Matein Khalid| A month ago, I published a column predicting history’s first Made in China global recession. Wall Street finally agreed with me last week after we witnessed the most brutal crash in global equities since October 2008. I have predicated a 20% fall in US equities several times in the last three months and the 1000 point drop in the Dow last week only reinforces […]
Autodesk Inc (ADSK.O), the maker of computer-aided design (CAD) software, reported lower-than-expected quarterly revenue as its licensing revenue declined because of the company’s shift to a cloud-based subscription model. Shares of Autodesk, which also cut its current-year profit forecast for the second time, fell 5.5 percent to $47.24 in after-market trading on Thursday. The company forecast an adjusted profit of 60-72 cents per share for the year […]
Middle East By TIM ARANGO August 27, 2015 BAGHDAD — In a further setback to the faltering American and Iraqi campaign to retake Anbar Province from the Islamic State, two Iraqi generals were killed in a suicide attack by the group Thursday morning outside Ramadi, the provincial capital. Two explosives-rigged American-made Humvees, presumably seized on the battlefield from the Iraqi Army some time in the past year, exploded near […]
Middle East Beirut Journal A man sifted through garbage piled in Beirut, Lebanon, on Monday. By ANNE BARNARD August 27, 2015 BEIRUT, Lebanon — Mohammad Rizk sat glumly in his sandwich shop on Wednesday, waiting for customers. The scent of roasting chicken mingled with the fumes of a trash pile just outside. The garbage heap, which seemed to have taken on a life of its own, now dominated the […]
Angry Birds products are displayed during a news conference in Hong Kong July 3, 2012. Reuters/Bobby Yip/Files HELSINKI Finland’s Rovio, maker of mobile phone game Angry Birds, forecast its earnings would fall for a third consecutive year and said it planned to slash up to 39 percent of its workforce to try to improve its prospects. Rovio has failed to create new hit games since the 2009 […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Islamic State militants have razed a fifth-century Roman Catholic monastery and blown up one of the best-preserved first-century temples in Palmyra, the ancient Syrian city that is one of the world’s most important archaeological sites, according to government officials and local activists. And that was just this past week — in one Syrian province. Much like the grinding slaughter of human beings, the ravaging […]
Open Source By ROBERT MACKEY Lebanese officials might still be struggling to solve the trash crisis engulfing Beirut, but they seemed to acknowledge on Tuesday that blocking themselves off from protesters enraged by the stench behind a high concrete wall was not helping. The wall, a row of concrete slabs installed on Monday outside the office of Prime Minister Tammam Salam, was dismantled on Tuesday, but not […]
UAE. The continuation of low energy prices is impacting both optimism and risk appetite in the Middle East, according to Deloitte’s latest report “Global CFO Signals: CFO Sentiment Q2 2015 – Staying focused; remaining vigilant”. With oil at US$53 a barrel at the time of the survey, CFO optimism fell to one of its lowest levels in recent years, with only a net 26% across the Middle East […]
UAE. Business confidence in the Middle East continued to fall in the second quarter of 2015, but not as quickly as it had in the first three months of the year, according to the to the Global Economic Conditions Survey (GECS) organised by ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and IMA (the Institute of Management Accountants). The slight optimism was due to a temporary reprieve in […]
|By Matein Khalid| Geopolitics is now another source of risk for the Turkish lira, government debt and Istanbul equities. The Turkish air force is bombing Daish in Syria and the secessionist Kurdish PKK party in northern Iraq. Suicide bombings have killed Turkish citizens in eastern Anatolian cities on the Syrian border. Ankara has given the US a green light to launch military airstrikes from the Incerlik air […]
Customers stand beneath an Apple logo at the Apple store in Grand Central station in New York City, July 21, 2015. Reuters/Mike Segar DETROIT/SAN FRANCISCO Consumer electronics company Apple Inc (AAPL.O) has hired a senior engineer from electric car maker Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA.O), according to a LinkedIn posting, as part of Apple’s effort to build a team of experts in automated driving. A LinkedIn profile for […]
FRANKFURT Smartphone apps that help people learn languages for free or nearly free, a few sentences at a time, are piling pressure on established education firms and setting the pace for how to make lessons more engaging. Phone and tablet-based mobile products from newcomers like Germany’s Babbel, Britain’s Memrise and U.S.-based Duolingo have overtaken names like Berlitz and computer self-learning pioneer Rosetta Stone (RST.N) in terms of […]
DUBAI // Drivers are sharing cars, using public transport and even moving house in response to this month’s increase in petrol prices, a survey suggests. Nearly one in five would consider car pooling or using school buses, and nearly a quarter would use public transport more often. One in five intend to reduce their commute by moving to a home closer to work or to public transport […]
The recent action taken by the UAE to eliminate fuel subsidies has rekindled the debate on tax reform in the GCC, with the focus on domestic implementation of a broad-based Value Added Tax (VAT) on goods and services. While countries are facing an increasing amount of pressure on their national budgets, every GCC government understands the urgent need for fiscal-sustainability, added the report “VAT in the GCC […]
UAE. The recent action taken by the UAE to eliminate fuel subsidies with effect from 1 August 2015 ignited the debate on tax reform in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Whilst these countries are facing an increasing amount of pressure on their national budgets, every GCC government understands the urgent need for fiscal-sustainability in the long-term. This urgency, according to Deloitte’s latest report “VAT in the […]
UAE. After a decade of finding bargains in real estate markets against the backdrop of a secular weak US Dollar, as well as a regime of declining interest rates, foreign investors in the last year have faced the prospect of sharply higher housing prices in Dubai, as their nations’ currencies have fallen against the US dollar. In times of a weak dollar market, real estate prices have […]
China’s Lenovo Group will lay off 10 per cent of white-collar staff after sales of Motorola handsets fell by a third, raising doubts over the personal computer giant’s bet that a money-losing brand it bought for nearly $3 billion will help it become a global smartphone leader. Shares in the world’s biggest maker of PCs slid nearly 9 per cent on Thursday after it said its quarterly […]
Oman Telecommunications (Omantel) reported a 15.5 per cent fall in second-quarter net profit on Thursday. The former monopoly made a net profit of OR26.7 million ($69.35 million) in the three months to June 30, down from OR31.6 million rials in the year-earlier period, according to Reuters calculations based on Omantel’s earnings statement. It had reported rising profits in six of the preceding seven quarters. EFG Hermes and […]
KUWAIT. On Aug. 14, 2015, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services affirmed its ‘AA/A-1+’ long- and short-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on Kuwait. The outlook is stable. RATIONALEPrices for crude oil have fallen by around 50% in the last year. We now forecast an average Brent oil price of $55/bbl in 2015 and $67.5/bbl in 2015-2018. The sharp fall in oil prices over the past […]
INTERNATIONAL. In the last quarter of 2014, in the face of possible oversupply, Saudi Arabia abandoned its traditional role as the global oil market’s swing producer and therefore it role as unofficial guarantor of existing ($100+ per barrel) prices. In October, Saudi sources first prepared the market with statements that the country would be comfortable with oil prices as low as $80 per barrel for “a year […]
Saudi Arabia has long enjoyed the status of being the top crude oil exporter in the world. With record production of 10.564 million barrels per day in June 2015, Saudi Arabia has been one of the major driving forces behind the current oil price slump. The Saudis have kept their production levels high since last year in order to drive other players (especially U.S. shale drillers) out […]
QADIYA, Iraq — In the moments before he raped the 12-year-old girl, the Islamic State fighter took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a sin. Because the preteen girl practiced a religion other than Islam, the Quran not only gave him the right to rape her — it condoned and encouraged it, he insisted. He bound her hands and gagged […]
Mascots dressed as characters from the mobile video game ”Candy Crush Saga” pose outside the New York Stock Exchange March 26, 2014. Reuters/Brendan McDermid King Digital Entertainment Plc (KING.N), the creator of Candy Crush Saga, reported a 28 percent drop in quarterly profit as monthly unique users fell slightly and a strong dollar dented sales from outside the United States. The company’s shares slipped 8.2 percent in […]
