The US energy industry has morphed from 2016’s big winner to the bottom of the heap this year in a slide that has accelerated as oil prices fell on Thursday to the lowest level since November. Energy stocks listed on the S&P 500 index dropped 1.9 per cent on Thursday. The fall brings the sector’s decline this year to 12.1 per cent, the biggest drop of the […]
We’ve known for years that a key protocol that allows global cellular networks to communicate with each other had vulnerabilities — and nobody really took it that seriously. Hackers and politicians alike have been warning for years that these flaws in the calling and text message routing system, known as Signaling System 7 (SS7), can be used to intercept and redirect calls and text messages, allowing hackers […]
President Donald Trump’s most recent executive order is probably most noteworthy for what it doesn’t do, so we’ll start there. In February, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets reported that a draft executive order on religious freedom, sweeping in scope, was circulating in the administration. It would have forced the federal government to “accommodate” […] (via WSJ)
Authored by 720Global’s Michael Lebowitz via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, “History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums” – Alan Greenspan The ability to see beyond the observable and the probable is the most important and under-appreciated characteristic of successful investors. For example, visualize a single domino standing upright. With this limited perspective, one can establish what the domino is doing in the […]
A nation’s future depends on its young people, Noura Al Kaabi told a forum in Riyadh on Thursday. The Minister of State for Federal National Council Affairs spoke at Unesco’s International Forum of NGOs about the importance of investing in youth for the country’s future. “Investing in young citizens is a wise insurance policy for a better, brighter tomorrow,” she said. “The youth are not only the […]
RIO DE JANEIRO Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras still has a lot of work to do to root out corruption, a top federal prosecutor said on Thursday. Prosecutor Carlos Lima made the statement during a press conference detailing the Thursday arrests of executives who allegedly used a government amnesty program for foreign assets to bring in money paid to them by construction firms as bribes in return […]
US Treasuries came under pressure across the curve on Thursday, following a round of solid economic data and indications that the Federal Reserve is willing to look past the slowdown in economic growth at the start of this year. The 10-year yield was up 0.043 percentage point (4.3 basis points) at 2.363 per cent. Meanwhile, the policy-sensitive two-year yield ticked up 2.81 bps to 1.322 per cent. […]
Wall Street opened slightly higher on Thursday, led by banks, after the Federal Reserve expressed confidence in the strength of the economy. However, gains were limited by a fall in technology and energy stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 25.49 points, or 0.12 percent, to 20,983.39. The S&P 500 gained 3.14 points, or 0.13 percent, to 2,391.27 and the Nasdaq Composite added 6.60 points, or 0.11 […]
11:00 am Suppose we could be brave, Bryce, and go with a pic of Jeffery Lacker as our portrait for today 11:01 am Well, he stepped down from the Richmond Fed after fessing up to helping a colleague at a sister publication — Medley — on a story 11:02 am 11:03 am I could give you a rival’s analysis of the story 11:03 am It’s not the […]
Still, the Iraqi forces face hundreds of militants who appear determined to fight to the end in neighborhoods still teeming with hungry and increasingly desperate civilians. Continue reading the main story The new operation will also require careful synchronization among the Iraqi Army, Interior Ministry troops and the Counterterrorism Service, which report to different authorities in Baghdad and sometimes seem to be fighting separate wars. Tensions among […]
BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq Iraq’s armed forces opened a new front against Islamic State in Mosul on Thursday, advancing on the militants’ enclave from the northwest, a military commander told Reuters. The army’s 9th Armoured Division and the Rapid Response units of the Interior Ministry were headed towards the city, he said. The attack would help the elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) and Interior Ministry Federal Police troops who were painstakingly […]
By Nichola Saminather | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Asian stocks retreated on Thursday, taking their cues from a subdued session on Wall Street, while the dollar retained gains made after the Federal Reserve delivered a hawkish policy statement. At the end of its two-day meeting, the Fed kept its benchmark interest rate steady as expected, but downplayed weak first-quarter economic growth and emphasized the strength of the labor market, […]
Sign up to receive FirstFT by email here The Federal Reserve said it believed the recent slowdown in US growth was likely to prove temporary as it stayed on course for a further increase in short-term interest rates as soon as June. The US central bank kept its target range for the federal funds rate at 0.75 per cent to 1 per cent following its latest two-day meeting. In […]
By Brendan Pierson | NEW YORK NEW YORK A former Guinea government minister was convicted on Wednesday of laundering $8.5 million in bribes that U.S. prosecutors say he took in exchange for helping a Chinese conglomerate secure mining rights. Jurors in federal court in Manhattan convicted Mahmoud Thiam, 50, of one count of money laundering and one count of engaging in transactions in property with a criminal […]
By Lindsay Dunsmuir and Jason Lange | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The U.S. Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged on Wednesday and downplayed weak first-quarter economic growth while emphasizing the strength of the labor market, in a sign it was still on track for two more rate rises this year. In a bullish statement following the end of a two-day policy meeting, the central bank also said consumer spending […]
By Richard Cowan | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a $1.2 trillion spending bill to fund the government through September and avoid federal agency shutdowns on Saturday when existing money is depleted. With the 309-118 vote in the Republican-controlled chamber, the legislation now goes to the Senate, which is expected to pass it before a midnight Friday deadline. The Pentagon is a […]
Great news for our investigative journalism: The Webby Awards today named the Center for Public Integrity a finalist for best political news blog or website in the nation. The Webby Awards presents two honors in every category — a winner selected by judges and a winner selected by online voters. If you agree the Center for Public Integrity deserves honors for our political coverage, vote for us […]
The US dollar and Treasury yields held on to their gains after the Federal Reserve said the first-quarter growth slowdown is probably “transitory,” potentially setting the stage for a rate rise this summer. The buck was recently up by 0.4 per cent against the Japanese yen, near the highs of the day. Meanwhile, the euro was off by 0.17 per cent against the greenback, close to session […]
By Bryn Stole | BATON ROUGE, La. BATON ROUGE, La. U.S. Justice Department officials were expected to announce on Wednesday that they will not bring federal charges against two white officers in the fatal shooting of a black man in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, last summer, according to news media reports. The shooting of Alton Sterling, 37, was one of a series of high-profile killings of black men […]
By Nick Carey and Joseph White | DETROIT DETROIT Automotive supplier Delphi Automotive Plc (DLPH.N) on Wednesday said it plans to spin off operations tied to internal combustion engines and focus on technology for electrically powered and self-driving vehicles, boosting its share price and highlighting the challenges for legacy auto industry players. Vehicles driven by humans and powered with petroleum will dominate roads from Shanghai to San […]
By David Morgan and Richard Cowan | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President Donald Trump and his aides courted moderate Republican lawmakers on Wednesday on a proposal to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system as the White House struggled to avoid another embarrassing defeat on a top legislative priority. As White House aides prepared for meetings and phone calls to persuade skeptical lawmakers on the healthcare bill, Republican House of Representatives […]
The Australian Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) has revealed that consumer complaints about delays in being connected to the National Broadband Network (NBN) have dropped over the first two quarters of the 2016-17 financial year. Complaints about NBN connection delays dropped from 1,669 complaints in the fourth quarter of 2015-16 to 1,545 in the first quarter of FY17, and then further down to 1,539 in the second quarter […]
Vocus Communications has revised its guidance for the 2017 financial year, with revenue down by AU$100 million, underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) down by between AU$65 million and AU$75 million, and net profit down by AU$45 million to AU$50 million. According to a presentation delivered by Vocus CEO Geoff Horth on Wednesday, underlying EBITDA is now expected to be between AU$365 million and […]
BRASILIA Brazilian authorities on Tuesday lowered the toll of people injured in a recent bloody clash between farmers and an indigenous tribe over land, and said no one had their hands cut off as reported earlier by a rights group. The government of Maranhao state, where the violence occurred on Sunday, said seven people were taken to hospital and only three remain hospitalized, including a man who […]
