By Howard Schneider and Lindsay Dunsmuir | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates on Wednesday and signaled a faster pace of increases in 2017 as central bankers adapted to the incoming Trump administration’s promises of tax cuts, spending and deregulation. The increase in the federal funds rate to a range of between 0.50 percent and 0.75 percent was widely expected. But the prospect of […]
The EU’s border agency has accused charities operating in the Mediterranean of colluding with people smugglers, according to confidential reports seen by the Financial Times. The accusations from Frontex bring to the fore a long-simmering dispute between EU officials and non-governmental organisations over how to resolve a migration crisis that has caused the deaths of 4,700 people this year alone. Frontex put its concerns in a confidential […]
HELSINKI Finland said on Wednesday it would push the European Union to step up efforts to curb illegal migration by negotiating agreements with Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. European leaders are due at a summit on Thursday to discuss results from their recent migration compacts with five African countries – Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal and Ethiopia. In exchange for financial support, the EU requires those countries to impose […]
Dubai is working with HSBC on the financing of Expo 2020 Dubai, a $7 billion exhibition centre project expected to attract 25 million visitors, sources familiar with the matter said. The site will host Expo Dubai which will run from October 2020 to April 2021 and will be the first World Expo hosted in the Middle East, according to the Expo 2020 website. The project provides more […]
Long-term borrowing costs for lower-quality US investment-grade companies are nearing 5 per cent — the highest level in nine months — as investors anticipate rising inflation and higher growth, reversing from the six-decade low touched earlier this year. The average yield on the closely followed Moody’s Baa index has climbed to 4.9 per cent, the highest since March when the US credit market slowly recovered from a […]
Photo The coffins of victims from Sunday’s bombing of St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral after funeral services in Cairo on Monday. Credit Khaled Desouki/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images CAIRO — Egypt faced the prospect of a surge in sectarian bloodshed on Tuesday after the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bombing of a Coptic cathedral in Cairo that killed 25 people on Sunday. The group warned of […]
MARTIN VAN BEYNEN Last updated 17:36, December 14 2016 A Russian investor has been allowed to purchase a luxury New Zealand property after explaining his connection with the Panama Papers. Leonid Kiryakov, who owns a heating and air conditioning firm in Russia, has bought a $5m property with its own beach in Matakana, a wealthy seaside settlement north of Auckland. The transaction required approval by the Overseas Investment Office […]
Ambitions to turn London into a hub for the $70bn insurance-linked security market, one of its fastest growing sectors, face being scuppered by a slow moving regulatory approach. The government wants to introduce new rules that would make it possible to issue these ILS securities in the UK, but industry insiders say that the proposed timetable for approving them would make the new regime uncompetitive against established […]
When Liev Schreiber visited The Washington Post for a sitdown with Executive Editor Marty Baron, the veteran newsman tried to keep it quiet. Baron hadn’t told anybody the award-winning actor was there to talk with Baron before portraying him in “Spotlight.” But, since it’s a newspaper, word got out anyway. People streamed by Baron’s office, “including a woman who went by the first time with her hair […]
(Image: PBO) The equity put into the company responsible for deploying the National Broadband Network across Australia will result in an annual AU$2.1 billion drag on the federal government’s underlying cash balance by 2026-27, the Parliament Budget Office (PBO) has said. PBO said the cost was entirely due to interest payments on the securities issued by the government as part of its debt issuing practices. For 2015-16, […]
By Patricia Zengerle | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. Senate Democrats plan to enlist accountants and legal experts to pore through the business records of Exxon Mobil Chief Executive Rex Tillerson, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Democratic aides said. Tillerson could face a rocky confirmation process, given concerns among both Democrats and Republicans about his ties to Russia. If Tillerson can overcome the skepticism of Republicans, […]
The Waymo driverless car is displayed during a Google event, Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2016, in San Francisco. The self-driving car project that Google started seven years ago has grown into a company called Waymo. The new identity announced Tuesday marks another step in an effort to revolutionize the way people get around. Instead of driving themselves, people will be chauffeured in robot-controlled vehicles if Waymo, automakers and […]
Investors are making a record bet on global bank shares following the US election, according to a new survey of institutional money managers that also highlights the risks to the sector if Donald Trump fails to deliver faster economic growth. The allocation that investors made to bank stocks this month climbed to a weighting of 31 per cent above their benchmarks, up from 25 per cent in […]
Iran has told its scientists to start developing a nuclear propulsion system for shipping, in what it says is a response to the extension of US bilateral sanctions against Tehran. The US Senate voted this month to extend the president’s authority to impose financial sanctions on Iran for a further 10 years. The Islamic Republic regards the move as a breach of last year’s nuclear agreement between […]
Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, During my morning reading, I ran across an interesting article from Paul Lim via Time giving several reasons why the stock market will “rise for a ninth straight year.” “For ordinary Americans, 2017 is likely to feel like the best year economically since the Great Recession. The recovery is finally expected to trickle down to you in the form of […]
Low interest rates pose one of the biggest threats to the US economy and expose investors to the potential for heavy loses from a price shock across a range of markets, according to an independent arm of the US Treasury. The concerns are raised in the Office of Financial Research’s annual financial stability report to Congress, which concludes that threats to stability remain “in a medium range”. […]
Intuit’s TurboTax Online software is the bedrock of the company’s consumer tax product portfolio. During the 2016 tax season, Intuit sold 33.9 million TurboTax units, a growth of 12 percent from the previous year. But with Intuit’s latest move, the company is aiming to make TurboTax a year-round financial services product and ultimately a more steady source of corporate revenues. Specifically, the personal and small business financial […]
Almost 3,500 individuals and companies in the Panama Papers are probable matches for suspected criminals including terrorists, cybercriminals and cigarette smugglers, according to a document seen by the Guardian. The analysis, which was carried out by Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, sheds more light on the breadth of criminal behaviour facilitated by tax havens around the world. “The main point here is that we can link […]
Wall Street looked set to open higher on Tuesday, as investors keep a close watch of the Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting where it is widely expected to raise interest rates for the second time since the financial crisis. A hike of 25 basis points in the Fed’s target range of 0.25-0.50 percent is priced in, but investors will be examining the Fed’s statement and economic forecasts for […]
An untold number of Syrians trapped in an ever tightening patch of rebel territory in Aleppo are desperately seeking a way to safety as the opposition’s final foothold in a major city looked on the verge of collapse. The International Committee of the Red Cross called for all sides to urgently agree a deal to evacuate people as it warned that time was running out for trapped […]
Boeing Chinese hackers are targeting aviation systems in the quest for information and intellectual property which will boost the country’s competitiveness, security researchers say. Cyberattacks against the aviation industry are nothing new, but with the inclusion of Internet-capable devices at the basic level of embedded devices to in-flight Wi-Fi and connected aviation systems, there are more avenues than ever that threat actors can exploit. Successful attacks which […]
By Nigel Stephenson | LONDON LONDON Global shares edged up on Tuesday, helped by gains in banks after Italy’s largest lender unveiled a 13 billion euro share issue, while the dollar held steady before a Federal Reserve meeting expected to deliver higher interest rates. UniCredit launched Italy’s biggest share issue to clean up its balance sheet and boost profitability in the latest move to strengthen the Italian […]
Cronologics Google has acquired the team behind Cronologics, a company focused on the development of operating systems suitable for wearable devices. Started in 2014 by former Google business employees, the company hoped to one day create the go-to platform for smartwatches. With the introduction of Android Wear and Apple watchOS, this dream did not come to fruition, but there is still a future for the startup’s team. […]
Algebris Investments, a London-based asset manager, is seeking to raise €1bn for a second fund aimed at Italy’s non-performing loans as investors’ interest in what’s been the Achilles heel of the country’s banking sector intensifies. The launch by Algebris, which has $6bn in assets under management, comes amid increased focus by foreign investors on the potential of Italy’s pile of €360bn of problem loans, of which €200bn […]
