|By Matein Khalid| When I first started on a Treasury bond futures trading desk in New York fresh out of Wharton, a senior mentor once advised to keep track of the four heartbeats of gold finance in real time. The price of money (interest rates), the price of currency (the US dollar), the price of oil and the price of gold. The price of money can be […]
|By Matein Khalid| Dubai based Gulf Islamic Investments (GII) acquired a one million square foot Amazon logistics center in Dortmund, Germany for $144 million. This deal is a testament to the boutique global merchant bank created in Dubai by GII’s co-founder/CEO Pankaj Gupta, who I am honored to call a friend. I consciously model my own firm Asas Capial on the strategic path laid out by GII and […]
By Saifur Rahman Dubai Government expects its Dh376.8 billion (US$102.67 billion) economy to grow at 3.5 per cent in 2018, slightly lower than the UAE economic growth, pegged at 3.9 per cent, according to a news release issued by the Department of Economic Development (DED), the government’s trade licensing body. The country has just implemented a 5 per cent Value-Added Tax (VAT) from January 1, 2018, expects […]
|By Matein Khalid|The rise in Brent crude to $60 a barrel and the trade volume ballast generated by the world’s first post Lehman synchronized economic recovery is hugely positive for UAE economic growth in 2018. After all, the UAE is unique because Abu Dhabi’s 100 billion barrels of proven oil reserves is complemented by Dubai’s role as the Gulf’s financial, logistics, aviation, shopping and services hub. The […]
|By Matein Khalid|I am often asked by investors to articulate my “philosophy” of real estate investing. Tough question. My ideal deal is one where it is possible to buy brick and mortar assets at 60 – 70% of replacement cost. This usually occurs in the aftermath of a banking crisis or economic shock. This was the case in Florida homes in 2009 or Spanish office space in […]
|By Matein Khalid|Emaar Properties will sell 20% of its UAE development portfolio in an initial public offering in November. This is the first IPO in the UAE capital markets in the last three years and follows bellwether offerings such as Emaar Malls and Emaar Misr. Emaar’s Dubai development’s adjusted net value is 24.1 UAE dirhams and I would not be surprised if the post IPO revalues the […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| EFS Facilities Services, a regional leader in delivering integrated facilities management services across the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, announced that the company has sustained its growth momentum by securing contracts worth AED 1 Billion across its operating regions. The company was awarded key contracts in its biggest markets i.e. UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and Egypt, for both public and private sector clients […]
|By Matein Khalid| Trump’s post Charlottesville remarks, the Barcelona terrorist attacks and Cisco’s results unnerved the US stock market bulls last week. Friday was a surreal moment in the history of Wall Street. It was entirely rational for traders on the New York Stock Exchange floor to cheers and the Dow Jones Index rise 150 points when news broke that Trump had fired his alt-right, white nationalist chief strategist […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Senaat, the industrial investment holding company managing the assets of the Abu Dhabi government, announced marginally lower revenue and profits for 2016. The Group claimed a solid performance by operating companies, reflecting the resilience of its business model. Revenues of AED 13.4 billion (2015: AED 14.0 billion) were marginally lower compared to the previous year and total EBITDA also declined slightly to AED 1.8 […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Gold plunged after trading volume hit 1.8 million ounces in just one minute and gold traders were shaken by the plunge, Bloomberg reported. Gold traders shaken awake by Monday’s rapid price plunge said the move probably won’t mean an end to the sleepy pace that’s characterized the market in recent months. Bullion sank at 9 a.m. in London on Monday after a huge spike […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Consumer confidence in the UAE remained uncertain in 2016 resulting in the Dubai retail market experiencing further softening in Q1 2017, according to a latest report by Knight Frank. “Well-established malls with higher footfall continue to maintain healthy occupancy rates; however the delivery of additional retail supply is expected to put pressure on overall occupancy rates. UAE shopping malls are also expected to […]
|By Matein Khalid| The financial markets finally cottoned on the increasingly sordid political realities created by the Trump White House. Trump could well be impeached for obstruction of justice if he tried to pressure FBI Director James Comey to drop an investigation on disgraced General Michael Flynn’s contacts with Russian intelligence before the election. The appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the scandal means Washington is […]
PARIS France said on Thursday it was reviewing its position on the Libyan conflict and for the first time openly called for a united national army that included eastern militia commander Khalifa Haftar to battle Islamist militants. In the previous government, the Foreign Ministry openly supported the U.N.-backed Libyan government of Prime Minister Fayez Seraj, while the Defence Ministry worked closely with Haftar, who has waged a […]
By Jamie McGeever | LONDON LONDON The turmoil in Washington surrounding Donald Trump’s presidency is rattling world markets, and the burst of volatility could force investors into a strategic or tactical rethink of how much risk they are happy to face. Increasingly damaging revelations about the Trump administration’s and election team’s dealings with Russia triggered the biggest fall on Wall Street on Wednesday since last September and […]
By Robin Emmott | BRUSSELS BRUSSELS France and Germany are resisting a plan by U.S. officials for NATO to take a bigger role in the fight against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, in line with calls from President Donald Trump for the alliance to do more to combat terrorism. Many alliance members hope the plan will be announced in Brussels next Thursday, when Trump attends his […]
China has agreed to increase its import quota for Cambodian rice to 300,000 tonnes by next year, Prime Minister Hun Sen announced yesterday following his return from Beijing where he attended the Belt and Road initiative summit. In a post to his official facebook page, Hun Sen detailed a conversation he had with Chinese president Xi Jinping, who said China would increase its imports of Cambodian rice […]
Investors have accelerated their buying of European financial assets in the wake of Emmanuel Macron winning the French presidency, but a top executive at one of the world’s biggest asset managers cautions that the region’s stock markets aren’t as cheap as they appear. European equity funds enjoyed their strongest week of inflows on record last week — pushing the EuroFirst 300 index up 3.7 per cent this […]
The Internet Society has been closely monitoring the ransomware cyber-attacks that have been occurring over the last couple of days. The malware, which has gone by multiple names, including WannaCry, WannaDecryptor, and WannaCrypt, exploits a flaw in Microsoft Windows that was first reportedly discovered by the National Security Agency (NSA). A group of hackers leaked the code for exploiting this vulnerability earlier this year, and a fix […]
PARIS France’s new Prime Minister Edouard Philippe took the job offered to him by President Emmanuel Macron because the country is in a “unique situation”, he said on Monday hours after his appointment was announced. “I told myself that the situation we were in was so unique that we should try something that had never been tried before,” he said on TF1 television. He also reaffirmed Macron’s […]
French president Emmanuel Macron has appointed Edouard Philippe, a little-known centre-right politician, as his prime minister in an attempt to build a majority in parliament for his year-old centrist party. Mr Macron’s poaching of Mr Philippe to lead his government was announced on the new president’s first full day in office. Less than a month before legislative elections, it is a new blow to the conservative Republican […]
France has today announced a 31-year government bond, in a sign of further market optimism after the victory of Emmanuel Macron in the recent presidential election. The debt, which is expected to price later this week, had been previously planned as part of the country’s funding programme for the year. The timing of the syndicated deal comes just over a week after Mr Macron’s victory in the […]
German stocks hit a new high on Monday morning, as higher commodity prices boost stocks across Europe. The Dax climbed as much as 0.48 per cent to 12831, with energy group RWE the biggest gainer despite reporting an 18 per cent drop in first quarter profits. German stocks have been some of the biggest beneficiaries of renewed investor desire for European assets, after Emmanuel Macron’s victory in […]
While equity volatility has collapsed to record lows (amid the biggest increase in net VIX shorts in 9 months), positioning across bond, FX, money market, and commodity markets has been shifting massively in recent weeks. As US Macro data has crashed to its weakest and most negative in 12 months… US equity complacency has hit record lows… As Speculators add to VIX shorts by the […]
By Michel Rose and Jean-Baptiste Vey | PARIS PARIS Emmanuel Macron took power as president of France on Sunday, vowing to restore the country’s status in Europe and the world and heal divisions in society — a nod to the bitter campaign the pro-EU centrist fought to defeat a far-right leader. The 39-year-old former investment banker, unknown to the wider public three years ago and whose May […]
