Apple’s new MacBook Pro lineup adds something unique: a Touch Bar atop the keyboard that I believe is an important evolution of the laptop user experience. The first time I saw and played with the Touch Bar, the macros of yore popped into my mind. MacBook power users all know the value of creating macros to speed up a particular business process we may use […]
By Ingrid Melander | PARIS PARIS French President Francois Hollande said on Thursday he would not seek a second term in office in the presidential election in 2017, an unprecedented move that leaves the way open for other left-wing candidates. It is the first time in decades that an incumbent French president has not sought re-election. Hollande is the most unpopular president on record. “I am aware […]
By Matthew Mpoke Bigg | ACCRA ACCRA Ghana’s main opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo skipped the country’s only presidential debate on Wednesday, leaving the stage to President John Mahama and four other opponents a week before the election. Aides to the leader of the New Patriotic Party said he decided to stick to his prior campaign commitments, even though it meant missing the chance to present his message […]
By Andrew Callus | PARIS PARIS France’s centre-right rallied behind free market reformist Francois Fillon as its candidate for president on Monday after a snap opinion poll showed him clear favourite to beat far-right leader Marine Le Pen in an election showdown next year. Fillon, a former prime minister who vowed to change France’s “software” with an assault on public sector spending, moved one step closer to […]
Today we learn of yet another campus full of disaffected Hillary snowflakes who were triggered by a post-it note suggesting that they should stop whining about the election and just “suck it up, pussies.” This latest example comes to us from Edgewood College in the ultra-liberal bastion of Madison, Wisconsin via Campus Reform. Apparently the simple post-it note was determined to be a “hate crime” by the […]
Scientists have challenged traditional concepts of micro and macro worlds and demonstrated how ideal gas unexpectedly exhibits capillarity properties. (via WSJ)
While most global equity markets were subdued due to the US Thaksgiving holiday, the FX world was very busy overnight, marked by the relentless dollar surge on expectations of a rate hike not only in December but further in 2017, sending Asian currencies to the weakest level in 7 years: the Bloomberg-JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index reached 103.32, the lowest level since March 2009. The regional FX plunge […]
We have smartphones, wristbands, and of course, smartwatches that are able to read your heart rate. But how about a mouse? Mionix Naos QG, a gaming mouse developed in collaboration with Kickstarter and the Twitch community, is fitted with a Pixart PAH8001E1-2G heart rate sensor, as well as a Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) sensor to measure a player’s emotional state while playing video games. But how does […]
Mid-morning last Friday, as Tokyo’s foreign-exchange traders were contemplating lunch, the first pictures of Donald Trump meeting the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, flashed up. The yen bears loved it. Setting aside the gold-encrusted Babylonian decor of Trump Tower and forced bonhomie, conventional market wisdom before November 9 was that an image like this would send global investors everywhere screaming into haven, long yen positions. Forget an […]
Impala Asset Management, the $2.2bn hedge fund run by George Soros’s former chief investment officer, is benefiting from bets that an overhaul of America’s infrastructure and sustained demand from China will buoy appetite for commodities. Robert Bishop, who founded Impala in 2004, said they decided infrastructure would be a win whoever won the US election, but doubly so in the case of Donald Trump, a real estate […]
22 November 2016 Dubai – ICT spending in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) is forecast to total $243 billion in 2017, according to the latest insights presented today by International Data Corporation (IDC). Hosting its annual ‘IDC Predictions’ event at Dubai’s Burj Al Arab hotel, the global technology research and consulting services firm said it expects the region’s ICT market to grow 3.6% year on […]
The dollar’s post-US election surge has investors contemplating not whether they have overdone the rally but just how far the greenback can rise and how quickly it will get there. A series of currency landmarks, which not long ago investors thought too distant to worry about, have already been trampled by the dollar’s relentless march. The euro fell below $1.06, the yen weakened towards ¥111 against the […]
Boosting spending on infrastructure and improving education could relieve some of the burden on the US central bank to support the economy, a top policymaker said on Monday amid speculation that Congress could push through a fiscal expansion after years of budgetary restraint. Stanley Fischer, vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, said that the central bank did not need to be the only game in town and […]
A shift towards stimulative fiscal policy could help ease the burden on the Federal Reserve in supporting the US economy, the Fed’s vice president has said. Speaking in the wake of Donald Trump’s election to the White House, Stanley Fischer said productivity-enhancing government policy such as higher infrastructure spending would help “confront some of our longer-term economic challenges”. “Macroeconomic policy does not have to be confined to […]
Qatar could see an increase in interest rates next year as the central bank follows the US in its “gradual tightening cycle” in the coming months, according to new research. The QCB is likely to follow the US Federal Reserve in its strategy, hiking interest rates by 25 basis points (bps), or 0.25 percent, in 2017, BMI Research said. The expected increase will bring the policy rate […]
According to the researchers, a third pyramid was found within the Kukulkan pyramid in Mexico. The construction is approximately 33 feet, and it was found between other two structures that were formerly discovered. As the data suggests, the pyramid seems to have been built in three different phases, showing an entire perspective on the ancient civilization. In 2015, a team of archaeologists used electrical imaging to find […]
Since last week’s US elections, emerging market assets have been spooked by the possibility of higher US interest rates and greater trade protectionism. That this should result in sudden and broad-based losses for holders of all types of EM investments — including equities, local debt, external bonds and currencies — should not come as a great surprise. What is unusual, however, is for such large losses to […]
|By Matein Khalid| Donald Trump’s shock win will have a profound impact on the GCC economic constellation via multiple feedback loops. His economic policies mean a much higher US dollar, anathema to GCC economies since it correlates with stock/property market crashes, banking stress and oil slumps. This is the macroeconomic linkage due to the GCC US dollar peg whose lessons the region learnt the hard way in […]
London, 15 November 2016 Users of the Bloomberg Professional service can now access Oxford Business Group’s full range of research on emerging economies, following a distribution agreement between the two firms. Bloomberg, the global business and financial information and news leader, gives influential decision-makers a critical edge by connecting them to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas. The company’s strength – delivering data, news and […]
Donald Trump’s election victory heralds the beginning of a new era that will be marked by the retreat of globalisation and rising bond yields, according to Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio. Mr Dalio, the founder of the world’s biggest hedge fund group, said in a note on Tuesday that “there is a good chance that we are at one of those major reversals that last a decade”, similar to […]
There are few things like a bull market to turn an investor’s head. Just look at China. Having slumped almost 50 per cent from its peak last June to a low in early January, the benchmark CSI 300 Index is now up 20 per cent. The memory-erasing qualities of this year’s rally in Shanghai will soon be given a real test as a trading link between Hong […]
A global bond market rout intensified on Monday while the dollar strengthened as investors bet that US president-elect Donald Trump’s mix of economic stimulus and protectionism will herald faster growth and the return of inflation. Since Mr Trump’s surprise win in last week’s election, investors have begun to question long-held consensus forecasts for subdued inflation and mediocre growth that underpinned a rally in bonds over the summer. […]
November 14, 2016 by: Michael Hunter in London and Peter Wells in Hong Kong Monday 10.50 GMT. A conviction that a Donald Trump presidency will deliver higher inflation is dominating market sentiment, lifting world equity markets, energising the dollar and drawing investors out of government bond markets. Yields on Treasuries shot higher in Asian trading, a move that has been sustained in early London trading on Monday […]
On Wall Street the S&P 500 has surged to within touching distance of a record high, with the US equity market electrified by Donald Trump’s capture of the White House and the Republican party unexpectedly keeping control of Congress in Tuesday’s US election result. As an historic week ends, investors believe that a macro economic regime change looms, upending the policy mix that has dominated in Washington […]
