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 […]
Steve Garey, who retired from the Anacortes refinery in 2015 after almost 25 years and served as president of the United Steelworkers local, said that while some positive changes were made after the 2010 accident, upper management at Tesoro remains “contemptuous” of its work force and is “hiding behind incredibly permissive process safety regulations.” Those regulations grew out of a string of catastrophic events in the 1980s, […]
Commercial banks in Qatar will see their profitability fall under continued pressure in the coming years as deposit growth slows and interest rates drop, new research shows. A report by BMI Research, part of Fitch Group, states: “In the first 10 months of 2016, the average interest rate on government securities stood at 2.65 percent, well below the average of 5.96 percent that banks demand on private […]
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 […]
By Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Ron Bousso | COPENHAGEN/LONDON COPENHAGEN/LONDON Talks between shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk (MAERSKb.CO) and DONG Energy (DENERG.CO) to merge their oil and gas business have stalled after the two Danish firms could not agree on a price, industry and banking sources said on Wednesday. The breakdown in talks aimed at creating a joint company worth more than $10 billion may open the door for […]
Saudi Arabia’s 2017 state budget is likely to show Riyadh has shrunk a huge deficit caused by cheap oil faster than expected, which may let it spend more to bolster a shaky economy This year was one of the most painful for the Saudi economy in decades. Growth slowed sharply and speculators bet against the Saudi currency as the government fought to curb a deficit that totalled […]
December 14, 2016 by: Robin Harding in Tokyo Optimism at Japanese companies is on the rise for the first time in 18 months after Donald Trump’s election as US president breathed new life into the country’s drive to escape deflation. The Bank of Japan’s closely watched tankan index for large manufacturers rose from +6 to +10 in December, the first increase since the second quarter of 2015, […]
In a massive (in a literal sense, printing at 25 pages and over 8,000 words as there is little new information revealed in the piece itself) expose issued by the NYT tited “The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S.” and meant to piggyback on the WaPo’s recent reporting and solidify the left-leaning media’s case that Hillary lost the election, the New York Times try to […]
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has advised the Minister for Communications Mitch Fifield that an allocation limit be placed on the upcoming April auction of remaining 700MHz spectrum. In advice released by the Department of Communications on Wednesday, the ACCC recommended the minister limit each mobile carrier to no more than two 20MHz spectrum blocks in the 700MHz band. “Given Telstra currently holds over 50 […]
The emirate of Abu Dhabi reintroduced a 5 percent cap on annual rent increases on Tuesday in an effort to protect tenants from unjustified hikes, after abolishing the cap three years ago. After 18 months of relatively stable conditions, real estate prices showed signs of declining in the three months to June 30 as low oil prices slowed Abu Dhabi’s economy, consultancy JLL said in July. “Rents […]
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”. […]
The Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) is reportedly planning to install pre-paid electricity meters for new subscribers. Company spokesman Abdullah Al Rakaf said the move was part of wider plans to cut electricity consumption, according to Saudi Gazette. Installing pre-paid meters in customers’ homes will enable them to control their electricity consumption by re-charging the meter according to monthly needs. SEC will be publishing a statement setting out […]
Russia’s rouble has cemented its position as the best-performing currency of the past three months, enjoying the benefits of a strong oil price at a time when the US appears to be tilting towards a more accommodating relationship with Vladimir Putin. A 2.3 per cent rise in the rouble’s value against the dollar on Monday was followed by a further half per cent gain during Tuesday trading. […]
Photo Families that fled violence in the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood of Aleppo on Tuesday arriving in the Fardous area, where shooting was also reported. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images GENEVA — Pro-government forces retaking the eastern neighborhoods of the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo killed at least 82 civilians on Monday, the United Nations estimated, in what one official called “a complete meltdown of humanity.” Zeid […]
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 […]
Just hours before the November 30 Vienna OPEC meeting, whose outcome sent the price of oil soaring, Gartman had a recommendation: “we are short of crude oil from yesterday; we’ll have stops on those positions on a closing basis this afternoon here in the States, with the intention of adding to those short positions once the OPEC meeting is behind us.” Oops: following the same day’s 6% […]
Demand for oil will outstrip supply in the next six months as long as Opec and countries outside the cartel can implement a deal signed over the weekend to lower output, according to one of the world’s leading energy forecasters. The International Energy Agency said the planned production cuts, which add up to 1.8m barrels a day, could reduce stockpiles by as much as 600,000 b/d over […]
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 […]
Bubbly home prices in London’s most exclusive neighborhoods continue to deflate and have just recorded their largest December decline since the “great recession” in 2010. According to Bloomberg, asking prices in London dropped 4.3% in December with inner London down 6%. Meanwhile, the most exclusive neighborhoods, like Kensinton and Chelsea, have recorded even sharper declines at nearly 10% as home buyers have migrated to cheaper areas of […]
By the late 1970s, a decade after horrific riots, the Pistons had fallen on hard competitive times, along with the city, and out they went to a charmless football dome in distant Pontiac, Mich., and later to the basketball-specific Palace of Auburn Hills. A team in a sport played increasingly by young black men fled the city while hockey’s white-as-ice Red Wings stored their gloves and sticks […]
Michael Moritz – chairman of Sequoia Capital and one of the most successful venture capitalists in history – says a simple vision led him to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in on-demand delivery startups. “The movement of goods and services and people, by easier, more convenient means,” he said in an interview. “That’s a huge trend, enabled by smartphones.” Led by Sequoia and another blue-chip Silicon […]
Legendary crooner Tom Jones will headline the opening night of next year’s Dubai Jazz Festival. The announcement comes after the British star was forced to pull out of a planned show at Abu Dhabi’s du Arena in April, following the sudden loss of his wife of 59 years, Melinda Rose Woodward, to cancer. Jones will see in a landmark 15th anniversary of the three-night festival, when he […]
