Picture it: rumours of a renminbi devaluation keep growing. Residents rush to open accounts offshore as experts warn Beijing will get off on the wrong foot with a relatively new US administration if a big depreciation happens. Official denials are made regularly — until a devaluation of about 50 per cent follows in short order. That was China in 1994. Today the idea of a similarly brutal, […]
December 6, 2016 by: Mark Wiedman and Richie Prager This is part of a series on the global rise of exchange traded funds How do you buy or sell bonds if the middleman is not there any more? As any bond investor will tell you, buying or selling bonds is harder and more costly than in long memory. Since the crisis, regulators have squeezed the investment bank […]
By Julia Love and Stephen Nellis | SAN FRANCISCO SAN FRANCISCO Apple Watch sales appear to have rebounded for the holidays from mid-year doldrums on a redesign, price cuts and strong promotions, but analysts say long-term demand has yet to be proven. The Watch is Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) first new product under Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and is seen as a barometer of whether the company […]
GAME TIME: On Sylwia, left, skirt, about Dh5,310; top, about Dh4,990, both from Salvatore Ferragamo. Necklace, Dh2,870, Loewe. On Barbara, right, dress, Dh17,220; cardigan, Dh16,360, both from Chanel GO BANANAS: Dress, Dh14,200; bag, Dh9,250, both from Louis Vuitton POWER PLAY: Top, price on request; skirt, Dh2,215, both from Sportmax. Bag, Dh5,315, Miu Miu FIELD DAY: Dress, about Dh2,975, Victoria Beckham. Bag, Dh6,500, Gucci. Boots, about Dh4,290, Stuart […]
Chesapeake Energy, the indebted US energy group that was among the pioneers of the country’s shale revolution, tapped debt markets for the first time in more than two years on Tuesday in a deal that underlined renewed appetite for oil and gas assets. The Oklahoma-based company, which defaulted on some of its obligations this year, secured $1bn in a larger than expected financing to repay as much […]
London’s FTSE 100 stands apart as the global laggard among major stock indices with investors giving it a wide berth almost a month since the election of Donald Trump. The performance reflects concern over Brexit negotiations hurting the shares of companies exposed to the UK economy while the pound’s recent rebound against the dollar and the euro offsets the boost for resource stocks from rising crude and […]
Wall Street climbed on Tuesday as telecom stalwarts AT&T and Verizon gained and bank shares added to their torrid post-election rally, helping the Dow set another record closing high. The S&P financial sector .SPSY rose nearly 1 percent, lifted by a 2.2 percent gain for Wells Fargo (WFC.N). The bank’s chief executive told an investor conference it will see a near-term profit hit because of the sharp […]
By Patricia Zengerle | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The U.S. failure to retaliate strongly for the 2014 cyber attack against Sony Pictures may have helped inspire Russian hackers who sought to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election, a senior congressional Democrat said on Tuesday. “Russia may have concluded that they could hack American institutions and there’d be no price to pay,” Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the […]
A man holds up his mobile phone showing a M-Pesa mobile money transaction page for the photographer at an open air market in Kibera in Kenya’s capital Nairobi (Reuters/Noor Khamis). This post features a conversation with Georgia Levenson Keohane, executive director of the Pershing Square Foundation, adjunct professor of social enterprise at Columbia Business School, and author of Capital and the Common Good: How Innovative Finance is […]
Hedge fund manager Pierre Andurand has returned almost 15 per cent this year by betting on a recovery in oil prices and he forecasts the rally has further to run after Opec’s agreement last week to cut supplies. The French founder of Andurand Capital, which has grown to be one of the world’s largest oil funds, returned 6.1 per cent in November as he positioned for crude’s […]
By Crispian Balmer | ROME ROME When former Italian president Giorgio Napolitano tapped Matteo Renzi as prime minister in February 2014, he urged his younger colleague to change the constitution in order to make it easier to govern Italy. Early this year, Napolitano fretted that Renzi was taking the wrong approach in doing so. A referendum on the constitutional changes had been called. But instead of focusing […]
By Angus McDowall , John Davison and Stephanie Nebehay | BEIRUT/GENEVA BEIRUT/GENEVA Syria’s army and allies closed in on areas near Aleppo’s Old City on Tuesday, looking closer than ever to achieving their most important victory of the five year civil war by driving rebels out of their last urban stronghold. Rebels said on Tuesday they would never abandon Aleppo, after reports that U.S. and Russian diplomats […]
The petrochemical sector helped carry Saudi Arabia’s stock market to a fresh one-year closing high on Tuesday after crude oil prices hit a 17-month peak. The main Saudi index added 0.7 percent to 7,155 points in extremely heavy turnover with gainers outnumbering losers 139 to 18. The index is now up 3.5 percent year-to-date. The petrochemical sector stayed strong; it has been contributing to the market’s positive […]
By Costas Pitas | LONDON LONDON When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Britain last year and went for a drink with then Prime Minister David Cameron, he walked away with a smile on his face. Now China has walked away with the pub. “The Plough at Cadsden” in the heart of the English countryside will go down as one of the more unusual UK buys for Chinese […]
If you set out to make a positive investment case for Italy 20 years ago, the best hope was to play down the myriad structural inefficiencies that blighted the corporate sector and argue that this was a good economy burdened by an unworkable state. Now, after years of no growth accompanied by stubbornly high public debt, a positive case looks even harder to make, especially after the […]
By Jonathan Cable | LONDON LONDON Britain will most likely leave the European Union having signed a bilateral trade agreement, according to a Reuters poll of economists on Tuesday that also suggested there remains little chance of the country slipping into recession. Since the June 23 decision to leave the EU, Britain’s economy has performed much better than had been previously feared. The Bank of England is […]
By Julia Love | SAN FRANCISCO SAN FRANCISCO Sales of the Apple Watch to consumers set a record during the first week of holiday shopping, and the current quarter is on track to be the best ever for the product, Apple Inc (AAPL.O) Chief Executive Tim Cook told Reuters. Responding to an email from Reuters, Cook said the gadget’s sell-through – a measure of how many units […]
ABU DHABI // As ties between Turkey and the UAE grow increasingly warm, Ankara’s new ambassador — formerly the most senior Middle East official in the Turkish foreign ministry — says his appointment shows his country is serious about improving bilateral ties. “That is my mission here,” Ambassador Can Dizdar, who began his tenure in October, told The National. “I want to increase the pace, and achieve […]
Pop superstar Mariah Carey will perform in the UAE next year as part of the Dubai Jazz Festival. The record-breaking American singer will headline the three-day event’s key Thursday night, at Dubai Media City Amphitheatre on February 23. One of the biggest stars in the history of popular music – and hailed as the best-selling female performer ever with record sales in excess of 200 million – […]
Microsoft HoloLens is finally heading to seven new countries in addition to the United States and Canada. As of Dec. 2, the device became available for preorder in Australia, Ireland, France, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Customers living in Japan can also avail of the preorder but they will have to wait a little longer since the device will ship in that location next month. Microsoft […]
Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com, When gold exploded to the upside earlier this year amid the biggest New Year’s stock market panic in history, we noted that the bull market had awoken. And despite arguments to the contrary from mainstream financial pundits that gold and silver were not monetary metals and nothing but historical relics, it became apparent during the Brexit vote that precious metals were the […]
HONG KONG Asian stocks opened higher on the back of a strong Wall Street with markets discounting the potential impact of Italy’s referendum vote, while U.S. Treasury yields firmed as robust economic data pointed to an interest rate hike next week. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS rose 0.4 percent in early trade with Antiopodean markets leading gains. Korea .KS11 climbed 1 percent in […]
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Monday he would name retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The following is a list of Republican Trump’s selections for top jobs in his administration. All the posts but that of national security adviser require Senate confirmation: DEFENCE SECRETARY: JAMES MATTIS Mattis is a retired Marine Corps general known for his tough talk, […]
The great American corporate buyback party was expected to fizzle out next year, leaving a hangover of debt and remorse. Instead, the boom may soon find renewed succour if US companies bring their pile of foreign-based cash back home. A tax holiday for US companies looms under president-elect Donald Trump, with some seeing this wave of cash as the catalyst of an investment boom and faster US […]
