A Toshiba Corp logo displayed on one of its television sets is seen through a vehicle in Tokyo, Japan, November 26, 2015. Reuters/Toru Hanai/Files TOKYO Toshiba Corp, in a hurry to raise cash before closing its books for the business year that ended at the end of last month, was able to structure the sale of its medical equipment business to Canon Inc in an unorthodox way […]
BANGKOK After more than two years of riding high on growing demand for cloud data storage, Thailand’s hard disk drive exporters are bracing for a fall from grace. Data due later on Monday will likely show Thai exports of hard disk drives (HDDs) in March extended a run of double-digit growth after jumping 45 percent in the first two months of 2016 to $1.1 billion. The rise […]
UAE. JLL, the world’s leading real estate investment and advisory firm, today released its first quarter (Q1 2016) Dubai Real Estate Market Overview report, assessing the latest trends in the office, residential, retail and hotel sectors. In Q1 2016, it has been observed that most segments continue to soften across the Dubai market, but long term outlook still remains positive due to future growth drivers. Commenting on […]
UAE. The latest Global Economic Conditions Survey from ACCA and IMA, released today, found that more half of firms are either cutting or freezing employment, while only 14% are increasing investment in staff. Responding to the findings, Faye Chua, ACCA head of business focus said: “Take North America out of the equation and the economic picture painted by this survey isn’t a pretty one. Emerging markets are […]
Oil advanced to a five-month high as declining U.S. crude production provided more evidence that the market is rebalancing. Futures rose 1.3 percent in New York, bringing this week’s gains to 8.3 percent. U.S. crude output dropped a sixth week, while production in Colombia fell last month. Lower prices have curbed investment in new fields. Schlumberger Ltd. cut more jobs in the first quarter as the world’s largest […]
|By Dr Xiaoxi He, Technology Analyst, IDTechEx| Many interests have been raised within the battery business in 2015 through a number of activities: the launch of Tesla’s Powerwall with low prices supported by the capability of Gigafactory, Apple’s patent relating to charging and managing power in a device with solid-state batteries, LG Chem’s opening of a mega battery plant in Nanjing, Bosch’s purchase of polymer solid-state battery companySeeo, etc. Not to mention the tremendous number of investment, acquisitions, partnerships and joint ventures. At the same time, new battery technologies are appearing […]
Oil tumbled after output talks Sunday between the world’s biggest producers ended without an agreement, outweighing the supply impact of strikes that cut 60 percent of Kuwait’s output. Futures fell as much as 6.8 percent in New York. The summit in the Qatari capital faltered after Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations wouldn’t agree to a deal unless all OPEC members joined including Iran, which didn’t attend the […]
Saudi Arabia won’t restrain its oil production unless other producers, including Iran, agree to freeze output at a meeting this weekend in Doha, the kingdom’s deputy crown prince said. The world’s biggest crude exporter would cap its market share at about 10.3 million to 10.4 million barrels a day, if producers agree to the freeze, Prince Mohammed bin Salman said during an interview on Thursday at King […]
|By Matein Khalid| While the S&P500 fell only 1.2% last week, things will get uglier in April and May. Fed chair Yellen is playing with fire in talking down US interest rates and inflation risk. The Volatility Index (VIX), Wall Street’s barometer of greed and fear, does not capture the rising global financial and political risks at only 15. Market breadth, sector divergence, smart money flows, sentiment, leadership, […]
Top executives at the world’s largest oil-trading houses said the worst of the market’s woes are probably over, with some predicting prices will climb to $50 a barrel by next year. “The down market is behind us,” Torbjorn Tornqvist, chief executive officer of Gunvor Group Ltd., said on Tuesday at the FT Global Commodities Summit in Lausanne. “It is the beginning of the end of that for […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The cut in housing allowances implemented by companies in Abu Dhabi is creating further strain on the higher end of the emirate’s residential market, according to Cluttons Abu Dhabi Spring 2016 Property Market Outlook. This underscores the need to address the capital’s lack of affordable housing options, Cluttons said. Cluttons’ Abu Dhabi Spring 2016 Property Market Outlook report shows that the shrinking pool of […]
|Arabian Post Staff| Dubai Group, a member of the Dubai Holding, has hired Emirates NBD to help find a buyer for its stake in investment bank Shuaa Capital, Bloomberg reported quoting two people familiar with the matter. The sale process is at an early stage and may not result in a deal, Bloomberg quoted the sources as saying. But the sources were not identified as the talks are […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Diamonds are losing their allure and prices are dropping below the levels that prevailed a decade ago. And diamond’s loss is mostly the gain of vacations, fancy handbags and high-tech gadgets. Diamonds are now cheaper than they were in 2006, says a Bloomberg report quoting data from PolishedPrices.com. Over the same period, the price of luxury items like cars, shoes and fine foods […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The way gold is bought and sold in London, the world’s largest gold-trading hub, may finally give way to newer methods to ensure that the city retains its status as a major gold hub. Currently, more gold is sold and bought in New York and Shanghai than London. Reports suggest that the London Bullion Market Association and the World Gold Council are pursuing […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| SAMA’s foreign assets fell by US$9.4 billion in February, which is more than the combined US$1 billion drop in government deposits at SAMA and the US$5.3 billion domestic debt issuance, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch said in its latest review. This likely suggests persistent capital outflows for Saudi Arabia, it added February data suggests domestic liquidity continues to tighten as M3 growth dropped to […]
Russia’s oil output set a post-Soviet high in March as the success of a proposed crude production freeze between OPEC members and other major producers appeared to be in doubt. Russian production of crude and a light oil called condensate climbed 2.1 percent in March from a year earlier to 10.912 million barrels a day, according to the Energy Ministry’s CDU-TEK unit. That narrowly beat the previous high […]
India’s most reliable source of foreign funding is under threat. Remittances fell to $15.8 billion last quarter, the lowest since April-June 2011 and a 9.4 percent drop from a year earlier, as the global slowdown and slumping oil prices reduce demand for foreign workers. Indians working abroad — from construction laborers in Dubai to Silicon Valley engineers — send home the most money in the world, helping to pay for […]
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron will chair a meeting of ministers on Thursday morning as he weighs how to avoid the closure of an iconic steel plant in South Wales without making costly financial promises. Cameron called the meeting and Business Secretary Sajid Javid cut short a trip to Australia to address the crisis sparked by Tata Steel Ltd.’s decision late Tuesday to sell its plant in […]
|By Matein Khalid| “Stop the murder, stop the lies, out, out, you nest of spies!” So chanted the crowd outside South Africa House on Trafalgar Square in the autumnal mists of London circa 1988. The anti-apartheid struggle was the moral compass of my generation, from the Soweto riots to Steve Biko’s murder to the horrific “necklacings in the townships and killing fields of the Limpopo to Madiba’s release […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|The Dodsal Group, a Dubai-based business conglomerate currently operating in countries in MENA and East Africa region and India, has struck an expansive sweep of gas resources on its onshore concession, valued at $8 billion as per current market prices, the company announced. In July 2015, the Group had marked its first natural gas discovery in the country of 2.17 TCF in the Mambakofi […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Hedge funds which bet on Saudi riyal’s dollar peg are reported to have lost heavily as the price rebound in the oil has apparently removed all immediate possibilities of Saudi Arabia abandoning the currency’s peg with the dollar. Several US hedge funds are understood to be among the losers. According to Bloomberg, contracts used to speculate on the kingdom’s exchange rate in the […]
|By Lawrie Williams| As we come up to the Easter holiday and trading gets thin, the opportunities for traders to manipulate precious metals prices up or down become easier and for the moment, those who would like to see prices lower are in the ascendant. Whether gold goes into freefall and loses all its gains achieved so far this year is the big question on gold investors’ lips. […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|The impact of the massive decline in oil prices has finally reached the door steps of the banking industry and some banks have been affected more than the others. According to a new study by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the banking industry in the GCC grew at a lower rate in 2015 than it did in 2014 with just a 7.2 percent increase, […]
|By Matein Khalid| I was surprised by the dovishness of the Federal Reserve’s FOMC policy statement last week given the white hot US labour market and metrics of wage inflation. Hence the $29 rally in gold, the plunge in the Volatility Index to 15, the fall in the US dollar and the surge in oil/mining shares. The Yellen Fed is still worried about deflation risk in China, Europe […]
