Vodafone redials its Indian impairment numbers. FT Opening Quote, with commentary by Matthew Vincent, is your early Square Mile briefing. You can sign up for the full newsletter here. Hailing from the country that gave India cricket, Victorian railway architecture and a penchant for bureaucracy, Vodafone might have expected a little goodwill on the subcontinent. Instead, India has given the British mobile phone operator a price war, […]
There is much going against South Korea right now, including an anaemic economy, a series of failures in the country’s shipbuilding sector, Chinese boycotts and North Korean belligerence. And yet the country’s stock market keeps hitting records. The Kospi, the Korea’s main equities benchmark, set a record high last week and is up 13 per cent in the year to date, making it one of Asia’s best-performing major markets of 2017. […]
Rolls-Royce lagged behind a London market rally on Monday that lifted the FTSE 100 to a fresh record high. Rolls was under pressure after Investec questioned whether management can hit a target of delivering more than £1bn in free cash flow by 2020. The cost of developing a new engine for Boeing could be “a material headwind” to that goal, the broker warned. Boeing is reportedly finalising […]
U.S. stocks opened higher on Monday as a rise in oil prices boosted energy stocks, soothing some nerves following a massive cyber attack that locked up 200,000 computers in more than 150 countries. Oil hit a three-week high after top exporters Saudi Arabia and Russia said supply cuts needed to last into 2018, a step toward extending an OPEC-led deal to support prices for longer than originally […]
Having surged to its highest since Oct 2014 early in the year on the back of Trumptopian exuberance, Empire Fed’s manufacturing survey crashed back to -1.0 in May 4 standard deviations below expectations. This is the worst (and first) contractionary print since October 2016 as New Orders crash from 7-year highs to 7-month lows. Prices paid and received both fell (deflationary threat from China), inventories […]
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 […]
By Henning Gloystein | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Oil prices jumped 1.5 percent on Monday after the energy ministers of the world’s two biggest producers Saudi Arabia and Russia jointly said that a crude production cut would be extended from the middle of this year until March 2018. Brent crude was at $51.58 per barrel at 0621 GMT, up 74 cents, or 1.46 percent, from its last close and […]
Oil prices jumped after the energy ministers from Saudi Arabia and Russia said they backed extending an Opec-led agreement to cut output until March 2018. Saudi energy minister Khalid al-Falih and his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak met on Monday in Beijing and discussed oil output policy. Russia is the world’s biggest oil producer, while Saudi Arabia is the biggest exporter. The two ministers said in a joint […]
Oil jumped after the energy ministers from Saudi Arabia and Russia said that an OPEC-led agreement to cut output should be extended until March 2018. Saudi energy minister Khalid Al Falih and his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak discussed oil output policy in Beijing after which they made a joint statement. Mr Falih said the next round of cuts will be on the same terms as the first […]
Singapore, one of the most urbanised nations on earth, is making land available for agriculture for the first time in decades for farmers to come up with high-tech ways of improving the city-state’s food security. About 60 hectares of land will be released for farming from August, in a move authorities describe as providing a “buffer” against disruption in the supply chain. Singapore is the third most […]
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 […]
President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya has called on China to rebalance an increasingly skewed trade relationship between Africa and the rising superpower, arguing that Beijing must do more to tackle a widening trade deficit. Africa’s trade balance with China has moved decisively into deficit due to a fall in the price of many African commodities, such as oil, copper, iron ore and cocoa. In 2015, the most […]
Having single-handedly hounded Home Capital Group – the company which we predicted in 2015 would be “ground zero” for any potential Canadian financial crisis, and has emerged as the Canada’s equivalent to the infamous New Century which in 2007 presaged the upcoming global financial crisis – into near oblivion, noted chicken-farmer and short-seller, Marc Cohodes, over the weekend revealed the full details behind his latest short thesis: […]
The Federal Reserve is actively considering a profound change in US monetary policy, in effect the reversal of quantitative easing (QE). In its March meeting, the FOMC discussed its strategy for the future run down of its balance sheet, and said that further debate would take place in upcoming meetings. The FOMC has already concluded that “a change in the Committee’s reinvestment policy would likely be appropriate […]
Private dining in the UAE is no longer the exclusive domain of the rich and famous. Heeding requests from customers with a desire for closed-door rooms and secluded enclaves for entertaining, restaurants in the country are increasingly providing spaces where patrons can host private get-togethers. While some packages can cost thousands of dirhams, if your tastes are gourmet or your group exceeds 30, there are deals to […]
When we looked at subprime auto delinquencies most recently, we found some troubling trends: first, in February, we showed that 61+ day delinquencies in General Motors’ subprime securitization book would support a rather bleak thesis for future auto sales, and specifically the demand side of the equation, with January 2017 delinquency rates soaring to the highest levels since late 2009/early 2010. Ironically, this hasn’t stopped lenders from […]
Oman was cut to junk by S&P Global Ratings, which said a drop in crude could hamper exports from the largest Arab oil producer outside OPEC and jeopardize its finances. S&P lowered the Gulf state’s sovereign debt long-term rating to BB+, one level below investment grade, from BBB- and changed the outlook to negative, the New York-based firm said in a statement Friday. “The negative outlook reflects […]
Investors wiped $4.6bn from the market value of the US department store sector in the space of two days this week, as concern mounted about sliding sales and the effects of online competition. The consequences are spilling into the real estate and derivatives markets, and the latest bad news has intensified the focus on the sector ahead of more earnings reports from retail heavyweights next week. Five […]
Readers are familiar with the various microwave and laser arrays located at the real New York Stock Exchange in Mahwah, New Jersey, both of which we have written about in the past. Microwave tower located next to the NYSE in Mahwah, NJ. This article, however, is not about the familiar antennas off Route 17 in New Jersey. Instead, demonstrating to what lengths the high frequency traders will […]
Europe’s investment community has barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief following Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the French presidential elections before starting to fret about other latent threats to the eurozone. Some investors have hailed the election — in which Mr Macron, a pro-EU liberal defeated Marine Le Pen, the Eurosceptic rightwing candidate — as a sign that Europe’s economic recovery remains on track. This […]
13 May 2017 Dubai – The Ministry of Finance (MoF) recently held the second meeting of the Government Financial Policy Coordination Council for 2017 in its headquarter in the Dubai. The meeting was headed by HE Younis Haji Al Khoori, Undersecretary of MoF and Chairman of the Government Financial Policy Coordination Council, in the presence of HE Saeed Rashid Al Yateem, Assistant undersecretary of Resources and Budget […]
NEW YORK/BOSTON Some of the biggest U.S. mutual and hedge funds, including Daniel Loeb’s Third Point and Daniel Och’s Och-Ziff Capital Management (OZM.N), owned stakes in Snap Inc (SNAP.N), parent of the wildly popular Snapchat messaging app, at the end of March, regulatory filings on Friday showed. The filings provide the first definitive snapshot on who bought Snap shares when it went public in early March, in […]
Dana Gas profit nearly doubled in the first quarter as the UAE-based natural gas producer boosted output. Net income rose to 40 million dirhams ($11 million) from 22 million dirhams a year earlier, the company said Thursday in a statement to the Abu Dhabi stock exchange. Sales climbed 44 percent to 432 million dirhams. Dana Gas, which pumps most of its gas at fields in Egypt and […]
BAKU A court in Azerbaijan on Friday supported the blocking of the websites of several media outlets critical of the government, including the Azeri service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE). European institutions and rights bodies accuse the oil-producing former Soviet republic Azerbaijan and its leader, Ilham Aliyev, of tightening restrictions on the media and on people’s freedom of expression. Azeri officials deny the accusations. The ruling […]
