MUSCAT // Travel agents in Muscat say holiday bookings for Dubai have risen by 80 per cent in the past 12 months, as Omanis hit by rising inflation opt for destinations closer to home. Dubai has taken over from Thailand as the top holiday destination for Omanis. “Omani travellers now prefer to go on holiday in Dubai … more than other destinations,” Veenith Laghari, a tour operator […]
Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday rounded off the strongest set of quarterly results from “big oil” for over two years, even as a fresh slide in crude prices raised doubts over the sustainability of recovery from one of the deepest downturns in industry history. Earnings from the Anglo-Dutch group in the first three months of this year more than doubled from the same period of 2016. This […]
Authored by 720Global’s Michael Lebowitz via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, “History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums” – Alan Greenspan The ability to see beyond the observable and the probable is the most important and under-appreciated characteristic of successful investors. For example, visualize a single domino standing upright. With this limited perspective, one can establish what the domino is doing in the […]
By Julia Simon | NEW YORK NEW YORK Oil prices collapsed on Thursday to their lowest since late November as investor worries about the world’s stubbornly persistent glut of crude erased most of the gains that followed last year’s OPEC’s output cut. The slide worsened after OPEC delegates downplayed the chance that their group and other producing countries would deepen their output cuts when they meet on […]
US Treasuries came under pressure across the curve on Thursday, following a round of solid economic data and indications that the Federal Reserve is willing to look past the slowdown in economic growth at the start of this year. The 10-year yield was up 0.043 percentage point (4.3 basis points) at 2.363 per cent. Meanwhile, the policy-sensitive two-year yield ticked up 2.81 bps to 1.322 per cent. […]
UAE, May 4, 2017 H.E. Awad Bin Saghir Al Ketbi, Undersecretary of the Supportive Services Sector at the Ministry of Health and Prevention (MOHAP), recently inaugurated the 8th Travel Road Exhibition at MOHAP’s office in Dubai, in cooperation with Dnata. The exhibition was participated in by a number of international companies from the tourism and travel industries who presented MOHAP employees with the best travel and hotel […]
As noted earlier, while European stocks and US equity markets have ignored the commodity crash in China, which in addition to iron ore plunging limit down, also saw rubber tumble 7% lower, and steel rebar, coke, coking coal plunge over 6% … … Axiom’s Gordon Johnson warns (as we did a month ago) that the worst is yet to come, and in fact, the “backdrop of […]
Optus has announced that it will be wholesaling its 4G network to niche mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Moose Mobile for the next five years. Moose Mobile said it targets the youth market by selling refurbished iPhones and Android phones at low prices — pricing the iPhone 6 at AU$369, the iPhone 5s at AU$225, and the iPhone 5c at AU$199 — and has now become a […]
HONG KONG Hong Kong’s next leader, Carrie Lam, vowed on Thursday to heal political and social divides, pledging to return the global financial hub to its “normal course of development”. Lam takes office on July 1 after being selected in March amid widespread concern that Beijing’s meddling had sealed her victory and denied the freewheeling former British colony a more popular leader. The former civil service chief […]
By Nichola Saminather | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Asian stocks retreated on Thursday, taking their cues from a subdued session on Wall Street, while the dollar retained gains made after the Federal Reserve delivered a hawkish policy statement. At the end of its two-day meeting, the Fed kept its benchmark interest rate steady as expected, but downplayed weak first-quarter economic growth and emphasized the strength of the labor market, […]
Sign up to receive FirstFT by email here The Federal Reserve said it believed the recent slowdown in US growth was likely to prove temporary as it stayed on course for a further increase in short-term interest rates as soon as June. The US central bank kept its target range for the federal funds rate at 0.75 per cent to 1 per cent following its latest two-day meeting. In […]
The US dollar and Treasury yields held on to their gains after the Federal Reserve said the first-quarter growth slowdown is probably “transitory,” potentially setting the stage for a rate rise this summer. The buck was recently up by 0.4 per cent against the Japanese yen, near the highs of the day. Meanwhile, the euro was off by 0.17 per cent against the greenback, close to session […]
While we doubt anything material will emerge for various obvious reasons, the NY Post reports that the DOJ is probing Goldman Sachs for alleged Treasury auction rigging: the charge is that Goldman, one of the 23 US primary dealers, won almost all Treasury bond auctions from 2007 to about 2011 even after the Treasury department established safeguards to maintain competitiveness. The case is said to center on […]
Londoners of finance, pondering hard-Brexit relocation options, can turn to the quality of life ranking of the world’s top cities provided in Deutsche Bank’s sixth annual survey of global prices. If Wellington, New Zealand, doesn’t offer tantalising opportunities for corporate bond syndicate origination, or outlets for euro swap-clearing back-office expertise, perhaps second-placed Edinburgh is a better option for a post-UK future. Fans of John Irving will be […]
GENEVA Yemen faces a “famine of Biblical proportions”, veteran aid expert Jan Egeland warned on Wednesday during a visit to the war-battered nation, expressing fury over the failure of the “men with guns and power” to end the crisis. Yemen’s two years of civil war have pitted the Iran-aligned Houthi rebel group against a Saudi-backed coalition, causing economic collapse and severely restricting the food and fuel imports […]
Saudi Arabia said Tuesday that it will issue a quarterly budget progress report for the first time as part of efforts to boost transparency while diversifying its oil-dependent economy. The world’s biggest oil exporter is wooing investors as it tries to reduce budget deficits caused by a collapse in energy revenues. “We will for the first time in Saudi announce, possibly in a couple of weeks or […]
By Karolin Schaps | LONDON LONDON Oil prices rebounded from near 2017 lows on Wednesday after preliminary data showed a much higher-than-expected fall in U.S. crude stocks, reviving bullish sentiment about easing oversupply. Benchmark Brent crude LCOc1 was up 37 cents at $50.83 a barrel at 0815 GMT. On Tuesday the futures had settled at their lowest since Nov. 30, when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting […]
OPEC and allied oil producers should extend their collective production cuts into the second half of the year when an expected upturn in demand will help to re-balance the crude market, UAE Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said. All countries participating in the cuts must agree to any extension, he said Tuesday in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other major […]
As the United States adapts to the presidency of Donald Trump and faces rising tensions abroad, Berkshire Hathaway Inc shareholders will descend on Omaha, Nebraska this weekend seeking reassurance, from Warren Buffett. The weekend known as “Woodstock for Capitalists” is unique in corporate America, a celebration of the billionaire’s image and success at a conglomerate whose businesses range from Geico insurance to the BNSF railroad to See’s […]
The OnePlus 5 is among the most hotly anticipated smartphones of this year and the company’s CEO just posted the first teaser, touting a “big surprise.” With the LG G6 and the Samsung Galaxy S8 out of the bag, one of the most rumored smartphones yet to debut is the OnePlus 5, which is expected to hit the scene sometime in the second half of this year. OnePlus […]
By Nichola Saminather | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Asian stocks followed global indexes higher on Wednesday, as strong earnings and manufacturing data boosted risk appetite, while expectations that the Federal Reserve will signal a June rate increase later in the session lifted the dollar. Oil prices pulled higher after a sharp fall on Tuesday on technical selling in a market already worried about oversupply and following a rise in […]
By Anya George Tharakan and Stephen Nellis Apple Inc (AAPL.O) reported a surprise fall in iPhone sales for its second quarter on Tuesday, indicating that customers may have held back purchases in anticipation of the 10th-anniversary edition of the company’s most important product later this year. Shares of the world’s most valuable listed company were down 2.1 percent at $144.37 in after-hours trading. Under pressure from shareholders […]
US wheat prices jumped 8 per cent in two days as worries over the damage caused by a late winter storm prompted a scramble to cover bearish bets. More than 30cm of snow that hit western Kansas, southeastern Colorado and western Oklahoma toppled plants just ahead of the winter wheat harvest. Hard red winter wheat, the high-quality grain that is used to make bread and mainly grown […]
Organisers of a music festival in The Bahamas that was billed as a luxury getaway but collapsed in chaos have been hit with a $100 million (Dh367 million) lawsuit alleging fraud. The Fyre Festival was aborted Friday after hundreds of partygoers — with some paying more than $100,000 per person — arrived only to find relief-camp style tents and rudimentary sandwiches rather than the promised lavish experience. […]
