PARIS France will scale back preventive slaughtering of ducks to counter bird flu after the culling of 800,000 birds this month helped slow the spread of the disease in the southwest, the country’s agriculture minister said on Thursday. France resorted to a mass cull after the highly contagious H5N8 strain of bird flu started spreading among farms in the southwest, the country’s main production zone for the […]
Steven Mnuchin, Donald Trump’s nominee to be Treasury secretary, clashed with Democrats over the business practices of the lender he once chaired, saying he had been wrongly accused of taking advantage of unfortunate borrowers and that he would work “tirelessly” to boost the economy and US hiring. The former banker told the Senate finance committee that he had been maligned and that OneWest, the bank, had extended 100,000 […]
Brussels is seeking to defuse a regulatory time-bomb facing Europe’s pensions as the retirement industry warns that EU derivatives reforms scheduled for 2018 could cost savers billions. The European Commission is preparing legislation to amend regulations that are seen hurting pensions funds by forcing them to put aside higher amounts of money to satisfy derivatives rules. Trades such as swaps and other derivatives require support in the […]
January 19, 2017 by: Claire Jones in Frankfurt The European Central Bank has kept interest rates at record lows and the terms of its landmark quantitative easing package unchanged as its president prepares to field questions on an economic outlook full of threats. The bank’s governing council, meeting on Thursday in Frankfurt, left its benchmark main refinancing rate at zero. Its deposit rate, in effect a levy […]
The star player in America’s biggest sporting event risks being benched: guacamole. Every year before the Super Bowl, demand soars for the avocado-based dip that has become a staple for viewing parties for the National Football League championship game, which has emerged as the second-largest day for food consumption in the US after Thanksgiving. This year’s supply was threatened by a spike in avocado prices late last […]
This love is precisely what is required of an American president in dealings affecting Israel. In such circumstances, and contrary to the adage that applies in most ordinary circumstances of life, that law says that demonstrations of love count for less, paradoxically, than love itself. It says, to be precise, that gestures of friendship, when they do not come from the bottom of the heart and are […]
Chairman and director of Xero Chris Liddell will step down from his responsibilities at the New Zealand-based cloud accounting firm on Friday, as he prepares for his new role of Assistant to United States President-elect Donald Trump. In a statement made on Thursday, Xero CEO and founder Rod Drury congratulated Liddell on his new role and thanked him for his contribution and leadership during his tenure at […]
WASHINGTON U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will name former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue as his nominee for secretary of agriculture on Thursday, a senior transition official said on Wednesday. Perdue, 70, served on Trump’s agricultural advisory committee during his presidential campaign. His nomination, which must be confirmed by the Republican-led Senate, will complete Trump’s proposed cabinet just before he is sworn in as president on Friday. By nominating […]
Thursday 02.10 GMT Overview Asian equities regained upward momentum after comments from Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen gave wings to a broad recovery for the dollar, weakening regional currencies. Hot topic The dollar index, which measures the US currency against a basket of peers, was up 0.4 per cent after the Fed chair warned that if the US waited too long to continue raising rates, it risked […]
While ECB President Mario Draghi may sound slightly hawkish at tomorrow’s press conference after an unexpectedly strong acceleration in CPI in December and European economic growth modestly picking up, the ECB is set to argue on Thursday that its extra-easy policy stance is still needed to keep the recovery on course. As a result, it is all but certain to leave current monetary policy in place and […]
China cut its holdings of US Treasuries by $66bn in November, reducing its position in the safe-haven debt to the lowest level since 2010 as the country battles to stabilise its currency. The acceleration in sales — the largest monthly decline since December 2011 — threatens a rise in US interest rates if it continues and follows an unwinding in October that saw China cede its position […]
Last December, a Microsoft executive apologized for the aggressive and sometimes questionable tactics the company employed to get users to upgrade from previous operating systems to Windows 10. Now the company gives its Windows 10 initiative another push by claiming that Windows 7 is already a relic and is therefore unsafe to use. Windows 7 Countdown The latest salvo was fired from Microsoft’s German subsidiary, which released a statement […]
Via ConvergEx’s Nicholas Colas, Want to know why US stocks feel so fragile? Perhaps we can blame Wall Street analysts. Even after two months of market buzz about lower taxes, infrastructure spending and less regulation juicing investor expectations for better earnings growth, they refuse to bump their revenue or earnings estimates for 2017. Our monthly look at revenue expectations for the companies of the Dow […]
A few cities are already building data marketplaces, especially in light of the increasing streams of data from the IoT. Getty Images/iStockphoto If you live in a big city, chances are pretty good that you’ll be sharing a lot more of your personal information with government entities within a few years. special feature Louisville and the Future of the Smart City Louisville, Kentucky is building a unique […]
The sole Republican commissioner at the main US derivatives regulator has thrown his hat in the ring to be appointed the next chairman, even as he embraced aspects of financial reforms that Donald Trump’s team wants dismantled. Christopher Giancarlo, of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, is set to assume the job of acting chairman after Mr Trump’s presidential inauguration on Friday, replacing Tim Massad, the sitting Democratic […]
Janet Yellen, the Fed chair, has warned that the US risks a “nasty surprise” if it waits too long to continue raising interest rates, adding that she expects the US central bank to tighten monetary policy a few times a year until 2019. But on the cusp of Donald Trump’s inauguration as an economy-focused president, she also said slow productivity growth meant the US’s “usual” rate of […]
At least $13.3 billion of government projects are at risk of being cancelled in Saudi Arabia this year because of fiscal pressures and changing government priorities, Zawya Projects reported, citing a study by consultants Faithful+Gould. The total value of project awards for 2017 is forecast at $27 billion, and could rise to $32 billion if the Makkah Metro project, which was originally expected to be awarded in […]
By Philip Pullella | ROME ROME A series of strong earthquakes hit snowbound central Italy on Wednesday, a region devastated by deadly tremors last year, killing one man and forcing schools and rail links to close. Four quakes of magnitude 5.2 and higher struck near the hill town of Amatrice, some 100 km (60 miles) northeast of Rome, in the space of four hours. Much of the […]
US financial stocks have come under pressure since the start the year, denting a sharp rise that began after the election, in the latest sign that the Trump trade has begun to run out of steam. The S&P 500 financial sector has fallen 1.1 per cent since the end of 2016, bucking the broader index that has risen by 1.4 per cent. While the financial index was […]
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), one of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth funds, sees investment opportunities in China’s fixed income and real estate markets, as well as smaller Chinese companies, its managing director told China Finance. ADIA, which has been investing in China for 25 years, has its largest exposure in listed equities, including a $2.5 billion allocation to the China A market, which lists shares denominated […]
SACRAMENTO San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President John Williams on Tuesday called for gradual U.S. interest-rate hikes over the next few years to keep the economy from overheating and ultimately falling into recession. With the unemployment rate at 4.7 percent, the U.S. economy has reached full employment, Williams said, adding that inflation is on track to reach the Fed’s 2-percent goal over the next couple of years. […]
HELSINKI Artists usually like to attend the opening of their exhibitions but the painter of the works that went on display at a gallery in Helsinki on Tuesday preferred to carry on hibernating. The artist behind the exhibition entitled “Strong and soft touches” is a 423-kilogram (930 pound) brown bear named Juuso who uses his body, especially his paws, as paintbrushes. “We just leave paint for him, […]
Donald Trump has threatened to overturn two decades of US economic policy by questioning the strong value of the dollar, raising fears that his presidency could set off a new round of currency wars between the world’s major economies. On Monday the president-elect appeared to break from the longstanding “strong dollar” policy of successive administrations, declaring that the currency was too high and that this was preventing […]
Before she spoke on Tuesday, Theresa May was gaining a reputation for talking sterling lower by spooking investors that Britain was headed to a disorganised exit from both the EU and its common market. Her Lancaster House speech was the first occasion the pound rallied to her Brexit views since becoming prime minister; it had risen nearly 3 per cent by the end of the London trading […]
