As Wall Street traders departed for Thanksgiving this week, they could celebrate a rare achievement. On Monday and Tuesday, the four most widely cited indices of US stocks — the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq Composite and the Russell 2000 — hit all-time highs simultaneously. The last time a “grand slam” happened was on New Year’s Eve 1999, at the height of the […]
A declining gold market faces a major challenge as a $3.8bn outflow from exchange traded funds over the past 10 days is seen intensifying the liquidation of holdings by investors. Gold has dropped below $1,200 a troy ounce for the first time since February as ETF outflows have risen to their highest level since July 2015. A stronger dollar, higher US yields and a rallying stock market […]
Better access to low-interest funding could spur growth of East African Small & Medium Businesses JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, November 24, 2016 Small & Medium Businesses in East Africa should be looking at ways to maximise their efficiency and improve debt management to navigate the risks that high interest rates pose for their businesses. That’s the word from Billy Owino (https://Twitter.com/OwinoBill), Regional Director for Sage East Africa (www.Sage.com), […]
The numbers involved in musical theatre are staggering, according to Nick Allott. His favourite statistic is this: The seven Harry Potter films — the most successful franchise ever — grossed a total of $13bn; the four most successful musicals — Cats, Les Misérables, Miss Saigon and Phantom of the Opera – have garnered a whopping $16bn. “A lot of people don’t know that,” says the managing director […]
Last year Donald Trump ended his run of 14 seasons as the cocksure boss on The Apprentice to prepare for his improbable White House bid. Today, as the US president-elect, he is assembling his administration in a way that suggests a new show is in the offing: The Appointee. The billionaire showman has brought the spectacle of reality television to the task of choosing his top political […]
BOSTON Activist shareholders plan a record number of resolutions focused on climate change at U.S. company annual meetings in 2017, even as President-elect Donald Trump looks set to loosen environmental regulations. Based on filings so far, U.S. companies are on track to face roughly 200 resolutions on climate matters at their shareholder meetings next year, according to Rob Berridge, who follows the subject for Ceres, a sustainability […]
A humbling defeat at the hands of a nation a small fraction of your size. A manager briskly fired, hastily replaced on a messy temporary basis by pretty much the only guy anyone could think of at the time. Question marks that linger not just about whether the team is good enough, but whether the players themselves care enough about representing their country. These are difficult days […]
Craig Timberg from Washington Post must be bored this Thanksgiving, spending his time concocting a rich and imaginative tale of fake news websites swaying the billion dollar Clinton campaign from no brainer win to a horrible loss. Here we are, once again, with the faux claims out of Washpo — spreading their own ironic fake news of Russian hacking conspiracies and a furious — and all of a […]
Gulf governments are increasingly turning to export credit agencies (ECAs) to finance billions of dollars of infrastructure projects as low oil prices squeeze liquidity in the region. Bankers say that since oil prices fell more than two years ago, eroding state revenues and drying up funding from local and international banks, borrowers are considering ECA finance for everything from airports to oil refinery expansion. The extent of […]
Hopes of a fix to the collateral squeeze facing the eurozone’s €5tn short-term funding markets were boosted this week after reports emerged the European Central Bank will consider ways to ease rules on how it lends its stockpile of sovereign debt. A lack of good quality collateral, which market participants use to secure loans, has crippled the single currency area’s short-term funding (“repo”) markets. One big reason […]
AstraZeneca announced Nov. 22 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has lifted the hold concerning new patient enrollment for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (also known as HNSCC) clinical trials involving durvalumab as monotherapy. The Phase III KESTREL trial is now open for patient enrollment again, with recruitment for the EAGLE trial also likely resuming. Those taking part in the HNSCC trials will be chosen from […]
While most global equity markets were subdued due to the US Thaksgiving holiday, the FX world was very busy overnight, marked by the relentless dollar surge on expectations of a rate hike not only in December but further in 2017, sending Asian currencies to the weakest level in 7 years: the Bloomberg-JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index reached 103.32, the lowest level since March 2009. The regional FX plunge […]
So Brexit was not a historical accident after all. The Trump victory seals it. A complacent, mainly urban liberal class, has been undone by a revolt. Nationalists are in charge of Washington and London now. These “strongmen” and “strongwomen” will control borders, restrict the movement of labour and subject cross-border M&A to ever tighter public scrutiny tests. Security will come first. The twin freedoms of capital and […]
November 24, 2016 by: Neil Hume, Commodities and Mining Editor The new chief executive of Rio Tinto said on Wednesday that he would focus on sweating the company’s assets and improving productivity rather than transformational mergers and acquisitions. Ahead of his first in-depth strategy presentation, Jean-Sébastien Jacques said that the Anglo-Australian miner could boost cash generation by as much as $5bn by the end of 2021 by […]
The US government bond market suffered a renewed sell-off and the dollar powered to a fresh 13-year high on Wednesday, as stronger economic data bolstered the case for an interest-rate increase and reinforced the view that the multi-decade bond bull market has reached a turning point. The Republican sweep of the White House and Congress, coupled with president-elect Donald Trump’s promise to unleash a $1tn economic stimulus […]
The Crown Prince of Dubai, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, on Wednesday issued a new resolution to increase employment protection for Dubai Government employees. Under Resolution No (62) of 2016, a framework is outlined for a compensation system for occupational injuries and diseases alongside the creation of a safe work environment and rehabilitation for occupational injuries and diseases. An injured employee will receive full […]
Iron Man and Captain Marvel. The two heroes have clashed both physically and verbally over the course of Marvel’s Civil War II event, starkly divided over the issue of whether or not the superhero community should be using visions of the future to arrest innocent people prior to them committing crimes. Most recently, a vision from the Inhuman Ulysses revealed a future in which a young Miles […]
By Lucia Mutikani | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON New orders for U.S. manufactured capital goods rebounded in October, driven by rising demand for machinery and a range of other equipment, the latest indication of an acceleration in economic growth early in the fourth quarter. The brightening economic outlook received a further boost from other data on Wednesday showing a jump in consumer sentiment this month following the election of […]
Mid-morning last Friday, as Tokyo’s foreign-exchange traders were contemplating lunch, the first pictures of Donald Trump meeting the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, flashed up. The yen bears loved it. Setting aside the gold-encrusted Babylonian decor of Trump Tower and forced bonhomie, conventional market wisdom before November 9 was that an image like this would send global investors everywhere screaming into haven, long yen positions. Forget an […]
At the Bundesbank’s Frankfurt offices, its dealers sit in front of rows of Bloomberg and Reuters terminals and search for €10bn-worth of their government’s bonds to buy each month. As prices for the debt hit record highs earlier this year, they struggled to find bonds cheap enough to meet their target, set as part of the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing programme. Now, as investors anticipate higher […]
Eurozone corporate bond risk premiums have jumped to their highest level since July, as Donald Trump’s victory in the US election effectively erases gains generated by the European Central Bank’s policy of buying companies’ debt. A sharp rise in global bond yields since Mr Trump’s triumph has also spurred an underperformance of European credit relative to the US corporate debt market. Higher corporate credit spreads in euros, […]
A record run of declines; its worst performance since last year’s surprise devaluation and eight-year lows plumbed on a near-daily basis. Whichever way you cut it, China’s currency is having a testing month. However, unlike the infamous devaluation ruckus in August 2015, and the turmoil in markets that followed renminbi weakness in January, investors are not panicking this time. At least not yet. This month the offshore […]
The vicious battle roiling India’s once-admired Tata Group has escalated further with Cyrus Mistry, the recently deposed chairman, saying the conglomerate’s ill-fated $12bn acquisition of Corus in 2007 was mainly to satisfy the “ego” of his predecessor Ratan Tata. In his latest salvo, Mr Mistry — who is resisting attempts to force him off the board of several Tata operating companies — also claimed Tata Consultancy Services […]
Conference entitled ‘Utilizing Industrial Cooperation to Develop Local Supply Chain Capability’ brings together leaders from aviation, defence and space industries HE Abdullah Sultan Al Owais, Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI): ‘Sharjah is seeking to improve the competitiveness of the Emirate of Sharjah’s manufacturing sector by welcoming high-tech industries working in these sectors’ Conference entitled ‘Utilizing Industrial Cooperation to Develop Local Supply Chain […]
