First-time sellers of bonds that adhere to Islam’s ban on interest are poised to revive an industry suffering its worst quarter in more than four years. Luxembourg and Hong Kong aim to market debut offerings of sukuk next month, while Kenya, South Africa, Bangladesh and Tatarstan have announced plans for maiden issues. Islamic bond sales have fallen 82 percent to $2.6 billion this quarter compared with the […]
Arabtec Holding Co. (ARTC) declined for the first time in nine days after former chief executive officer Hasan Ismaik turned down an offer from Aabar Investments PJSC to buy part of his stake in the company. Arabtec, the United Arab Emirates’ largest publicly traded builder, lost 1.7 percent to close at 4.71 dirhams, the biggest drop since Aug. 12. It jumped 13 percent in the previous five […]
Shares of Arabtec Holding Co. (ARTC) climbed to the highest since July 16 as some investors speculated former Chief Executive Officer Hasan Ismaik is close to selling part of his stake in the builder. The stock added 2.5 percent to close at 4.57 dirhams, taking gains in the past four days to 7.5 percent. Arabtec was the biggest advancer and the most traded on Dubai’s DFM General […]
West Texas Intermediate traded near the lowest closing price in seven months after speculators cut bullish bets and as supply rises in the U.S., the world’s biggest consumer. Brent was steady in London. Futures were little changed in New York after falling 0.3 percent yesterday. Crude inventories probably shrank by 1.8 million barrels to 360.7 million last week, a Bloomberg survey shows before an Energy Information Administration […]
SAUDI ARABIA. Saudi Arabia set out draft proposals on foreign-shareholder limits as one of the world’s most restricted stock markets prepares to open its doors for the first time to investors outside the region. The Capital Market Authority may cap foreign ownership of a single stock to 49 percent, it said in plans posted on the Riyadh-based regulator’s website today. It may also set a 5 percent […]
By Bob Ciura: Tobacco stocks like Altria Group (NYSE:MO) are well-known and extremely well-regarded for their income potential. Altria has been one of the premier dividend stocks to own over the past several decades. It has a remarkable ability to pay a high yield, and also provide regular dividend increases that have significantly increased shareholder wealth over this time. To that end, Altria very recently increased its […]
U.K. authorities recovered more than 300,000 pounds ($498,000) from the sale of a convicted drug trafficker’s home in Dubai in the first such confiscation involving the United Arab Emirates. The apartment in Dubai Marina was owned by Redwan El-Ghaidouni, 37, who was convicted at Kingston Crown Court in March 2011 on drug charges, the Crown Prosecution service said in a statement on its website. A confiscation order […]
By Orange Peel Investments: The news today was that Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) came up with $16.65 billion to resolve the biggest liability having to do with the subprime crisis from 2008. It’s the end of a process that has been a dark cloud hanging over the head of Bank of America since they made a proper mess out of the Countrywide deal; widely regarded as one […]
Tim Vine: king of the one-liners Photo: Geoof Pugh/The Telegraph ‘What makes a one-liner work?” Tim Vine was asked on BBC News last week. “Er . . .” blinked the 47-year-old comedian. “It can only be one line and it has to be funny.” Thus are trade secrets preserved, and we are left to figure out for ourselves why Mr Vine’s latest effort won the prize for the funniest joke […]
By Adam Hamilton: Gold has slid during this past week on mounting fears of interest-rate hikes. Between the latest FOMC meeting’s minutes and the Fed’s annual Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, American futures speculators’ rising-rate phobias have been whipped into a fever pitch. They worry gold will be crushed when the Fed eventually starts normalizing rates. But history shatters this fallacy that rising rates are gold’s nemesis. […]
India aims to sign the contract for the world’s biggest order of fighter jets in about two decades with Dassault Aviation SA (AM) by the end of the year, two Indian air force officials familiar with the matter said today. Negotiations on technology transfer and maintenance for 126 Rafale aircraft have been completed, the officials said in New Delhi, asking not to be identified as the […]
Saudi Arabia set out draft proposals on foreign-shareholder limits as one of the world’s most restricted stock markets prepares to open its doors for the first time to investors outside the region. The Capital Market Authority may cap foreign ownership of a single stock to 49 percent, it said in plans posted on the Riyadh-based regulator’s website today. It may also set a 5 percent limit for […]
If you wanted to make a quick buck in property, Dubai would have been the place to do it in the last couple of years. And the desert of superlatives is still going strong despite a partial slowdown. According to CBRE Group , apartment prices increased by a more modest 3.2 percent in the second quarter of 2014, bringing gains over the last year to 21 percent. […]
People walk near The Gate building at the financial and business district Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) in Dubai. Reuters Dubai’s financial hub is growing up. Since it was established a decade ago, the Dubai International Financial Centre has become the number one choice in the Middle East for many of the world’s leading banks, law firms, asset managers and insurers from where to conduct their regional […]
Op-Ed Contributor By MICHAEL SINGH August 19, 2014 WASHINGTON — President Obama surprised many recently when he diagnosed the crisis gripping Iraq as partly an economic one, noting that Iraqi Sunnis were “detached from the global economy” and thus frustrated in achieving their aspirations. While Iraq’s chaos has many sources, the president is nevertheless on to something; and it’s not just Iraqi Sunnis, but the entire Middle East that […]
August 19, 2014 Open Source By ROBERT MACKEY After St. Louis county police officers in full battle gear trained sniper rifles on peaceful protesters in the suburb of Ferguson last week, and then proceeded to douse the streets in tear gas and round up journalists, a Russia analyst named Mark Adomanis observed that images of a crackdown on dissent in the United States would make life easier […]
Islamic State insurgents released a video on Tuesday purportedly showing the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley, who had gone missing in Syria nearly two years ago, and images of another U.S. journalist whose life they said depended on U.S. action in Iraq. The video, titled “A Message To America,” was posted on social media sites. It was not immediately possible to verify its authenticity. Foley, who […]
London home sellers cut asking prices by the most in more than six years this month, adding to signs that the property market in the U.K. capital is coming off the boil. London values fell 5.9 percent from the previous month to an average 552,783 pounds ($922,300), the biggest drop since December 2007, property website Rightmove Plc said today. Nationally, prices declined 2.9 percent, a record for […]
|By TAP Staff| Oil prices have never been so stable as they are now since the breakup of Bretton Woods system in 1971. Despite major geopolitical tensions in Libya, Syria, Iraq, or the Ukraine, global crude oil prices have been remarkably steady in the past three and a half years. Global oil prices have not been this stable since the break-up of the Bretton Woods system in […]
Shares of Abu Dhabi National Energy Co. (TAQA), which took an impairment of $858 million in North America last year, climbed the most in three weeks after it returned to profit in the second-quarter and said it plans to sell assets. The state-controlled utility, also known as Taqa, reported a second-quarter attributable profit of 239 million dirhams ($65 million), rebounding from a loss of 172 million a […]
The number of pay-TV subscriptions in the Middle East and North Africa will increase from 10.6 million last year to 15.2 million by the end of 2019, according to research group Ovum. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images It’s no surprise a U.S. buyout firm bid for a large stake in Dubai-based pay-TV player OSN – the prospects for the sector in the Middle East and North Africa are bright, […]
The chemical triclosan has been linked to cancer-cell growth and disrupted development in animals. Regulators are reviewing whether it’s safe to put in soap, cutting boards and toys. Consumer companies are phasing it out. Minnesota voted in May to ban it in many products. At the same time, millions of Americans are putting it in their mouths every day, by way of a top-selling toothpaste that uses […]
Jebel Ali Free Zone FZE, a business park operator in Dubai, is cutting the price on a 2.2 billion-dirham ($599 million) Islamic loan by half as funding costs decline, according to three bankers familiar with the deal. The interest rate on the loan for the company known as Jafza will be reduced to 150 basis points, or 1.5 percentage points, over the Emirates interbank offered rate from […]
Leader of the Labour Party Ed Miliband Photo: PA To win in 2015, Ed Miliband not only has to set out a credible governing prospectus; he must demonstrate he fully understands Labour’s past mistakes. Mr Miliband has been coy about admissions of error on economic management, naturally preferring to castigate Britain’s Coalition government for overzealous austerity driving harsh cuts in the social fabric. Yet voters will only listen […]
