Crude oil surged the most in seven years, rebounding from the lowest in more than a decade as equities rallied. Volatility jumped. Futures rose 12 percent in New York and 11 percent in London. U.S. stocks halted a five-day slide that dragged global equities into a bear market. Producers are ready to work together and won’t make cuts unless there’s complete cooperation, United Arab Emirates Oil Minister Suhail […]
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is no believer in gold’s rally, predicting losses over the coming year as the Federal Reserve increases U.S. interest rates no fewer than three times. Futures dropped. “Our economics team forecasts that the Fed will raise rates by 25 basis points three times this calendar year, to 1.3 percent,” analysts including Jeffrey Currie and Max Layton wrote in a report received on Tuesday, […]
Gold and its miners’ stocks are rocketing higher as speculators and investors alike return to this left-for-dead sector. This sudden deluge of capital inflows has crowned gold stocks the best-performing sector of this young new year by far, shocking traders. And this stunning reversal of fortunes in both the metal and the companies producing it is only starting, so it’s exceedingly important to understand what’s going on. […]
Markets are currently in a well-oiled “death spiral,” according to Citigroup Inc. analysts led by Jonathan Stubbs. “It appears that four inter-linked phenomena are driving a negative feedback loop in the global economy and across financial markets,” the analysts write, citing the resilient U.S. dollar, lower commodities prices, weaker trade and capital flows, and declining emerging market growth. “It seems reasonable to assume that another year of extreme moves in […]
On the seventh floor of a Doha tower block, in a room filled with display cases containing old coins, clocks and Koranic manuscripts, 82-year-old Hussain Alfardan sits fingering a pearl necklace he says is worth $2 million. “These pearls are yakka, the highest grade of natural pearl – each piece is rare. Today the pearl is the number one stone in the world. The most expensive stone, […]
Sales of robots worldwide hit a record high in 2014 with numbers topping 229,000, a report said, highlighting that smart machines could be performing 45 per cent of manufacturing tasks in a decade. Last year also marked the third consecutive year of increase with 29 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth, added the new research report titled “Thematic Investing: Robot Revolution: Global Robot & Al Primer” from Bank […]
|By Matein Khalid| “One country, two systems”. This was the historic formula under which Margaret Thatcher agreed to hand over the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China, then ruled by Paramount Leader Deng Xiao Ping. The Hong Kong dollar’s spike to 7.81, on the high end of its 7.75 – 7.85 band, demonstrates the sheer scale of the speculative attack against […]
Oil bulls distressed that last week’s rally fizzled can find some comfort in forecasts for a bigger and longer rebound by the end of the year. Analysts are projecting prices will climb more than $15 by the end of 2016. New York crude will reach $46 a barrel during the fourth quarter, while Brent in London will trade at $48 in the same period, the median of […]
MADHYA PRADESH EXPLORES AVENUES
From L.S. Herdenia
BHOPAL: Psychiatrists can play a major and decisive role in checking suicides by farmers. This claim was made at the conference of Psychiatrists held in Bhopal. It was suggested that governments should seek the help of Psychiatrists and use a holistic multipronged approach to prevent farmers from taking such an extreme step.
The four-day conference of Indian Psychiatric society discussed various issues relating to mental problems of the people, the lack of doctors, social stigma attached to mental disease, absence of research and effect of internet over use and mobile in triggering mental problems. Shortcomings in the Mental Care Bill pending in the Rajya Sabha was yet another item which was discussed at the conference.
The World Psychiatric Association’s first-ever Indian-origin president
NATHU LA NEW OUTPOST OF COMMERCE
By Ashis Biswas
While investors and business circles grumble over the tardy pace of growth in Indo-China bilateral trade through the Nathu La Himalayan outpost, Beijing is apparently not too keen to launch any export promotion initiative just yet. In the context of India’s large trade deficit vis-à-vis China, the reverse trend at Nathu La, where China imports far more from India than it exports, strikes most observers as an oddity.
In statistical terms, the volume of trade has increased considerably. In 2006, when movement between the two countries was resumed linking Sherathang, Nathu La in Sikkim with Rinqinjing, once part of the Tibet autonomous area(TAR)which is currently Southwest China, there was a trade turnover of Rs 20 lakh only !And there was nil import from China that year.
However, by Jan 2015,
An Apple logo is seen at the Apple store in Munich, Germany, January 27, 2016. Reuters/Michaela Rehle Apple Inc (AAPL.O) shares fell more than 6.5 percent on Wednesday, the biggest percentage drop in two years, after the company reported its slowest-ever rise in iPhone shipments and forecast that quarterly sales for the current period would post the first drop in 13 years. At least 16 analysts cut […]
|By Matein Khalid| The collapse in Brent crude oil below $30, a 20% fall in the Tadawul share index in January 2016’s global equity bloodbath, the cut in fuel subsidies and geopolitical risk escalation in the Middle East has spawned speculation in financial markets that Saudi Arabia will devalue the kingdom’s riyal, now pegged at 3.75 against the US dollar. Senior princes of the royal family and […]
The world’s biggest oil producer is spending as much now as it did before the crash in crude prices, signaling no surrender in Saudi Arabia’s battle with rivals. Saudi Arabian Oil Co. is maintaining investment in oil and natural gas projects and has formulated a new strategy in response to cheaper crude as it studies options to sell shares in its parent company and downstream refining and chemical […]
ECONOMY BEING HELD HOSTAGE BY BULLION MERCHANTS
By Nantoo Banerjee
Swiss banks may not be too happy with India’s latest round of searches for big Indian accounts there. But, largely impoverished India’s endless gold hunt, especially at a time when the global economy and trade are shrinking and stock markets around the world are going topsy-turvy following economic slow-down in China, has placed the Geneva-based World Gold Council on top of the world. India’s gold import last month hit a new 120-day high at nearly $4 billion while all other imports to the country shrank by over 15 per cent in value. The massive gold import by bullion merchants, mostly from Mumbai and Ahmedabad, widened the country’s trade deficit to $11.7 billion in just one month. In the pre-reform period, India’s annual trade deficit rarely topped $5 billion. During the current financial year 2015-16, t
The $15 trillion rout in global equity markets since May is reawakening the lure of gold for investors seeking safety. Hedge funds more than doubled their net-long position in bullion last week, just three weeks after they were the most-bearish ever. Investor holdings of gold through exchange-traded products are expanding at the fastest pace in a year, and the value of the ETPs has jumped by $3 […]
INTERNATIONAL. Oilprice.com recently spoke with Carl Larry, Director of Oil and Gas at Frost & Sullivan, a consultancy that conducts research on oil and gas markets, to get his thoughts on the state of oil in 2016. Oilprice.com: I saw that you were on Bloomberg in December, and you said that you thought oil would go to the low $30s per barrel, which was a good call […]
Senior Saudi and Iranian figures clashed behind closed doors at a private meeting convened by the World Economic Forum in Davos this week to try to promote peace in Syria, participants said. The barbed exchange between Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif at an invitation-only meeting on Wednesday underlined the hostility between the two Gulf rivals, who are waging proxy wars in Syria, […]
Details about the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S7 smartphone emerged this week in advance of its anticipated release. A Hungarian Android blog reported benchmark scores for the single-core and multi-core versions of the phone, which are significantly higher than those of last year’s Samsung Galaxy S6. The scores come from Geekbench, a cross-platform processor benchmark whose scoring system separates single-core and multi-core performance. The single-core version of the […]
Oil rallied, heading for biggest two-day advance since 2009 after a slump to a 12-year low prompted some investors to buy back record bearish bets. Front-month futures have jumped more than 18 percent after the February contract expired Wednesday at $26.55 a barrel, the lowest settlement since 2003. Speculators this month amassed the biggest-ever short position in U.S. crude amid concern that turmoil in China’s markets would […]
The removal of sanctions on Iran may trigger at least $50 billion a year in foreign investment to finance a rebound in an economy hit by the oil slump, the country’s central bank governor said. “Our country can absorb a great deal of foreign investment, considering its potential,” Valiollah Seif said in an interview Wednesday at his office in Tehran, days after the trade and financial curbs […]
Pressured by plunging oil prices and costly wars in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia moved to stamp out speculation that it might be forced to break the link between its currency and the dollar. Authorities this week ordered banks to limit traders’ ability to bet against against the riyal, whose peg to the dollar has been a bulwark of the kingdom’s economic and financial stability since its […]
|By Matein Khalid| I had called for Brent crude to fall to $30 in successive columns since the November 2014 OPEC conclave in Vienna, when Saudi Arabia abandoned its traditional role as the “swing producer” the central bank of black gold. The world oil markets now face a supply shock, a demand shock, epic volatility and the loss of the “swing producer”. The world is running out […]
In a world awash with cheap oil, buyers in the world’s biggest consuming region aren’t clamoring for an additional 500,000 barrels a day from Iran. As international sanctions against the country are lifted and Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh looks to make good on his pledge to regain market share lost in Asia, he’ll have to contend with a global glut that’s dragged down prices and spawned […]
Stocks across the Middle East tumbled as the easing of sanctions against Iran raised the prospect of a surge in oil supplies to a market already reeling from the lowest prices in more than a decade. Shares in Tehran gained. Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul All Share Index dropped 5.4 percent to its lowest level since March 2011. Abu Dhabi’s ADX General Index fell into a so-called bear market. The Bloomberg […]
