Monday UN focus on migrants The UN will meet in Geneva to address the “human rights of all migrants, social inclusion, cohesion and all forms of discrimination, including racism, xenophobia and intolerance”. Organisers say they are working towards an ambitious global policy on migration, an issue high on the political agenda after the Mediterranean migrants’ crisis and US President Donald Trump’s clampdown on migration into the US […]
Wall Street people underestimated how nasty and political the struggle over the post-Brexit fate of European clearing houses would become. This week the European Commission offered threats to London-based clearing houses and inducements for their customers to move their trade to the EU. €650bn Value of euro-denominated trades that clear through London each business day UK negotiators in turn demand that euro derivatives clearing should stay in […]
This post is a fictionalised thought experiment. YOU and YOU ALONE are in charge of what happens in this story. There are trade-offs, choices, and consequences. YOU must use all of your B.S.D. talents and much of your intelligence. Good luck. So… You’re the head of a trading desk, and you’ve felt a bit frustrated of late. Your desk trades government securities issued by the world’s largest […]
By Lawrence Delevingne | NEW YORK NEW YORK Paul Singer’s hedge fund firm Elliott Management Corp raised more than $5 billion in about 24 hours this week, citing a major potential investment opportunity at a time when Singer said financial markets could face a disruption after being distorted by years of economic stimulus. Singer, in an email to investors on Wednesday announcing the offering of up to […]
May 6, 2017 by: Jeevan Vasagar in Singapore and Michael Peel in Bangkok Puma Energy, the fuel storage and petrol station business backed by Swiss commodities trading house Trafigura, wants to expand in Myanmar across a range of fuel and petroleum products after opening a $100m storage facility at the southern port of Thilawa. The new terminal, with a capacity of 91m cubic metres, opens the prospect […]
The Australian dollar and Norwegian krone are vying for the ignominious title of worst-performing major currency today as commodity prices tumble. Following a stumble in oil prices in Asia on Friday that took Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate to their lowest since November, the krone (pictured above) suffered a sharp fall and surpassed the Aussie dollar as the worst among major currencies. The krone was down […]
By Saikat Chatterjee | HONG KONG HONG KONG Asian stocks declined for a third consecutive day on Friday as fresh falls in commodities raised concerns about the health of the global economy, though the euro bucked the broad weakness on receding concerns about France’s presidential election. Chinese stocks led regional losers, falling to a three-month low as concerns about tighter financial regulations weighed on banking shares while […]
Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRKa.N) Warren Buffett has sold “a reasonable amount” of his stake in International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) after the stock crossed $180, CNBC reported. IBM’s stock touched $180 on Feb 14 and reached a high of $182.78 during Feb. 16 trading. It closed on Thursday at $159.05 on the New York Stock Exchange. Berkshire Hathaway and IBM could not be reached for comment outside regular […]
Jeff Immelt, the GE chairman and chief executive, has called for Donald Trump to keep the US in the Paris climate accord, weighing into a debate inside the new administration over a campaign promise to withdraw from the landmark agreement. “We are for staying in the treaty. I think global engagement is a good thing,” Mr Immelt told a Washington audience on Thursday. The business community “has […]
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 […]
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 […]
11:00 am Suppose we could be brave, Bryce, and go with a pic of Jeffery Lacker as our portrait for today 11:01 am Well, he stepped down from the Richmond Fed after fessing up to helping a colleague at a sister publication — Medley — on a story 11:02 am 11:03 am I could give you a rival’s analysis of the story 11:03 am It’s not the […]
By Sumeet Chatterjee | HONG KONG HONG KONG UBS Group AG (UBSG.S) plans to hire about 100 wealth management client advisors over the next two years in Hong Kong, the biggest wealth hub in Asia-Pacific, to grab a bigger share of the fast-growing mid-tier millionaire segment. The Swiss bank’s sharpening focus on the middle of the wealth market comes as some global banks including Standard Chartered (STAN.L) […]
HSBC has beaten analysts’ expectations for its first-quarter results as strong trading conditions, rising interest rates and a weaker dollar lifted earnings, bringing welcome relief from its heavy miss at the end of last year. Pre-tax profits, adjusted for one-offs and currency moves, reached $5.9bn, surpassing consensus forecasts of $5.3bn. Shares opened up 3.4 per cent in London trading, hitting 668.30p. Europe’s biggest bank by assets, which […]
By Rishika Sadam and David Ingram Facebook Inc reported surging quarterly profit and revenue on Wednesday, helped by its fast-growing mobile ad business, but its shares dipped from a record high in after-hours trading as investors showed some nervousness about future earnings. The world’s biggest online social network, which is nearing the five-year anniversary of its initial public offering, is searching for new types of advertising features […]
Tesla boss Elon Musk surpassed even his own lofty standards of both hubris and humility on Wednesday, as he looked ahead to a day when the electric carmaker will be worth more than Apple — but also admitted he had confused his customers with a bad product-naming decision. “I want to preface this by saying I could be delusional,” Mr Musk told Wall Street analysts on his […]
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 more The New York Times gets trashed by President Trump, the more its subscriptions seem to surge. The New York Times on Wednesday reported the addition of 308,000 net digital subscribers in the first quarter of 2017, the most of any quarter in the newspaper’s history, pushing it past the 2 million subscriber mark. Subscriptions to the company’s news products fall just shy of 2 million, […]
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 […]
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 […]
News from the FT that the UK may face an initial Brexit bill of up to €100bn has dented sterling this morning. The currency fell by 0.2 per cent against the dollar to $1.29, nibbling into some of its eye-catching recent gains before recovering slightly. Against the euro, the pound is also down by 0.14 per cent to €1.1823. Broadly, the path for sterling since the general […]
Vocus Communications has revised its guidance for the 2017 financial year, with revenue down by AU$100 million, underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) down by between AU$65 million and AU$75 million, and net profit down by AU$45 million to AU$50 million. According to a presentation delivered by Vocus CEO Geoff Horth on Wednesday, underlying EBITDA is now expected to be between AU$365 million and […]
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 […]
Shares in Advanced Micro Devices logged their biggest one-day drop in more than 10 years on Tuesday after the chipmaker posted downbeat first-quarter sales and received an analyst downgrade. AMD was the biggest decliner on the S&P 500, falling 24.4 per cent to $10.30 after the company said net revenues rose 18 per cent from a year ago to $984m but was shy of analysts’ estimates of […]
