US wheat prices jumped 8 per cent in two days as worries over the damage caused by a late winter storm prompted a scramble to cover bearish bets. More than 30cm of snow that hit western Kansas, southeastern Colorado and western Oklahoma toppled plants just ahead of the winter wheat harvest. Hard red winter wheat, the high-quality grain that is used to make bread and mainly grown […]
Pfizer Inc (PFE.N), the largest U.S. drugmaker, reported quarterly revenue that missed estimates as sales of its key drugs fell short of expectations. Sales of breast cancer drug Ibrance, which is expected to face competition from rival Novartis AG’s (NOVN.S) Kisqali, rose more than 58 percent to $679 million, but missed the consensus estimate of $682 million, according to Barclays. “Key franchises came in well below expectations, […]
Brussels is rushing out proposals to impose EU control on the City of London’s lucrative euro-clearing market, forcing UK operators to either relocate or be policed by European authorities. In a provocative regulatory salvo fired as Brexit talks begin, the European Commission is preparing to issue legislative proposals in June that would heavily restrict London’s ability to host one of its flagship financial businesses. The commission’s power […]
Greece has wrapped up a deal with creditors on details of reforms that must be enacted before the country can receive the next disbursement from its €86bn bailout programme. The deal, which covers a wide range of fiscal and structural measures, from fresh cuts in pensions to liberalising Sunday trading, was completed during intensive talks over the past week after months of wrangling between Greek finance ministry […]
Tuesday 06:00 BST Overview Stocks across Asia were mixed on Tuesday as investors grappled with Wall Street’s lowest level of volatility since before the financial crisis amid a holiday-interrupted week. European bourses are expected to open higher, with spreadbetters predicting the UK’s FTSE 100 will climb 26 points to 7,230 and Germany’s Dax to gain 22 points to 12,460. US index futures suggest the S&P 500 will […]
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) published its first quarter financial results on Monday, meeting market expectations. However, AMD shares fell in after-hours trading. As Wall Street anticipated, the company posted a non-GAAP net loss of $38 million, or 4 cents per share, on revenue of $984 million. Revenue was up 18 percent year-over-year, largely driven by demand for Ryzen CPUs, CEO Lisa Su noted. “We are positioned for […]
US stock markets climbed higher on Monday, as bipartisan agreement over a US budget deal overpowered weak manufacturing data in the US and China, with European markets closed for the May bank holiday. The benchmark S&P 500 climbed 0.3 per cent by midday in New York on news of the budget deal, shrugging off an initial tumble when data from the Institute for Supply Management showed America’s […]
US corporate boardrooms’ approval of share buyback plans has fallen to its lowest level since 2012, signalling that the stock market’s surge to further highs this year is curbing a key source of demand for equities. Companies on the S&P 500 index have authorised $146bn in share buybacks this year, down 15 per cent from a year ago, according to data from Goldman Sachs. Executives have also […]
SGX, the Singapore Exchange, is looking to further boost its Chinese derivatives business by offering to collaborate with a planned new local futures venture backed by the founders of one of China’s largest hedge funds. Loh Boon Chye, the bourse’s chief executive, told the Financial Times he was willing to open its clearing infrastructure to the challenger, called Apex, so it could conduct futures trading in the […]
The Trump administration’s interest in issuing the US government’s first “ultra-long” bonds, following in the footsteps of countries such as the UK, Mexico and Belgium, is facing scepticism from fund managers, analysts and former officials. The US Treasury in April asked its “primary dealers”, the club of banks that underwrite and arrange the government’s debt sales, to explore whether there would be demand for Treasuries that mature […]
Hedge funds have slashed their bets against the British pound to the lowest level since the Brexit vote in June last year, after the currency enjoyed its best month against the dollar in two years. The pared-back “short” bets, which would profit on a drop in the pound, followed Theresa May’s decision to call snap elections in June, a move that investors said would allow the ruling […]
Cloudera CEO Tom Reilly ringing the bell at the NYSE Friday. Cloudera closed out its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange with its share price up 20 percent to $18.10. The Apache Hadoop-based software and services distributor started trading Friday morning at $17.80 a share under the ticker symbol CLDR. On Thursday evening, Cloudera priced its shares at $15, raising around $225 million […]
SYDNEY Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google said it will challenge amended tax assessments issued by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), which is trying to claw back billions of dollars from multinational corporations citing unpaid taxes. The ATO has increased scrutiny over how much tax multinationals operating in Australia pay. In December, it said it was pursuing seven global businesses over A$2 billion ($1.50 billion) in unpaid tax. While […]
After a dismal fourth quarter, it seems that Europe’s investment banks have got some of their swagger back. Switzerland’s UBS grew investment bank profits by more than 50 per cent in the first quarter, even though it is hard to imagine a recovery less well-suited to the Swiss bank which is short on the US exposure and the markets businesses that have driven the strong results of peers. Credit Suisse […]
Sheikh Mubarak Al Sabah Hailed Industry Pioneer at Arabian Hotel Investment Conference April 28 2017, Dubai UAE: His Excellency Sheikh Mubarak A M Al Sabah, founder and chairman of Action Hotels has been acknowledged by the region’s hospitality sector after receiving the signature Industry Pioneer award presented by His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum at the Arabian Hotel Investment Conference (AHIC 2017) in Dubai (yesterday, […]
Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. When Barack Obama was vacationing recently with Bruce Springsteen, Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey aboard a $300 million yacht in Tahiti, one wonders if he ever hummed Springsteen’s “All Or Nothin’ At All.” At the moment, it seems like he […]
Distribution agreement boosts Eikon’s robust research offering with economic sovereign reports London, 28 April 2017 – Users of Thomson Reuters flagship financial platform Eikon can now access Oxford Business Group’s full range of research on emerging economies, following a distribution agreement between the two firms, giving financial professionals instant access to OBG’s extensive range of reports and economic updates. OBG content is available through Eikon’s real-time and […]
FRANKFURT Deutsche Bank is expected to name James von Moltke as new finance chief, replacing Marcus Schenck who is taking on a role as co-head of the investment bank, a source close to the matter said on Friday. Deutsche Bank declined to comment. Von Moltke will join Germany’s flagship lender from Citi, where he worked as treasurer from 2015 after earlier looking after the bank’s financial planning […]
Barclays has reported a doubling of underlying quarterly profits, excluding a big hit for selling its African unit, as its chief executive sought to shift attention away from a row over his treatment of a whistleblower. Jes Staley, who is being investigated by British and American regulators for trying to discover the identity of a whistleblower, said: “We are now just two months away from completing the […]
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, reported a 22 per cent surge in sales, despite fears that marketers were withdrawing advertising dollars from its YouTube video site because of worries about ads appearing next to extremist content. The Silicon Valley company’s shares, up 21 per cent in the past year, rose 4 per cent to $928.30 in after-hours trading in New York. Sundar Pichai, Google chief executive, said the […]
By Lucia Mutikani | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON New orders for U.S.-made capital goods rose less than expected in March, but a second straight monthly increase in shipments suggested business investment accelerated in the first quarter amid a recovering energy sector. While other data on Thursday showed a bigger-than-expected increase in first-time applications for unemployment benefits last week, the trend in claims remained consistent with tightening labor market conditions. […]
Growth in cable and internet customers and the box office strength of films, including the latest instalment in the Fifty Shades of Grey series, powered better than expected quarterly revenue and profit at Comcast. Net income at the largest US cable group, which owns the NBC TV networks and the Universal Pictures film studio, jumped 20 per cent to $2.6bn, or 53 cents a share, in the […]
By James Pomfret, Lawrence White and Sumeet Chatterjee | DONGGUAN, China/LONDON/HONG KONG DONGGUAN, China/LONDON/HONG KONG In the digital age, footfall in bricks-and-mortar outlets is an incomplete measure of business activity, but HSBC’s empty branches in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) suggest it’s not all plain sailing for the bank’s expansion in mainland China. HSBC, the world’s sixth-largest bank by assets, announced in 2015 that it would hire […]
Deutsche Bank must set its sights higher, its chief executive said on Thursday, after its core investment banking businesses were outpaced by US rivals in the first quarter of the year. In the three months to March, Germany’s biggest bank managed a net profit of €575m, more than double the €236m it posted in the same period a year earlier, and ahead of analysts’ expectations of €522m. […]
