HSBC Holdings cut its price estimates for Dubai developer Emaar Properties and peers including Damac Properties Dubai Co., predicting falling revenue and declining property prices in the United Arab Emirates. Emaar’s price estimate was slashed 26 percent to 8.5 dirhams, while Damac’s is 8 percent lower at 3.4 dirhams, HSBC said in a note on Thursday. The bank also lowered its target for Aldar Properties to 3.5 […]
The yearlong decline in global equities that started with a selloff in energy became a full-blown bear market Thursday as a rout in bank shares extended losses in the broadest worldwide gauge past 20 percent. The MSCI All-Country World Index slipped 1.3 percent, pushing its decline since May to 20 percent and marking the biggest retreat from risk since Europe’s sovereign debt crisis in 2011. Every industry […]
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. […]
A general view shows the building ‘Gorod Stolits’ (Capital City) (C), which houses an office of 25 Floor Film Company, at the Moscow International Business Center also known as ”Moskva-City”, in Moscow, Russia, February 3, 2016. Reuters/Maxim Zmeyev WASHINGTON Russian authorities in November raided offices associated with a Moscow film distribution and production company as part of a crackdown on one of the world’s most notorious financial […]
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network and most of us have an account. Let’s face it, no one actually reads 95% of the stuff that appears on the feed but there is so much of sharing done that LinkedIn is slowly inching closer and closer to the top of the list of largest content aggregators. There are 3 main types of users of the platform and […]
Video Bashar al-Jaafari, the Syrian government’s chief negotiator, blamed the opposition for the postponement of the talks, calling them a failure. By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE and SOMINI SENGUPTA February 3, 2016 GENEVA — The United Nations on Wednesday temporarily suspended the fledgling talks aimed at ending the war in Syria and called on the countries fueling the conflict to do more to yield results, as Syrian government forces sharply escalated an offensive […]
|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 […]
Drivers in the U.S. oil hub of Houston can fill their tanks for less than the cost in Abu Dhabi and Dubai for the first time since 2008 as falling crude prices push Middle East exporters to cut government fuel subsidies. The price of the cheapest grade in the United Arab Emirates, of which Abu Dhabi is the capital, is 1.51 dirhams per liter ($1.55 a gallon) […]
Saudi Arabia may further ease restrictions on foreign ownership in the economy and overhaul one of the world’s most restrictive visa systems as the kingdom seeks to draw investors to help reduce its reliance on oil exports. The world’s biggest oil exporter is considering allowing foreigners to own 100 percent of a company in at least four more industries, Mohanud Helal, secretary general of the Economic Cities […]
|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 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 […]
|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 […]
As the chattering chieftains of the global economy gather this week in Davos, Switzerland, they’re facing the darkest outlook since the financial crisis tipped the world into recession seven years ago. The Chinese slowdown and accompanying slide in the yuan are imperiling already sluggish international growth, oil is trading at its lowest level in more than a decade, stocks have suffered their worst January ever, and the […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Decreasing Saudi Arabia’s reliance on oil revenues could include the introduction of VAT and so-called sin taxes, observers say. Other issues under consideration include the partial privatization of selected state assets – including Saudi Aramco – and better utilization of state-owned real estate. The Kingdom has been successfully diversifying its economy over the past decade, with non-oil revenues increasing by 29 percent this […]
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 […]
As Iran emerges from a decade of international sanctions, its Gulf Arab rivals are facing their toughest economic predicament since the global financial crisis. Governments across the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council are taking unprecedented measures to counter the slump in oil prices, curtailing some of the world’s most generous welfare systems to plug widening budget deficits. In some countries, contractors are facing delays in government payments, while […]
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 […]
After a decade of unprecedented economic sanctions, Iran is about to be back in business. The Islamic Republic curbed its ability to make a nuclear bomb as required under a deal with world powers, clearing the way for it to resume global commerce, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Saturday. The European Union, United Nations and U.S. agreed in July to lift sanctions simultaneously once compliance was verified. […]
|By Arabian Staff| Additional information forthcoming from state-owned Saudi oil giant Aramco suggests that the proposed IPO may be restricted to refining and other similar activities rather than the parent company as a whole. Aramco clarified in a statement the other day that while the company was studying options including a full initial public offering, one of the options under consideration is “listing of a bundle” of […]
Saudi Arabia is considering its own Big Bang. The world biggest crude exporter is considering selling a stake in its state-owned company, which controls more than a tenth of the global oil market. A potential initial public offering is under review for Saudi Arabian Oil Co., also known as Aramco, Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s deputy crown prince, said in an interview with The Economist. A decision […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Gold seems to be re-discovering its safe haven status in the wake of a turmoil that billionaire investor George Soros describes as the beginning of a global market crisis. Bullion rallied above $1,100 an ounce, rising for a fourth day to a two-month high, after Chinese shares plunged, the yuan slid and the country’s stock exchanges closed early for the second time this […]
At almost any other time, an escalating diplomatic conflict between OPEC members Iran and Saudi Arabia would mean a spike in oil prices. That the rally this time couldn’t be sustained shows just how abnormal things are in the oil market. Brent crude has fallen 0.5 percent this week as a global supply glut and the slowest Chinese growth in a generation trumped mounting strife between the […]
