The slight acceleration in the cartel’s crude oil output was driven mainly Kuwait, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq
LONDON—OPEC’s oil production ticked up slightly in July, the cartel said Monday, even as production in Saudi Arabia—the de facto leader of the group—declined.
Crude oil output in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries rose by 41,000 barrels a day last month, to average 32.32 million barrels a day, the cartel said, citing secondary sources. The increase was driven by higher production in Kuwait, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq…
OPEC’s Output Rose in July Despite Decline in Saudi Oil Production
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The hit to GDP may never be recovered, the researchers warn
- Discounted at 5 percent, loss adds up to $70,000 per capita
America never made up the growth it lost in the 2008 global financial crisis and the recession it triggered. A decade later, U.S. households are still counting the cost.
Gross domestic product remains well below what its 2007 trend would have implied and it’s unlikely the economy will ever make up that lost ground, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco published Monday. The hit will cost the average American $70,000 in lifetime income, they estimate…
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TD Securities closes wagers on euro, kiwi, Swedish krona
- Morgan Stanley sees further EM currency downside versus dollar
Politics have foiled the best-laid plans of Wall Street’s currency strategists.
Turmoil in Turkey as well as strife between Italian leaders and the European Union have forced dollar bears to throw in the towel on bets that the rest of the world’s currencies would continue to play catch-up with the greenback in 2018. A continued flight to safety propelled the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index to a 13-month high on Monday…
Wall Street’s Bet on Global Currencies Is Bloodied With the Dollar Soaring
Investor Lessons From Turkey’s Crash to Earth
By · CommentsTurkey is the most extreme example of the failure of institutions, but similar forces are at work in other emerging markets
Turkey’s long boom led investors to think there had been permanent institutional change, but as boom turns to bust the old bad politics and policies have resumed in a new guise. True, the army isn’t in control this time around, but the increasingly…
Credit Suisse Group AG is breaking up its international wealth-management unit into seven regions from four in another push by Chief Executive Officer Tidjane Thiam to regionalize the bank, according to people briefed on the matter.
The unit led by Iqbal Khan will give the regions more autonomy to make decisions and each will have its own management, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the change hasn’t been made public. The seven regions are Latin America, Brazil, Western Europe, Southern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe…
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New BTIG Europe CEO was fired from Goldman over Windhorst deal
- U.A.E. broker said to be involved in the troubled transaction
The 223-foot yacht sat off the sunburnt Sardinia coast as top executives of Goldman Sachs climbed aboard.
It was August 2015, and Michael Daffey and John Storey arrived with their wives to cultivate a seemingly unlikely client: Lars Windhorst, a controversial German financier whose checkered history had, at least for a time, left many in financial services wary of doing business with him…
Elon Musk Met With Saudi Fund About Taking Tesla Private
By · CommentsIn a blog post, Musk said he believes two-thirds of current shareholders would remain with the company
Elon Musk said Saudi Arabia’s sovereign-wealth fund has approached him several times over nearly two years about providing financial support to take Tesla Inc. private, as the chief executive sought to explain his claim to have funding for a possible deal.
Mr. Musk’s blog post on Tesla’s website Monday provided new information about what led to his surprise tweet last Tuesday announcing the possible transaction. But the new post also left unanswered a host of big questions including how much capital would be required and…
California’s top court said that consumer loans charging as much as 135 percent a year may be abusive, in a warning to lenders that target people with low credit scores who need cash quickly.
It isn’t easy “to pinpoint the precise threshold separating a merely burdensome interest rate from an unconscionable one,” the California Supreme Court said Monday in its ruling. In the absence of any interest cap in a state law regulating consumer loans of more than $2,500, transactions that are “unreasonably and unexpectedly harsh” shouldn’t be condoned, the seven-judge panel concluded.
“Courts have a responsibility to guard against consumer loan provisions with unduly oppressive terms,” the court said…
Malaysia has a higher proportion of female investment bank chiefs than any other big country.
Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim country better known for its recent political turbulence than its gender diversity, now has female bosses at three of its 11 homegrown investment banks. Women also hold the top jobs at the Malaysian units of Credit Suisse Group AG, Rothschild and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. And a woman will soon take over the global operations of Maybank Kim Eng, the securities arm of Malaysia’s largest lender…
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Central bank’s new ‘flexibility’ seen signaling slower buying
- The BOJ purchased 5.9 trillion yen of ETF shares last year
The Bank of Japan has scooped up so many shares of the nation’s exchange-traded funds that it effectively owns a controlling stake in the market. Now investors are considering a future in which it buys less.
BOJ watchers expect the central bank to slowly cut its ETF purchases, now targeted at 6 trillion yen ($54 billion) annually, in what could be viewed as an expansion of its stealth tapering. The BOJ’s bond buying has already fallen to nearly half of its targeted pace…
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Owner Belmond raises doubt over future of storied power spot
- Word from inside: ‘I don’t talk to the press or the police’
It’s here, in the movie, that Gordon Gekko schools Bud Fox: “Buy a decent suit. You can’t come in here looking like this.”
And here, in real life, that presidents, socialites, stars and deal-makers have been rubbing elbows for nearly a century…
At NYC’s Iconic ‘21’ Club, Deal Talks Are as Chilled as the Martinis
Billionaire Ashley Buys House of Fraser for $115 Million
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Ashley’s Sports Direct rescues U.K. department-store chain
- Deal comes after 169-year-old retailer began insolvency talks
U.K. billionaire Mike Ashley swooped in to rescue the House of Fraser Ltd.department-store chain for 90 million pounds ($115 million), staving off collapse for an anchor of the country’s troubled shopping districts.
Ashley’s Sports Direct International Plc agreed to acquire the 169-year-old retailer’s U.K. stores, brand name and inventory. The move came after House of Fraser, which employs 17,000 people directly and through contractors, on Friday went to court to seek protection from creditors…
Saudi Fund in Talks to Invest in Tesla Buyout Deal
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Kingdom fund said to be in talks on ways to invest in buyout
- As board prepares to meet advisers, investor lawsuits begin
Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is working to be part of any investor pool that emerges to take Tesla Inc. private, as Elon Musk enters a week where his plan will draw added scrutiny from the electric-car maker’s board, advisers and investors.
The Saudi Kingdom’s Public Investment Fund, which recently built a stake just shy of 5 percent in Tesla, is exploring how it can be involved in the potential deal, according to people with knowledge of the fund’s plans. But the potential transaction’s staggering $82 billion price tag means Tesla is still likely to need to tap other sources of cash…
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Steel tycoon Vladimir Lisin sees biggest drop in wealth
- Tax plan would largely affect metal and mining companies
Russia’s super-rich tycoons lost more than $3 billion in one day after a top economic aide to the president proposed raising taxes on the nation’s giant metal and mining companies.
In a letter to Vladimir Putin, adviser Andrey Belousov named 14 companies that could pay more. The resulting investor exodus saw $3.1 billion wiped off the fortunes of their affluent bosses, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index…
Russia’s Richest Lose $3.1 Billion as Tax Proposal Hits Shares
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San Francisco-based Schwab and Dodge & Cox top the ranking
- Distance from old-boy networks may be part of the reason
Women who want to manage money seem to be having better luck doing it someplace other than Wall Street.
U.S. firms with the highest share of female portfolio managers are located thousands of miles from Manhattan, according to new Morningstar Inc. research. Dodge & Cox and Charles Schwab Corp. — both with headquarters in San Francisco — are top ranked at 30 percent and 28 percent, while Franklin Resources Inc., with $724 billion in assets as of June 30, is tied for the third and based in nearby San Mateo, California…
The New Business Banker: A Private-Equity Firm
By · CommentsFirms are lending more where traditional banks won’t–and sometimes competing with them, too
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Looser monetary policy not passing from money market to firms
- Clogged rates transmission reduces urgency of further RRR cuts
The People’s Bank of China is tackling a problem it rarely had to worry about until recently — persuading banks to lend the money they have.
Thanks to the central bank turning on the liquidity taps, the cost for banks to borrow from one another is now lower than the cost to borrow from the PBOC, but a large chunk of those funds is sitting idle. That money isn’t feeding into the wider economy, especially not to cash-strapped smaller firms, as lenders are unwilling to make loans or buy risky bonds….
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Man Group sees rally in U.S. currency continuing for now
- Greenback expected to gain especially against euro on trade
Don’t bet on the U.S. dollar rally ending any time soon, says the world’s largest publicly traded hedge fund.
While investment titans such as Morgan Stanley and State Street Corp. wager the greenback’s rally this year is just about finished, Man Group Plc reckons it may have further to go. The escalating trade war between the U.S. and China may only fuel the dollar’s strength, not stymie it, according to Guillermo Osses, head of emerging markets debt strategies at Man Group GLG, a unit of the fund…
Currency’s drop after U.S. boosts tariffs on steel, aluminum adds to market uncertainty
Emerging-market investors are preparing for an unsteady start to the week after a weekend marked by heightened rhetoric, renewed trade tensions and a deeper slide in the Turkish lira.
The lira sank to a record low on Sunday evening after collapsing last week. The currency is now down more than 40% this year, while bond yields have skyrocketed, pushing Turkey onto the edge of a financial crisis. Turkey’s vulnerabilities include high levels of foreign-currency debt, a current-account deficit and rising borrowing costs…
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Values fall for fifth month in a row, worst run since 2009
- Separate report shows consumer spending declined in July
U.K. house prices fell for a fifth month in a row in July, the longest stretch of declines since the financial crisis.
Values fell 0.2 percent from June, bringing the average price for a home to 302,251 pounds ($386,000), Acadata said in a report Monday. London remains a “mixed picture,” with the number of sales in the second quarter falling by 7 percent from a year earlier and prices declining in almost two-thirds of the capital’s boroughs…
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Government hasn’t offered enough to restore confidence: NAB
- Turkey’s problems will ‘continue to mount’: Capital Economics
Turkey’s lira extended its precipitous slide Monday after the nation’s president showed no signs of backing down in a standoff with the U.S.
The lira weakened past 7.23 per dollar in early Asian hours before paring losses after the nation’s Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency stepped in to limit swap transactions on the battered currency. Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak said the nation will announce steps to calm markets on Monday, Hurriyet newspaper reported…
Lira Extends Retreat as Turkey Heads Toward a Financial Crisis
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Prices in state are rising at their fastest pace in five years
- New law’s cap on deducting state, local taxes spurs purchases
When the owner of a financial-services firm in Connecticut saw the U.S. tax overhaul pass in December, capping state and local deductions, he packed his bags. Now he lives in South Florida, soaking up the sun and some serious annual savings.
Like many of Jay Phillip Parker’s clients these days, the empty-nester is a refugee of the Trump tax act — and he’s closing soon on a $6 million Miami-area condo. Luxury-home prices in Florida have been surging ever since the law went into effect, jumping 16 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, according to data from brokerage Redfin Corp…
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Foreigners shrug off worries about economy, yuan and trade war
- Buying remains robust from institutional funds: Uob Kay Hian
Slumping stocks and market volatility aren’t holding back foreign investors from snapping up Chinese shares.
Foreign investors bought net 20 billion yuan ($2.9 billion) mainland shares through Hong Kong links from July 25 through Wednesday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In that time the Shanghai Composite Index tumbled to a two and a half-year low before enjoying its best day in two years, whipsawing between gains and losses to send its volatility higher. The daily quota usage on Thursday reached the highest since early June, when A-shares had recently been included in MSCI Inc.’s benchmark gauges…
Obamacare Helped Make This Doctor a Billionaire
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David Cotton and family sold Meridian for $2.5 billion in cash
- Affordable Care Act brought insurers millions of new customers
Catering to Detroit and Chicago’s poor has made the Cottons rich.
David Cotton and his family spent two decades building Meridian Health Plans into the biggest private provider of Medicaid benefits in Michigan and Illinois. It serves about 1.1 million members, with more than $4.3 billion of revenue forecast for 2018…
Fidelity Bets on Zero-Fee Index Funds
By · CommentsIt’s a threat to high-cost money managers but can also be a way to sell other products.
Free mutual funds. It sounds fishy—something that might be advertised on a late-night infomercial. But when Fidelity Investments unveiled two index funds without annual expense charges on Aug. 1, it was the real deal. And if you’ve been watching the money management industry closely, it felt almost inevitable. Several index mutual funds and exchange-traded funds from Fidelity and others were already charging less than a dime for every $100 invested. Why not let the last pennies drop?…
Fidelity Bets on Zero-Fee Index Funds
Renewed trade tensions have sapped some of investors’ enthusiasm
U.S. Stocks Little Changed Amid Positive Corporate Earnings
Rich Asians Give Deutsche Bank Crazy Growth Potential
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CEO endorses further hiring in Asia for wealth management unit
- German bank has announced plans to cut at least 7,000 jobs
In Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing’s push to get back into growth mode, there’s one specific business in which there are pretty much no hiring limits.
The private bank in Asia is still recruiting, even after bringing on board about 100 relationship managers and support staff in the first half, Lok Yim, who runs the Asia-Pacific wealth business, said in an interview. “I don’t think there’s a limit apart from what we can digest,” he said…
Foreigners’ holdings of yuan-denominated, domestically traded bonds hit a record in July
SHANGHAI—Foreign investors kept piling into China’s $11.7 trillion bond market last month, despite a tumbling yuan and a narrowing gap between Chinese and U.S. interest rates.
Solid demand from central banks was probably a major driver, analysts said. These buyers hold yuan as part of their foreign-exchange reserves and can look past short-term currency moves. Chinese bonds are also due to join a major international index next year, which has lured money managers…
Foreigners Strengthen Chinese Bond Holdings, Despite a Weakening Yuan
MassMutual Is Weighing Sale of OppenheimerFunds Division
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Mutual fund giant is said to be worth at least $5 billion
- Life insurer is working with financial advisers on divestiture
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. is weighing a sale of asset manager OppenheimerFunds Inc., which could fetch at least $5 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Springfield, Massachusetts-based insurer is working with advisers to evaluate a sale, a process that is at an early, informal stage, said the people, who asked not be identified because the matter isn’t public. No decision has been made and MassMutual could opt to hold onto the firm, they said…
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ITG failed to disclose dark-pool speed bump, an SEC violation
- It’s the third time in three years ITG has run afoul of SEC
Investment Technology Group Inc. maybe should’ve worked with Michael Lewis, too.
The New York-based brokerage said Wednesday that it faces a third Securities and Exchange Commission fine in three years. Part of the latest violation flips the script on bad behavior in the U.S. stock market: ITG got in trouble for not disclosing that, in the aftermath of Lewis’s “Flash Boys,” it introduced a speed bump on its Posit dark pool roughly similar to the one glorified by the author in his 2014 book on high-frequency traders…
Hedge Fund Backed by Industry Leaders Closes Its Doors
By · CommentsBacked by Jamie Dinan and Dan Loeb, Cerrano Capital was launched less than a year ago
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Guizhou in southwest posted a 10% increase in economic output
- Rustbelt province Liaoning rebounded while Jilin lagged behind
China is growing at a very steady pace — fluctuating between 6.7 percent and 6.9 percent for the past three years. But under the hood, there’s a wide divergence among its 31 regions in the first half of this year — from a 2.5 percent expansion for northeastern Jilin to a 10 percent boom for southwestern Guizhou.
Such divergence makes it hard to crack down on debt across the nation with a one-size-fits-all policy, as the stimulus that may be needed in Inner Mongolia might cause too much lending in more prosperous regions such as Shanghai…
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Mueller’s prosecutors focus on bank fraud near end of trial
- Judge seals transcript discussion of Trump investigation
After watching the betrayal of Paul Manafort this week by his right-hand man, jurors heard drier testimony Thursday that Manafort lied repeatedly about his finances to bankers while seeking real estate loans.
Through those lies about his income, assets and debt he managed to secure bigger loans than he would have otherwise, jurors were told. They saw documents, for example, showing that he inflated income and concealed debt in seeking a $5 million real-estate loan from the Banc of California…
A day after Elon Musk declared that he might try to convert Tesla into a private company, Wall Street banks raced to figure out how such a transaction might work and how they might get a piece of the action.
Executives at banks including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are discussing ways a deal could be structured, angling to land the potentially prestigious assignment of taking the maker of electric cars off public markets, according to people familiar with the discussions. Bankers and lawyers on Wall Street said any deal is likely to be valued at $10 billion to $20 billion…
Saudi Investment Freeze Doesn’t Amount to Much in Canada
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The kingdom has hotels, grain, stocks in the northern nation
- Canadian markets little changed as Saudi ramps up attacks
The decision by Saudi Arabia to halt new investments and unload assets in Canada is likely to have limited impact.
Saudi assets in Canada are confined mainly to stakes in upscale hotel operators, some small stock holdings in companies like Canadian National Railway Co., and grain facilities…
What Now for Saudi Arabia’s Planned $2 Trillion Fund?
By · CommentsSaudi Arabia is now looking for Plan B to propel its sovereign wealth fund into the ranks of global giants. The initial plan was to raise at least $100 billion through an initial public offering of a small stake in Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company, in the second half of 2018. Though the IPO is not going ahead as originally planned, the nation’s Public Investment Fund still hopes to control more than $2 trillion by 2030.
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Discussions in 2017 touched on taking carmaker private
- Talks failed to progress due to disagreements over control
Elon Musk and Masayoshi Son held talks last year about SoftBank Group Corp. investing in Tesla Inc., including potentially taking the electric carmaker private, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.
Son and Musk met in April 2017 to discuss an investment in Tesla, the people said. The talks touched on taking Tesla private, but failed to progress due to disagreements over ownership. Musk proposed a structure that would have given him disproportionate control over the company through stock with supervoting rights, one person said. There are no active talks between the companies now, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. Tesla spokesmen didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. A SoftBank spokesman declined to comment…
Oil Prices Plunge as Stockpiles Jump
By · CommentsCrude slides to lowest close since June as fuel inventories reach seven-month record
Oil prices fell to their lowest level in nearly seven weeks Wednesday as total U.S. stockpiles of oil and fuel hit a seven-month high and U.S.-China trade tensions escalated.
Light, sweet crude for September delivery slid 3.2% to $66.94 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That was its lowest close since June 21. Brent crude, the global benchmark, also fell 3.2%, to $72.28 a barrel…
Saudi Arabia’s purchase of a stake of about $2 billion in Tesla Inc. is only the latest high-profile investment by its sovereign wealth fund since 2016.
The Public Investment Fund built up a less-than 5 percent stake in the electric carmaker in recent months, according to a person familiar with the matter, just as Elon Musk considers taking the company private. PIF’s move comes as it seeks to turn into a $2 trillion powerhouse and help diversify Saudi Arabia’s oil-dependent economy. Here’s a selection of PIF’s recent investments and holdings:
Tesla Marks the Latest High-Profile Bet for Saudi Wealth Fund
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Treasury officials say ‘crack and pack’ technique is abusive
- Law blocks high-earning service providers from 20% deduction
The Internal Revenue Service provided some long-awaited answers for business owners hoping to dodge the limits on a juicy new tax break.
The IRS’s proposed regulations make it clear that the agency considers a planning technique known as “crack and pack” to be abusive. The move had been eyed by professional service providers, such as law and accounting firms, to get around income limits set for pass-through businesses, whose income is reported on their owners’ personal returns…
IRS Targets Loopholes for $415 Billion Business Owner Tax Break
The Wall Street firm is pursuing its first LNG contract, muscling into a growing market
Along a narrow inlet off the Gulf of Mexico, 2.8 billion cubic feet of natural gas rolls daily through the Sabine Pass plant, where it is cooled into a liquid and loaded onto tankers bound for Asia and South America.
One may depart soon with the financial backing of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., a first for the Wall Street firm and a sign that its appetite for risk, though diminished since the crisis, hasn’t disappeared…
Goldman Sachs in Talks to Buy a Tanker of Liquefied Natural Gas
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Selling last week was third highest on record: Bloomberg data
- Mainland traders cut stakes in 15 of 50 HSI members this year
Chinese investors have gone off Hong Kong stocks again.
After turning net buyers in July, mainland traders have been selling the city’s stocks this month, returning to an April-June trend, when they dumped HK$24 billion ($3 billion) shares over a record three consecutive months. The reversal came as the Hong Kong benchmark declined every day last week, but investors continued to pull out Monday through Wednesday, when the Hang Seng Index rose 2.5 percent…
This 40-Room Hotel Is Now a $6.2 Million Mansion
By · CommentsOnce a concrete ruin, a relic from Arizona’s gold rush was converted into a posh private home. Now it’s on sale for the first time.
By 1919, when James “Rawhide Jimmy” Douglas built a hotel directly outside the entrance to his copper mine in Arizona, he was already rich.
Shares in his company, United Verde Extension Co., had gone from 15¢ a share in 1912 to $35 a share by 1916 (more than $800 in today’s dollars), and Douglas, the scion of a wealthy mining family, was feeling so flush that he decided to build his miners a dorm-cum-hotel at the entrance of the Little Daisy Mine in Jerome, Ariz…
The Money Laundering Hub On the U.S. Border? It’s Canada
By · CommentsStrict privacy laws, a reluctance among banks to report suspicious activity and weak regulators contribute to low number of convictions
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RICS says buyers shunned the market before BOE rate increase
- Supply shortage threatens to push up rents 15 percent by 2023
The U.K. housing market remained listless in July as Brexit uncertainty intensified and Britons braced for an interest-rate increase from the Bank of England, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Prices and sales stagnated and property values in London continued to fall, RICS said in a report published Thursday…
U.K. Housing Market Stays Subdued as Brexit, Rates Deter Buyers
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U.S. benchmark gauge will finish the year at 3,200: Canaccord
- Strong earnings growth and rising confidence will help rally
As U.S. equities flirt with a fresh all-time high, the most optimistic strategist on Wall Street is doubling down on his view that the S&P 500 Index will soar 12 percent in less than five months.
By the end of this year, the index will reach 3,200 points as the economy and earnings drive the next leg of the bull market, according to Canaccord Genuity LLC’s Tony Dwyer. Reset global expectations and a demographic tailwind will also fuel a second-half ramp-up, the strategist said, after the gauge climbed to within a percentage point of surpassing its January peak…
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Savings helps industry post record profits for shareholders
- Some employees get raises as major banks trim the workforce
Banks were among the top beneficiaries when Republicans slashed corporate taxes in December to stoke the U.S. economy. So how are the nation’s largest financial institutions treating employees, customers and investors?
Twenty-three firms deemed most important by the Federal Reserve saved, on average, $388 million each in the first half of this year, based on declines in their reported tax rates. Over the same period, members of the group said they collectively eliminated 3,200 jobs…
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Tesla shares climb 11% after CEO tweets about going private
- Saudi Arabia investment fund said to build stake in carmaker
Elon Musk added $1.4 billion to his fortune Tuesday with a single tweet.
Shares in Tesla Inc. climbed 11 percent to $379.57 at 4 p.m. in New York, taking Musk’s fortune to $25.8 billion after he said he’s considering taking the electric-carmaker private at $420 a share…
Musk Needs Just 61 Characters to Lift Wealth by $1.4 Billion
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Najib was charged with 3 counts of money laundering breaches
- Indictment is the first for a former premier of Malaysia
Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Najib Razak was charged under the anti-money laundering act in a case linked to the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal, adding to his earlier charges of corruption and breach of trust.
Najib was served with three counts of money laundering breaches related to SRC International Sdn, a former unit of state fund 1MDB. The charges carry a punishment of up to 15 years in prison and a fine of no less than five times the amount of relevant funds…
S&P 500 had its second-highest close in history and was just 0.5% away from its January record
U.S. stocks climbed Tuesday, with strong corporate earnings reports lifting major indexes as tariff tensions simmer.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 126.73 points, or 0.5%, to 25628.91. The S&P 500 gained 8.05 points, or 0.3%, to 2858.45, its second-highest close in history and just 0.5% away from its January record. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 23.99 points, or 0.3%, to 7883.66…
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Central bank has moved ahead of the curve, Western Asset says
- Schroder Investment is positive about Indonesia’s dollar debt
Indonesia at times felt uncomfortably close to the center of this year’s emerging-market selloff as bond yields rose for five straight months and the rupiah slid more than 6 percent. Some funds are now saying it’s time to get back in.
Loomis Sayles & Co. is looking to boost holdings of Indonesian bonds, citing sound domestic fundamentals and inflation that is close to target. Western Asset Management Co. says a proactive central bank and the recent increase in yields may be creating a buying opportunity for the nation’s dollar-denominated debt…
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Net demand is highest in at least three years, survey finds
- Customized solutions such as separate accounts gain favor
Investors are back to loving hedge funds, if you can still call them that.
Net demand for allocating to hedge funds is the highest in at least three years at 28 percent, compared with 12 percent a year prior, according to a Credit Suisse Group AG survey released Tuesday. That ranks them only 1 percentage point behind private equity among the top alternative asset classes…
Investor Appetite for Hedge Funds Is Soaring—But Define ‘Hedge Fund’
Retirement systems that manage money for public workers had a median 59% of their assets in equities at June 30, their largest allocation to stocks since 2014
Public pension funds aren’t backing away from stocks as the bull market grinds through its ninth year.
Retirement systems that manage money for U.S. firefighters, teachers and other public workers had a median 59% of their assets in domestic and international equities as of June 30, according to new data from Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service, up from 57% a year earlier. That is their largest allocation to stocks since 2014…
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Water Mill event raises $500,000 for Robin Hood Foundation
- Winning pony Margerita was star of match for kids attending
It was a result everyone could live with as a polo match gave way to an Argentine asado: The blue team beat the red team, 8-5, at the Equuleus Polo Club in Water Mill raising about $500,000 for the Robin Hood Foundation, the anti-poverty group based in New York.
Hedge fund manager Joe DiMenna had the home court advantage Sunday — he’s the owner of Equuleus — and Nacho Figueras as a teammate, who was fresh from a playing a match in England for Prince Harry’s charity Sentebale. Their NetJets-sponsored team was the winner…
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Tariffs will hit 279 product lines, down from 284 initially
- China has vowed to retaliate dollar-for-dollar on U.S. goods
The U.S. said it will begin imposing 25 percent duties on an additional $16 billion in Chinese imports in two weeks, escalating a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.
Customs will begin collecting the duties on 279 product lines, down from 284 items on the initial list, as of Aug. 23, the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office said in an emailed statement on Tuesday. The new list covers products ranging from motorcycles to steam turbines and railway cars…
Eric Yip has been buying a credit default swap index that tracks the values of mortgages backed by commercial property
A hedge-fund manager known for wagering on the demise of the weakest American malls is raising the stakes, betting some of the hardest-hit shopping centers are in a death spiral.
This more aggressive stance is an example of how some bearish investors are becoming bolder in these risky bets against shopping malls, defying a recent pick up among certain brick-and-mortar retailers and shares of mall owners…
Mall Bear Doubles Down on Bet, Even as Shopping Centers Show Some Life
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First-half profit fell 7.1% to A$495 million after charge
- AMP appointed ex-Treasury Secretary John Fraser as a director
AMP Ltd.’s wealth customers withdrew A$873 million ($648 million) in the first half as the Australian asset manager was hit by revelations of misconduct.
The net cash outflows in the six months to June 30 compared with inflows of A$1.02 billion a year earlier, the Sydney-based company said in a statement Wednesday. Withdrawals in the second quarter were impacted by an inquiry into wrongdoing in the financial industry and “headwinds” remain for the rest of 2018…
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Electric-car maker’s CEO shocks market with take-private plan
- Calls being public distracting, cites ‘enormous pressure’
The wild tweet hit Wall Street at precisely 12:48 p.m. Tuesday — and things just keep getting wilder.
Seemingly out of the blue, Elon Musk proclaimed that he might pull his money-losing Tesla Inc. off the market. Taking the electric-car company private at the price he touted would amount to an $82 billion valuation, a monumental sum that left many investors wondering: Is this a joke?…
For Elon Musk, an $82 Billion Gambit to Silence Tesla’s Critics
The United States stock market might be worth nearly $2 trillion more if not for the trade war.
Consider that the cost that investors appear to be ascribing to President Trump’s efforts to upend decades of trade relationships.
Typically, it’s hard to know why stocks are up or down over short periods. And the 5.8 percent gain in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index this year might seem to be one of those inscrutable moves. But a closer look at the factors that usually drive the stock market suggests that the escalating trade tensions are holding stocks back…
Britain’s Brexit Billionaire Slams the Establishment
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Peter Hargreaves gave more than $4 million to Leave campaign
- His $4.6 billion fortune make’s him the 12th richest Briton
Woe betide the politician, economist or civil servant who bumps into Peter Hargreaves.
The billionaire, who was one of the biggest financial backers of Brexit, is fuming over how the exit is being handled. Not that he thinks much of opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn either. But this arch-capitalist is so unimpressed with the current state of affairs that he’s not adverse to suggesting a dose of socialism might be needed to prove the merits of capitalism…