Source: Bloomberg The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is approaching the cheapest level ever compared with bonds as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s zero-percent interest rates drive investors and companies from cash. Profits that doubled since 2009 pushed the index’s so- called earnings yield to 7.1 per cent, close to the highest on record ...
Source: AFP US retail giant Walmart announced Monday that it would raise its stake in Chinese online shopping company Yihaodian to a majority 51 per cent as it seeks more access to China’s massive market. The transaction comes four months after Walmart’s former China chief executive quit following a scandal over falsely labelled pork. ...
Source: AFP US congressional leaders agreed early Thursday on a US$100-billion deal to extend a middle class tax cut and unemployment benefits with a surprising lack of partisan bickering. The deal, announced just after midnight on Thursday by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat, and House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, a ...
Source: Reuters Emerging markets talked up their desire to break Washington’s hold on the top World Bank job on Thursday after Robert Zoellick announced he would step down, yet they showed little inclination to band together to force change. Much like in 2011, when Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned as managing director of the International Monetary ...
Source: Reuters A Goldman Sachs technology analyst is under investigation by federal authorities for leaking inside information to hedge funds, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people close to the situation. The newspaper named the analyst as Henry King and said his activities focused on the flow of information from Taiwan to US investors about ...
Talks between Yahoo Inc and China’s Alibaba Group over the US Internet giant’s Asian assets have hit an impasse, throwing their plans for a US$17-billion tax-free asset swap into question, according to sources briefed on the situation. The snag in negotiations came on the same day that activist investor Daniel Loeb, of hedge fund ThirdPoint, ...
Source: AFP Boeing and Indonesian carrier Lion Air formally signed Tuesday a US$22.4-billion deal for 230 aircraft, the single largest contract in commercial aviation history. Lion Air ordered 201 Boeing 737 MAX and 29 next-generation 737-900ERs, with purchase rights for an additional 150 airplanes from the US manufacturer. The deal was first announced on the ...
Source: Reuters When it comes to hiring top commodity traders, what goes around comes around. Wall Street, after years of poaching the best and brightest from specialised commodity firms, is losing the war to keep the essential traders who know how to arbitrage copper or store crude. After financial reforms sounded the death knell ...
Source: Reuters US and European regulators approved Google Inc’s US$12.5-billion purchase of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc and said they would keep a sharp eye on the web search giant to ensure patents critical to the telecommunications industry would be licensed at fair prices. It was one of a series of approvals on Monday that ...
Source: Reuters Apple Inc raised the stake in an intensifying global patent battle with Samsung Electronics by targeting the latest model using Google’s fast growing Android software, a move which may affect other Android phone makers. Apple has asked a federal court in California to block Samsung from selling its new Galaxy Nexus smartphones, which ...
