BOGOTA, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Colombian holding company Valorem has asked regulators to allow it to buy back its own shares, the country's financial regulator said on Wednesday.The company is willing to pay 909 pesos per share, the regulator said in an open letter to the stock exchange, but did not specify how many shares it is looking to purchase. Valorem was not immediately available for comment.The...Read More
(Adds comments from analyst)SAO PAULO, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Mexican stocks fell again on Wednesday in the wake of the recent wild swings on Wall Street, and Brazilian equities were dragged down by shares of Petrobas.Brazil's benchmark Bovespa index led losses in the region, down 1.34 percent in afternoon trade. Among the biggest drags on the exchange were shares of Petr??leo Brasileiro SA, which have...Read More
By Swati PandeySYDNEY, Feb 8 (Reuters) - The New Zealand dollar skidded to a one-month trough on Thursday after the country's central bank left interest rates at record lows and cut its inflation forecasts, suggesting easy monetary policy was here to stay. The local dollar extended losses to drop as low as $0.7209, a level not seen since early January after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) p...Read More
(Adds details on quarterly results, shares)Feb 7 (Reuters) - Prudential Financial Inc , the largest U.S. life insurer by assets, on Wednesday reported a 7.6 percent rise in quarterly operating profit that topped analysts' estimates, helped by higher policy fees in its annuities business.Prudential's adjusted operating profit was $1.17 billion, or $2.69 per share, in the fourth quarter ended Dec....Read More
The U.S. stock market recently suffered a major pullback, as volatility surged. As such, Schaeffer's Senior Quantitative Analyst Rocky White compiled a list of the best stocks to buy after a major pullback -- defined as when the SPX falls at least 1% in two consecutive sessions within a month of an all-time high -- since the current bull market began in 2010. Two notable names from the list are bi...Read More
Monday's monster stock selloff is exhibit A for why I frequently recommend a 10 percent weighting in gold, with 5 percent in bullion and jewelry, the other 5 percent in high-quality gold stocks, mutual funds and ETFs.What began on Friday after the positive wage growth report extended into Monday, with all major averages dipping into negative territory for the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average...Read More
Jason LangeDES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Sluggish price increases in the United States give the Federal Reserve room to hold off on interest rate increases until at least mid-2018, Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans said on Wednesday.“If we get to that point and have more confidence that inflation is moving up sustainably, then further rate increases would be warranted,” Ev...Read More
Maiya Keidan, Simon JessopLONDON (Reuters) - Trend-following hedge funds were stopped in their tracks by global market volatility this week, with some giving up all of their gains from a stellar start to the year.Investors locked into steady moves had enjoyed strong gains as markets ‘melted up’ with the aid of easy monetary policy that leading central banks have said they plan to tight...Read More
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday sold $24 billion in 10-year government notes at a yield of 2.811 percent, which was the highest yield at a 10-year auction in four years, Treasury data showed.FILE PHOTO: Bundles of banknotes of U.S. Dollar are pictured at a currency exchange shop in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico January 15, 2018. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/File PhotoThe ratio...Read More
(Adds analyst comments, context throughout)By Bruno FederowskiBRASILIA, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Brazil's central bank cut interest rates to an all-time low on Wednesday and suggested it had reached the end of its deepest easing cycle in a decade as an economic recovery gathered pace.The bank's monetary policy committee, known as Copom, cut the benchmark Selic rate by 25 basis points to 6.75 percent, ca...Read More
Trevor Hunnicutt, Saqib Iqbal AhmedNEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors burned this week by the steep drop in the value of financial instruments that bet on stock market calm have a counterintuitive reaction: wade straight back in.Many are even looking for an opportunity to buy “short volatility” again using exchange-traded products (ETPs).Two banks, Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN.S) and Nomur...Read More
NEW YORK, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive of Doubleline Capital, said Wednesday that the "low rate-low volatility" environment went on for so long that now "the unwind will be turbulent and not over in a couple of days."Gundlach, who is known as the Wall Street bond king, told Reuters that bitcoin was the "lead horse" of risk assets and its recent...Read More
Richard Cowan, Amanda BeckerWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate, in a rare display of bipartisanship, on Wednesday reached a two-year budget deal to raise federal spending by almost $300 billion, in an attempt to end the kind of squabbling over fiscal issues that has plagued Washington for years.The agreement, announced by both the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate, would lift cap...Read More
Feb 7 (Reuters) - Prudential Financial Inc , the largest U.S. life insurer by assets, reported a 7.6 percent increase in quarterly operating profit on Wednesday, helped by higher policy fees in its annuities business.Prudential's adjusted operating profit was $1.17 billion, or $2.69 per share, in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, up from $1.09 billion, or $2.46 per share, in the year-earlier perio...Read More
The Dow Jones Industrial Average saw its steepest intraday point drop in history on Monday.Gold has helped preserve and grow capital in times of rising inflation.Gold has a long-standing history of performance. Monday's monster stock selloff is exhibit A for why I frequently recommend a 10 percent weighting in gold, with 5 percent in bullion and jewelry, the other 5 percent in high-quality gold st...Read More
(Adds VIX level and benchmark, paragraphs 5 and 11)By Richard Leong and Catherine NgaiNEW YORK, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Financial products that bet on swings in equities and cryptocurrencies should be monitored to understand their risk to market stability, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley said on Wednesday.The comments came after BlackRock Inc , the world's biggest asset manage...Read More
(Adds stocks, details, updates prices)By Nichola SaminatherFeb 7 (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index closed lower on Wednesday, dragged down by energy companies and miners as oil and metal prices dropped.* The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index slipped 33.35 points, or 0.22 percent, to 15,330.58.* Gold and silver-mining company Klondex Mines was the biggest decliner on the ind...Read More
MILAN, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) has raised its offer for Italian railway group Italo to around 2 billion euros ($2.45 billion), a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.GIP initially offered 1.9 billion euros for the private high-speed railways operator, excluding debt. The board of Italo was meeting earlier on Wednesday to discuss GIP's initial offer but t...Read More
Stocks again seesawed erratically between positive and negative territory today, with the Dow trading in a 500-point range. Along with Treasury yields and the latest round of corporate earnings reports, the latest budget showdown in Congress was also in focus, as Senate leaders claimed to have reached an agreement on a two-year spending bill to avoid a government shutdown tomorrow night. But while...Read More
WELLINGTON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Reserve Bank of New Zealand governor Grant Spencer said on Thursday that the bank was not concerned about the New Zealand dollar, which had risen in recent months. "We're comfortable with where it is," Spencer told reporters, adding that the New Zealand dollar's strength was largely on the back of weakness in the U.S. dollar. Spencer made the comments at a p...Read More