LONDON, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Average rents for residential properties in Britain grew at their slowest pace since 2013 last year, a survey showed on Monday, a latest sign of how uncertainty about Brexit is weighing on the economy.The 1.6 percent increase in rents was also the first below-inflation rise since 2013, according to the index compiled by the Deposit Protection Service which runs a deposit...Read More
Feb 5 (Reuters) -For other diaries, please see:U.S. Federal Reserve Polling Unit Diary Today in Washington Political and General News -----------------------------------------------------------This Diary is filed daily. ** Indicates new events ----------------------------------------------------------- SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3 COVENTRY, United Kingdom - Riksbank Deputy Governor Cecilia Skingsley will...Read More
WELLINGTON, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Prices for New Zealand's main commodities rose in January, pushed up by higher milk prices, ANZ Bank's commodity price index showed on Monday.The index edged up 0.7 percent for the month, compared with a 1.9 percent fall in the previous month.On an annual basis the index was 4.1 percent higher, compared with a 3.2 percent jump the month before.Whole milk powder, the c...Read More
(Updates with statement from Lloyds Bank)Feb 4 (Reuters) - Lloyds Banking Group Plc said on Sunday it would ban its credit card customers from buying Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies."Across Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland, Halifax and MBNA, we do not accept credit card transactions involving the purchase of cryptocurrencies," a company spokeswoman said in an email.Britain's biggest mor...Read More
By Jennifer AblanNEW YORK, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Jeffrey Gundlach, the chief executive of DoubleLine Capital, says "it is hard to love bonds at even 3 percent" yield, given the backdrop for accelerating economic growth in the U.S."It seems the tradable buy on bonds will need a flight-to-safety bid on a wave of fear washing over risk markets," Gundlach told Reuters late on Saturday....Read More
Feb 5 (Reuters) - Australia's Westpac Banking Corp intends raising about A$750 million ($593.33 million) through an offering of capital notes, it said on Monday. Each note will have an issue price of A$100, and the distribution margin on the notes is expected to be between 3.20 percent and 3.40 percent per annum, the bank said in a statement. The bank also said that the notes will be quoted on the...Read More
Feb 5 (Reuters) - Australian shares are expected to open the week lower, tracking a substantially weaker finish from Wall Street on Friday as fears of a tightening bond market in the U.S. as well as rising bond yields had investors rapidly exiting equities.Wall Street's three major indexes logged their biggest weekly losses in two years on Friday. The S&P 500 and Dow saw their worst weeks sinc...Read More
(Repeats without change from Friday)By Caroline ValetkevitchNEW YORK, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main stock indexes suffered their worst week in two years as bond yields soared and renewed fears of inflation gripped investors. But amid the selloff, corporate earnings forecasts keep improving.Forecasts for earnings, one of the fundamental factors that drives stock prices, are rising fast as a...Read More
NEW YORK, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Apple Music is on track to overtake Spotify by number of U.S. subscribers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people in the music business familiar with figures reported by the two services.Spotify is currently the largest music streaming service globally, with Apple Music coming in second.Representatives for both Apple and Spotify could not immediately...Read More
Ann SaphirSAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A pickup in wage growth and inflation are signs of a healthy economy and at this point are not enough to force the U.S. Federal Reserve to raise rates much more this year than the three times it has been signaling, a top policymaker said on Friday.Faster economic growth, buoyed by strong financial conditions, global growth and the Trump administration’s ta...Read More
Reuters) - Outgoing Federal Reserve Bank Chair Janet Yellen said on Friday that solid economic growth, faster wage increases, and a tightening labor market mean the U.S. central bank is likely to need to continue to raise interest rates gradually, as it has signaled it will.“The economy is growing at a healthy, solid pace,” Yellen said in an interview with PBS NewsHour on the last day...Read More
Michelle Martin, Andreas RinkeBERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday that her conservatives faced tough negotiations with the Social Democrats (SPD) as they strive to form a ruling coalition, and it was unclear when they would be able to wrap up the talks.More than four months after a national election, Europe’s largest economy and pre-eminent power broker is in po...Read More
CAIRO, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Average yields on Egypt's three- and nine-month treasury bills fell at an auction on Sunday, central bank data showed.Yields on the 91-day bills dipped to 17.652 percent from 18.006 percent at the last similar sale, and yields on 273-day bills fell to 16.580 percent from 17.080 percent. (Reporting by John Davison; Editing by Kevin Liffey) Disclaimer: The views expressed i...Read More
(Adds remand order)COLOMBO, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Sri Lankan police said on Sunday they had arrested two officials from primary dealer Perpetual Treasuries Ltd, which was named in a report as being involved in an alleged government bond scam in 2015. Police arrested Arjun Aloysius, owner of Perpetual Treasuries which more than half the bonds in a 2015 auction were sold to, and Perpetual CEO Kasun Pal...Read More
Canada's Guyana Goldfields is set to invest $120 million to conduct underground gold mining for the first time in Guyana's history.In an event held Sunday in the South American country, the company's President and CEO, Scott Caldwell, said that by the end of the month he will provide the results of an ongoing feasibility study on underground mining at the Aurora Gold Mine. The project, 100%-owned...Read More
Miners operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo are pulling out the heavy artillery in their fight against the country's new mining code which, they say, will stifle investment in the copper and cobalt-rich nation.Today, Africa-focused gold producer Randgold Resources (LON:RSS) issued a press release saying its executives are engaging "at the highest level" with the Joseph Kabila government t...Read More
It looks like a hybrid between a golf cart and Wall.E. Its main function is to move through collapsing, rubble-strewn tunnels at mine sites to map them and analyze pollutants in groundwater.It can do what humans cannot: penetrate thousands of feet into a mountain, creep through very narrow areas with poor air quality and gather data of poorly understood subterranean flows, many of which contain to...Read More
(Adds background, quote)CAIRO, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Egypt's foreign reserves registered in January the biggest month-on-month jump since July last year as the country pushed forward with economic reforms aimed at boosting growth.Foreign reserves rose to $38.209 billion at the end of January from $37.020 billion at the end of December, the central bank said on Sunday.It did not immediately provide de...Read More
CAIRO, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Egypt's foreign reserves rose to $38.209 billion at the end of January from $37.020 billion at the end of December, the central bank said on Sunday.Cairo's foreign reserves have been climbing since the country secured a $12 billion, three-year International Monetary Fund loan programme in 2016 in a bid to lure back foreign investors and revive its ailing economy.The countr...Read More
BEIJING, Feb 4 (Reuters) - China's Shanxi Xinghuacun Fen Wine Factory Co Ltd said its controlling shareholder Fen Jiu Group has signed an agreement to sell a 11.45 percent stake to a subsidiary of top beer maker China Resources.The stake sale is worth 5.16 billion yuan ($819.26 million), the state-owned company said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Sunday.The agreement will see the...Read More