Crisis and killing on the streets of Ivory Coast not only ultimately forced out Laurent Gbagbo, the country’s recalcitrant former president; they also all-but closed down the stock exchange serving the whole of west Africa.
But with Alassane Ouattara, the new president, now in place, the exchange is due to re-open on May 16 in the country’s business capital, Abidjan, giving investors a chance to place their bets on the country’s prospects. Continue reading »
[snap - update] Oil plunges $10 as investors sell commodities
One-month Brent crude fell by more than $10 a barrel on Thursday, suffering its biggest ever single-day fall in absolute terms and the biggest in percentage terms since the 2008 financial crisis.
Investors sold commodities across the board, reducing their exposure to risk and continuing the trend of recent sessions as worries about global growth prospects provide an excuse to pare previously profitable trades, the FT reports. Continue reading »
China buys into Polish bulldozers
One of the biggest deals yet by a Chinese company in Poland is nearing completion, with negotiations between Guangxi LiuGong Machinery and Huta Stalowa Wola (HSW) expected to be completed within two months, according to the Polish company.
The sale of part of the assets of state-owned HSW is expected to fetch more than 250m zlotys ($94m), according to the Rzeczpospolita newspaper. The plan is for the Chinese machinery company to ramp up production of bulldozers at HSW’s plant in eastern Poland. Continue reading »
US manufacturing takes on China
Go West?
If you want a bellwether of manufacturing sentiment, you can’t get much better than good ol’ welding wire.
And a recovery in demand from automotive companies and other metal-bashing customers in North America is prompting Charter International, a leading supplier of welding equipment and supplies, to revamp its supply of these products to the world’s leading economy.
The good news for US workers is that the revamp won’t – as it often the case these days – go west to China. Continue reading »
Indonesian stocks: beautiful, but small
Indonesian growth in Q1 narrowly failed to meet expectations on Thursday, with the annualised rate of 6.5 per cent falling short of forecasts by just 0.1 per cent.
But the equity market keeps defying even the most bullish calls. So far this year, Indonesia is the region’s second best performing market (after South Korea), and has avoided much of the selling that has pulled markets across Asia into the red. Continue reading »
Telekom Srbija: no longer on offer
The last chapter of the Telekom Srbija saga didn’t last very long. Serbian officials declined to bite after Telekom Austria’s sweetened its offer on Wednesday, putting a kibosh on the attempted privatisation sale. The €1.1bn revised offer traded future investment promises for a bigger purchase price, yet still could not meet Serbia’s politically driven price expectations.
The government refused to budge on its €1.4bn target price for 51 per cent of the state-run telecoms group. The failure casts doubt on all further Balkan telecom privatisations, as long as governments put short-term fund raising ahead of private sector growth. Continue reading »
Weak US jobless data hits markets
Brent crude fell over 4 per cent on Thursday, dropping to around $117 a barrel, amid concerns about a possible faltering in the US economic recovery, prompted by an unexpected rise in American jobless claims.
With cocoa down 2.8 per cent, sugar 1.9 per cent, copper 2.7 per cent and silver 5 per cent, the commodities sell-off ran across the board, extending the losses of recent days. Bad news for the commodity exporters among emerging markets. But not necessarily good news for the importers as many of these countries (headed by China) are big exporters to the US. They won’t be cheering a weak US economy. Continue reading »
Malaysia: Asia’s interest rate hawk
India has raised official interest rates nine times in a year, and China four times in six months, but little Malaysia’s 25 basis point rise may be a better guide to how serious Asia’s inflation problem really is.
Zeti Akhtar Aziz, the long-serving governor of Bank Negara, celebrated her reappointment for a further five years by announcing on Thursday that interest rates would go up to 3 per cent, backed up by an increase in the reserve requirement for commercial from 2 per cent to 3 per cent. Continue reading »
San Miguel: writing on the wall?
The share price of San Miguel, the Philippine food and drinks giant, plunged by almost a third to 105.70 pesos shortly after trading resumed Thursday following an unusually long three-week voluntary trading halt ahead of a $900m share and convertible bond sale.
San Miguel recovered some ground in late morning trade and closed higher at 109.50 pesos by noon but the unexpected plunge below 110 pesos was a sobering reminder for both company officials and analysts about the perils of second-guessing market direction.
The EM rally: time to call a halt?
Has this year’s EM story run out of steam? Between April 22 and May 4 the MSCI EM index fell by 2.5 per cent, with bigger falls in, for example, Eastern Europe (3.6 per cent) and Latin America (5.1 per cent).
The biggest worry, of course, is inflation. In Brazil, consumer prices are expected to rise by 6.4 per cent this year, dangerously close to the government’s tolerance rate of 4.5 per cent plus or minus 2 percentage points. In Brazil and across the EM universe, investors are clearly worried about the impact on earnings. Continue reading »
Russian poll: 99% don’t believe officials declare income or property
Since becoming president of Russia three years ago, Dmitry Medvedev has made a big show of fighting against corruption. He has ordered an end to pre-trial detention, demanded a clean-up in the interior ministry and required officials to leave the boards of state companies.
One of his radical-looking measures mandating state officials and their spouses to declare their income and property in a bid to probe how their lifestyles matched their paychecks. A good idea, in theory. But, according to the average Russian, however, the bureaucrats’ returns are pure fiction.
Vietnamese food products: fishy?
Vietnam’s catfish industry has come under fire from environmentalists, members of the European Parliament and US fishermen who claim variously that it is produced in an unsustainable fashion, unfairly subsidised by the Vietnamese government and poses major health risks.
But despite the criticism, more and more people around the world are buying the fish, which is similar in taste and texture to cod but cheaper and is usually sold as Pangasius or Vietnamese river cobbler. Continue reading »
New York headlines
* Chinese offshore investment set for take-off
* US set to regain industrial crown
* South Korea seeks to shift reserves to China
* Siemens warns on Brazil’s strong real
* Intel claims 3D chip revolution Continue reading »
Tata Group: grass is not always greener
India’s powerful Tata Group, a conglomerate that produces everything from salt to steel, has declared its intention to invest in other markets, as a hedge against the well-known risks of doing business on its home turf.
The Tata Group has had various projects in India delayed by difficulties of obtaining land, grassroots resistance and political grandstanding in India’s rambunctious democracy.
But Tata has discovered that non-democratic developing economies are not necessarily easier places to do business, as it struggles to develop a new steel mill in Communist-ruled Vietnam. Continue reading »
Soc Gen: counting the cost of Egypt
It’s one thing to measure political risk in terms of swings in currencies, stock markets and CDS spreads. It’s another to count the costs in your P&L which is what Societe Generale has had to for its operations in Egypt, Tunisia and the Ivory Coast.
The French bank on Wednesday disclosed, in its first quarter results, €50m provisions for the three countries “undergoing political transition”. With net income of €916m, the group can take the hit. But nobody wants to lose that much in what are still peripheral markets. Continue reading »
| About this blog | Headlines email | Blog guide |
| Regulars | Series | Archive |
Older entries
Stefan Wagstyl
Josh Noble
Rob Minto
Pan Kwan Yuk
Jonathan Wheatley
Heba Saleh