(Bloomberg) - What do you do when you're sure global stocks are running out of gas, rising rates are about to pummel bonds and your models show the only emerging market worth a bet is India? You buy gold, of course.Fritz Folts did just that earlier this year after slashing his holdings of exchange-traded funds backed by stocks and cutting to zero his exposure to broad emerging-market ETFs, focusi...Read More
Gold higher despite risk appetite and US data. A weaker US dollar supports the yellow metal. Gold peaked after the beginning of the US session at $1,350.50/oz. It failed to follow through and pulled back. As of writing, was trading at $1,346 up modestly from Friday’s close. The metal was rising despite the improvement in risk appetite. The air strike in Syria by US, Briti...Read More
WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland’s planned cut in income tax for smaller companies will cost up to 600 million zlotys ($180 million) per year, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Monday, suggesting that it would have little impact on the budget.The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which is gearing up for a series of elections, on Saturday promised a reduction in corporate income tax for sm...Read More
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - A decision looming before Brazil’s Supreme Court could free imprisoned former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva within days and deal the harshest blow yet to the South American country’s battle against corruption, prosecutors and judges say.Several justices on Brazil’s top court have already made clear they want to overturn a landmark 2016 ruling that allo...Read More
The Commerce Department has banned U.S. component sales to China's ZTEThe U.S. stock market is trading notably higher to start the week. However, not all of the day's action is to the upside, with Merck rival Bristol-Myers Squibb Co (NYSE:BMY), ZTE supplier Acacia Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACIA), and dietary supplements firm Cyanotech Corp (NASDAQ:CYAN) all trading lower. Here's a quick look a...Read More
Jim Finkle, Doina Chiacu(Reuters) - The United States and Britain on Monday alleged that Russian government-backed hackers had infected computer routers around the world in a cyber espionage campaign that targeted government agencies, businesses and critical infrastructure operators.U.S. and British officials told reporters in a conference call that they planned to issue a joint alert on the attac...Read More
Laila Bassam, Anthony DeutschDAMASCUS/THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The United States accused Russia on Monday of blocking international inspectors from reaching the site of a suspected poison gas attack in Syria and said Russians or Syrians may have tampered with evidence on the ground.Moscow denied the charge and blamed delays on retaliatory U.S.-led missile strikes on Syria at the weekend.In the fraugh...Read More
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said he would nominate Richard Clarida, an economist who advises fund manager Pimco, and Michelle Bowman, a Kansas banking regulator, for two key positions at the U.S. Federal Reserve.If they are confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Clarida would serve as the vice chairman of the U.S. central bank’s Board of Governors and Bowman would bec...Read More
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House cybersecurity coordinator Rob Joyce will leave his post and return to the National Security Agency, a White House National Security Council spokesman said.“Joyce is three months past his detail of a year and is deciding to return to NSA,” a National Security Council spokesman said.His departure follows that of his boss, Tom Bossert, who oversaw Joyce&...Read More
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve will likely gradually raise interest rates three or four times in total this year and could aim to eventually raise the policy rate to about 3 percent, New York Fed President William Dudley said in a television interview on Monday.“The markets are seeing that three is possible, four is possible, but five or six seems to me is quite unlikely,” Du...Read More
(Reuters) - Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Robert Kaplan on Monday said he expects the U.S. central bank to raise interest rates three times this year and further next year to levels that could put the brakes on U.S. economic growth, but that he does not want to push short-term rates above long-term borrowing costs.“I don’t have a problem with being restrictive,” Kaplan sa...Read More
SHOP is currently testing to notable technical levelsShopify Inc (NYSE:SHOP) stock fell hard in late March, after Citron Research said it should be trading at $100 and predicted Facebook-related headwinds. More recently, the shares have been testing some key technical levels. First of all, they again have been bouncing from the $112 area, which represents a 50% Fibonacci retracement of their 52-we...Read More
Steve Stecklow, Karen FreifeldLONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Commerce has banned American companies from selling components to leading Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE Corp for seven years for violating the terms of a sanctions violation case, U.S. officials said on Monday.The U.S. action, first reported by Reuters, could be devastating to ZTE since American companies are es...Read More
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford will brief the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives about Syria behind closed doors on Tuesday afternoon, congressional aides said on Monday.Many U.S. lawmakers have been pushing President Donald Trump's administration for more information about its Syria policy, especially since the w...Read More
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A benign economic outlook for the euro zone is underpinning the European Central Bank’s confidence that inflation in the bloc will converge with its target, the ECB’s chief economist said on Monday.“Our monetary policy measures are bearing fruit, and the growth outlook confirms our confidence that inflation will converge towards our aim of below, but close t...Read More
(Reuters) - Most of the political ads about divisive issues that ran on Facebook Inc before the 2016 U.S. presidential election were sponsored by “suspicious groups” with no publicly available information about them, according to a study released on Monday and based on a database of five million ads on Facebook.One in six of those groups was linked to Russia, according to a University...Read More
GENEVA (Reuters) - The European Union is seeking compensation from the United States for U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum, despite Washington’s assertion that they are not subject to World Trade Organization rules, a WTO filing showed on Monday.In a step already taken by China, the EU said it did not accept the “national security” justification for the U.S. tariffs but said the...Read More
The e-commerce giant is reportedly scrapping plans to sell to hospitalsE-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is reportedly scrapping plans to sell and distribute pharmaceutical products to hospitals. Against this backdrop, several healthcare suppliers are moving higher -- and attracting notable options activity. Among them, McKesson Corporation (NYSE:MCK) and Cardinal Health Inc (NYSE:CA...Read More
The Commerce Dept. is banning sales to the Chinese telecom concernThe shares of American optical component makers are sinking today, after the Commerce Department announced plans for a seven-year ban on selling to Chinese telecom concern ZTE Corp. Oclaro Inc (NASDAQ:OCLR) -- which reportedly generated 18% of last year's revenue from ZTE -- and sector peer Lumentum Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:LITE) are se...Read More
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford will brief the U.S. Senate on Syria on Tuesday afternoon, a senior Senate source said on Monday.Many U.S. lawmakers have been pushing President Donald Trump's administration for more information about its Syria policy, especially since the weekend bombing of Syria by Washington and allies...Read More