By Peter HobsonBOSTON, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank) has hired four people for its metals business in NewYork after losing six traders and salesmen who defected to rivalCanadian lender Bank of Montreal (BMO) last month,sources said.The move signals that Scotia, whose Mocatta metals arm hasfor years been the world's biggest lender to the physicalprecious metals industry, is co...Read More
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture is not planning to extend an up to $12 billion aid package for farmers into 2019, Secretary Sonny Perdue said on Monday, to mitigate farmer losses due to the imposition of tariffs on American exports.“Farmers are very resilient and adept in making their planning and marketing decisions based on the current market,” Perdue told r...Read More
Comex copper prices edged higher Monday morning in the US with the market holding steady amid further Chinese stock market deterioration. The copper price for December settlement on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange inched up 1.25 cents to $2.7535 per lb.Concerns of a slowdown in the Chinese economy continue to weigh on Asian shares, with the Shanghai Composite falling 2.2% ov...Read More
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co will not finish paying back the estimated 600,000 customers it wrongly charged for auto insurance until at least 2020, the bank said in a letter to U.S. lawmakers seen by Reuters.U.S. regulators slapped Wells Fargo with a $1 billion penalty in April when it admitted to wrongly forcing drivers into auto insurance policies. That agreement envisioned the cu...Read More
HONG KONG (Reuters) - A five-year old Chinese smartphone company whose high-end products are little known outside a tech-savvy niche is entering the U.S. market on Monday with the backing of two key local allies: chipmaking giant Qualcomm (QCOM.O) and mobile operator T-Mobile.The foray by Shenzhen-based OnePlus comes after U.S. mobile carriers AT&T and Verizon this year backed away from plans...Read More
* Hammond touts possible end to austerity with Brexit deal* BoE meets on Thursday; rates will likely be left unchanged* Graphic: World FX rates in 2018 tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh* Graphic: Trade-weighted sterling since Brexit vote tmsnrt.rs/2hwV9HvLONDON, Oct 29 (Reuters) - The pound drifted lower on Monday as Britain’s finance minister Philip Hammond laid out the prospect of an end to austerity so...Read More
The Chinese were the first civilization to use coal.Archaeological evidence shows the black rock being used in China over 6,000 years ago.Coal was key in enabling the Chinese to develop sophisticated economic, political, and cultural systems. And it continued to fuel China for millennia.Public pressure to reduce carbon emissions has increased in the past few decades. And as a result, China has mad...Read More
LONDON (Reuters) - The British government has set out its exit strategy from its biggest taxpayer-funded bailout of the financial crisis, announcing plans to sell all of its shares in Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) by 2024.The government owns 62.4 percent of RBS, Britain’s fourth-biggest bank by market value, which it rescued in 2008 with a 45.5 billion pound capital injection.The Office for...Read More
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Back when President Donald Trump was just a New York City real estate developer, he did battle over a Manhattan building project with a local U.S. congressman, whom he criticized as “one of the most egregious hacks in contemporary politics.”That congressman, Jerrold Nadler, is now a senior member of the U.S. House of Representatives and one of a handful of top De...Read More
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will scale back and then end in 2023 a flagship “Help to Buy” equity loan scheme, an initiative which has helped first-time buyers get onto the property ladder by allowing them to purchase a new home with as little as a 5 percent deposit.At the moment those taking advantage of the program, which is due to end in March 2021, can buy a property worth up to 600,...Read More
LONDON (Reuters) - British public debt looks set to remain high for a long time and finance minister Philip Hammond’s budget on Monday does not change that view, ratings agency Moody’s said.“Today’s budget confirms our expectation that we won’t see a material reversal in the UK’s high public debt levels for some time and that elevated debt levels will continue t...Read More
Prices for manganese ore imported into China on an fob basis ticked upward in the pricing session that ended on Friday October 26, while trading activity started to pick up in China before the onset of winter. High- and low-grade manganese ore prices showed modest increases Manganese ore grade prices in China ticked upward Falling bids weigh on Indian silico-manganese prices US focuses on long-ter...Read More
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter waded into the heated governor’s race in his home state of Georgia on Monday, asking the Republican candidate to step down from his role as the state’s top elections official.Carter said he was concerned that popular confidence in Georgia’s gubernatorial election would be threatened if the candidate, Brian Kemp, were to rema...Read More
Merkel, 64, has been chairwoman of her conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) since 2000 and chancellor since 2005. Her decision to step down as chairwoman comes after her party suffered its second regional election setback in as many weeks.Merkel made the announcement a day after Sunday’s vote in the state of Hesse, at which the CDU came first but suffered a slump in support from the last e...Read More
Thank you for joining us in a weekly technical look at the mid-cap oriented INK Canadian Insider (CIN) Index. The INK CIN Index tumbled yet again last week, shedding 32.65 points or 2.8%. The Index has now endured a nearly vertical correction of over 9% these past four weeks.Interestingly, our long-term momentum indicator MACD rose for the second time in two weeks, climbing from -4.2 to -3.76. Ou...Read More
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has raised its official forecast for economic growth in 2019 while the outlook for subsequent years was unchanged or slightly higher, finance minister Philip Hammond said on Monday as he outlined his annual budget.The country's official budget forecasters now expect gross domestic product will grow by 1.6 percent in 2019, compared with a forecast of 1.3 percent made in M...Read More
The need for investment in new lithium projects creates a need for risk management tools, but the market's immaturity creates challenges, according to panelists at an LME focus session during this year's annual LME Week. Increasing demand for lithium compounds arising out of the electric vehicle and battery boom has created an appetite to bring new projects on stream, but there are risks associate...Read More
LONDON (Reuters) - European shares, set for their worst monthly performance since August 2015, opened in positive territory on Monday in a tentative rebound from a sell-off which has depressed them to a level not seen since December 2016.At 0957 GMT, the pan-European STOXX 600 was up 1 percent with most bourses firmly in the black with U.S. stock futures turning positive despite worries about Chin...Read More
India's top court Monday directed the federal electricity regulator to decide within 8 weeks on approving revised tariffs for three power producers in the western state of Gujarat due to increased cost of imported coal.The Gujarat government sought the top court's intervention to implement a state government panel's report that recommended implementing a cost-reflective tariff, which would mirror...Read More
BERLIN (Reuters) - Angela Merkel heralded on Monday the end of a 13-year era in which she has dominated German and European politics, saying she would not seek re-election as head of her ruling conservatives and that this would be her last term as chancellor.Merkel, 64, has been chairwoman of Germany's Christian Democrats (CDU) since 2000 and chancellor since 2005, making her one of the longest se...Read More