By Marja NovakLJUBLJANA, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Slovenia's Labour Minister increased the minimum gross monthly wage in the country by 4.7 percent to 842.79 euros ($1,050), the country's Official Gazette revealed on Friday.Labour Minister Anja Kopac Mrak had said the increase reflects economic growth in the country although the finance ministry had said earlier in January such an increase would exceed...Read More
Among the plethora of names in the slew of earnings reports next week is hardware stock Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ:STX). The tech company is slated to report its fiscal second-quarter earnings before the bell on Monday. Below, we will take a look at how options traders are speculating ahead of the report, as well as how STX has been faring on the charts.As an overview, Seagate stock has outpe...Read More
AMMAN, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Jordan said on Friday a decision to end subsidies on staple pitta bread, lifting its prices 60 to 100 percent, will take effect on Saturday, the first such step in over two decades to ease the country's budget woes.The price of a kilo of white pitta bread was raised 60 percent to 0.40 dinars from 0.25 dinars and prices of large pita bread were nearly doubled. Other types...Read More
LONDON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - The euro zone's three largest economies are expected to sell bonds through auctions in the coming week.* On Tuesday, Italy is scheduled to sell 7-9 billion euros in bonds including a 50-year bond and a new 10-year bond. * On Wednesday, Germany is set to raise 4 billion euros from the sale of five-year bonds in an auction. * On Thursday, France will sell 8-9 billion euros...Read More
LUSAKA, Jan 26 (Reuters) - A $1.4 billion lawsuit against Canada's First Quantum Minerals in Zambia will go ahead, a Zambian court ruled after dismissing the company's bid to stop the case.State-owned ZCCM-IH launched action in October 2016 to sue First Quantum for $1.4 billion over claims that the Canadian company borrowed $2.3 billion from its Zambian copper mining subsidiary Kansanshi Mining Pl...Read More
(Adds quotes)DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 26 (Reuters) - There are a number of factors preventing the Bank of Japan from reaching its 2 percent inflation target but wages and prices are gradually rising and it is getting closer, the governor of the central bank Haruhiko Kuroda said on Friday.Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Kuroda spoke of a "tenacious" deflationary mindset in...Read More
LUSAKA, Jan 26 (Reuters) - A $1.4 billion lawsuit against Canada's First Quantum Minerals in Zambia will go ahead, a Zambian court ruled after dismissing the company's bid to stop the case.State-owned ZCCM-IH launched action in October 2016 to sue First Quantum for $1.4 billion over claims that the Canadian company borrowed $2.3 billion from its Zambian copper mining subsidiary Kansanshi Mining Pl...Read More
* Steinhoff says liquidity crunch largely contained* Asia-Pacific still in talks with lenders for fresh money* Steinhoff to issue quarterly update next month* Shares reverse losses (Adds Keika-Leiner, analyst comment)By Tiisetso MotsoenengJOHANNESBURG, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Steinhoffbought itself some breathing space on Friday by plugging a short-term funding gap as the troubled South African retail...Read More
Strong corporate earnings continue to drive stocks higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) and S&P 500 Index (SPX) both setting new record peaks. Dow component Intel (INTC) is surging after its earnings release, while upbeat drug news has fellow blue chip Pfizer (PFE) posting fresh highs, too, as they lead a broad rally in the tech and healthcare spaces. Elsewhere, investors are reacti...Read More
By Francesco CanepaFRANKFURT, Jan 26 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank's President Mario Draghi has rejected calls from European lawmakers to have financiers who give advice and feedback to the ECB register as lobbyists, saying they merely provide "information".Nearly 30 members of the European Parliament wrote to Draghi after an activist group found that nearly all the participants...Read More
U.S. dollar shows signs of bottoming, immediate term.Be prepared for potential temporary weakness in gold in coming days.Gold's intermediate-term recovery effort should remain intact.The price of gold entered the month of January with a head of steam behind it. Gold's history over the last several years told us that a rally early in 2018 was a strong possibility, and the profound weakness in t...Read More
Gold's strong upleg accelerated this week, powering to major new breakout highs. Speculators rushed to buy gold futures following surprising weak-dollar comments from the US Treasury Secretary, which hit the US dollar hard. That boosted gold to critical technical levels that should really intensify the shift back to bullish psychology. This mounting gold breakout confirms gold's bull market...Read More
* Q4 advance GDP estimate 2.6 pct vs est. 3 pct growth* Intel jumps after strong earnings, bullish forecast* Starbucks falls after weak-holiday qtr sales* Indexes up: Dow 0.33 pct, S&P 0.51 pct, Nasdaq 0.64 pct (Changes comment, adds details, updates prices)By Sruthi ShankarJan 26 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose to fresh records on Friday, propelled by strong earnings from Intel and drugmaker Abb...Read More
FRANKFURT, Jan 26 (Reuters) - German drugmaker Dermapharm said it would sell shares worth up to around 400 million euros ($497 million) in an initial public offering and list on the Frankfurt stock exchange on Feb. 9.It set the price range for the IPO at 26 to 30 euros per share, resulting in a total offering of between 350 million and 404 million euros, it said on Friday.The company is floating a...Read More
In yesterday's alert, we wrote that the situation could change quickly and that in such a case, we would send another alert. Six minutes after yesterday's opening bell, we already posted the second alert. And for a very good reason. The USD Index took a deep dive and metals were not even close to reacting in a normal way. They were actually a bit lower. We know an extremely bearish signal when we...Read More
BRASILIA, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Brazil's federal tax revenue edged up in 2017 as the country's recovery from the deepest recession in decades advanced, government data showed on Friday.Federal tax revenue rose 0.59 percent from 2016, after discounting for inflation to 1.342 trillion reais ($427 billion). Tax collection in December came in at 137.842 billion reais, up 4.93 percent in real terms from t...Read More
BENGALURU/MUMBAI, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Demand for physical gold improved slightly in most Asian hubs this week, despite rising prices, as buyers stocked up on expectations of a further rally in the yellow metal.Gold prices rose on Friday, putting them on course for a near 2 percent weekly gain, in anticipation of a further dip in the U.S. dollar.Demand in India, the world's second-largest consumer o...Read More
(Kitco News) - Participants in the weekly Kitco News gold survey look for gold tokeep rising next week, with traders and analysts citing the softer tone in theU.S. dollar. Wall Street Bullish Bearish Neutral VSMain Street Bullish Bearish Neutral The greenback fell sharply this week after U.S. Treasury SecretarySteven Mnuchin said a softer U.S. dollar was good for the economy...Read More
(Kitco News) - Participants in the weekly Kitco News gold survey look for gold to keep rising next week, with traders and analysts citing the softer tone in the U.S. dollar. Wall Street Bullish Bearish Neutral VS Main Street Bullish Bearish Neutral The greenback fell sharply this week after U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said a softer U.S. dollar was good...Read More
(Adds stocks, quote, updates levels)JOHANNESBURG, Jan 26 (Reuters) - The rand traded firmer on Friday, holding at its best levels since mid-2015, as sentiment was lifted by a weaker dollar and expectations that the new leader of the ruling ANC would rejuvenate the economy.At 1545 GMT, the rand was 0.44 percent stronger than Thursday's close at 11.8700 to the dollar , after breaking below the psyc...Read More