Copper, Oil May Hold Clues to Where Bonds Are Heading

By Anchalee Worrachate and Chanyaporn Chanjaroen  

Photographer: Munshi Ahmed/Bloomberg

Copper prices fell sharply this year on concern that a slowdown in China and a release... Read More

Related

• Global Inflation Expectations

To understand where the global bond market is headed, follow the droves of housewives and elderly men who make their way to the parking lot of a public-housing block in Singapore’s Jurong area each weekday morning.
That’s where you’ll find Steven Chan Soon Fatt, who buys everything from old newspapers to scrap metal that he resells to local factories. While business is brisk for the fine copper wire that the men strip from discarded motors, the 58-year-old former taxi driver offers just S$6.20 ($4.74) a kilogram, or about 40 percent less than he did some three years ago.
“Prices came down so much,” Chan, who started dealing in scrap in March 2008 as the financial crisis worsened, said on a recent morning in November. “We have no choice but to

Vodafone Joins Asset Hunt as BT Spurs Global Dealmakers

By Amy Thomson and Matthew Campbell

BT Group Plc (BT/A)’s pursuit of O2 or EE, Britain’s two biggest mobile phone operators, prompted predictions of a wave of dealmaking in the U.K. The interest shown by Vodafone Group Plc in Liberty Global Plc shows that’s not just idle speculation.
Investors reacted to news of that interest by pushing Vodafone’s shares down as much as 5 percent.
BT is already the biggest U.K. broadband provider so a purchase of O2, owned by Spain’s Telefonica SA (TEF), or EE, a joint venture between Deutsche Telekom AG and France’s Orange (ORA) SA, would restore the former state telephone monopoly to a dominant position in the country.
With Vodafone (VOD) and Hutchison Whampoa Ltd, owner of U.K. mobile provider Three, now examining whether to pursue their own deals, according to people familiar with the situation, BT’s competitors appear ready to respond. Given that most British mobile phone and

Swiss Say Foreign Millionaires Still Welcome After Vote

By Giles Broom  

Related

• Millionaires Not Wanted? Geneva Gets Tough With Taxes

Swiss voters refused to give up a 152-year-old tax break for rich foreigners in Geneva and other wealthy areas that the government says helps the economy.
Fifty-nine percent voted against an initiative, sponsored by the Socialist Party, that would have abolished a system allowing foreigners to duck income and wealth taxes by negotiating lump-sum payments with Swiss cantons, the government said yesterday. Two other proposals, on the Swiss National Bank’s gold holdings and on immigration limits, also were rejected.
The Swiss government has said abolishing the regime known as the “forfait” would have cut tax receipts and led to job losses as wealthy exiles left Geneva and

Oil at $40 Possible as Market Transforms Caracas to Iran

By Gregory Viscusi, Tara Patel and Simon Kennedy  

Photographer: John Moore/AP Photo

An official of the Saudi oil company at a rig near Howta, Saudi Arabia.

Related

• How Oil's Price Plunge Impacts Wall Street

Oil’s decline is proving to be the worst since the collapse of the financial system in 2008 and threatening to have the same global impact of falling prices three decades ago that led to the Mexican debt crisis and the end of the Soviet Union.
Russia, the world’s largest producer, can no longer rely on the same oil revenues to rescue an economy suffering from European and U.S. sanctions. Iran, also reeling from similar sanctions, will need to reduce subsidies that have partly insulated its growing population. Nigeria, fighting an Islamic insurgency, and Venezuela, crippled by failing political and economic policies, also rank among the biggest losers from the decision by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries last week to

By Giles Broom

Related

• Millionaires Not Wanted? Geneva Gets Tough With Taxes

Swiss voters refused to give up a 152-year-old tax break for rich foreigners in Geneva and other wealthy areas that the government says helps the economy.
Fifty-nine percent voted against an initiative, sponsored by the Socialist Party, that would have abolished a system allowing foreigners to duck income and wealth taxes by negotiating lump-sum payments with Swiss cantons, the government said yesterday. Two other proposals, on the Swiss National Bank’s gold holdings and on immigration limits, also were rejected.
The Swiss government has said abolishing the regime known as the “forfait” would have cut tax receipts and led to job losses as wealthy exiles left Geneva and

Black Friday Fizzles With Consumers as Sales Tumble 11%

By Lauren Coleman-Lochner

Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

A shopper wait to purchase Beats Electronics LLC Beats by Dr. Dre headphones at a Best Buy Co. store ahead of Black... Read More

Related

• CEO Says Target Posts Record Web Sales on Thanksgiving
• Toys `R' Us Has `Great Start' to Holidays, Mullany Says
• Black Friday Sales `Look Very Positive,' Shay Says

Even after doling out discounts on electronics and clothes, retailers struggled to entice shoppers to Black Friday sales events, putting pressure on the industry as it heads into the final weeks of the holiday season.
Spending tumbled an estimated 11 percent over the weekend, the Washington-based National Retail Federation said yesterday. And more than 6 million shoppers who

Iran Wary of Oil ‘Shock Therapy’ as OPEC Vies for Market

By Golnar Motevalli

Photographer: Samuel Kubani/AFP via Getty Images

Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh. OPEC, which supplies about 40 percent of the... Read More

The “shock therapy” of a steep drop in crude prices, which have fallen to a five-year low, is no solution for OPEC’s loss of market share to U.S. shale producers, Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said.
U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude declined 10 percent after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries decided on Nov. 27 to keep its production target unchanged at 30 million barrels a day. Prices at this lower level are no guarantee of a significant reduction in U.S. shale output, Zanganeh said in an interview in Tehran on Nov. 28, after arriving from the OPEC meeting in Vienna.
“High prices are a disadvantage to OPEC’s market share,” he said. “If you want to increase your share, you have to reduce prices, but you can’t do it

OPEC Inaction Spurs Survival of Fittest as Oil Below $65

By Ben Sharples and Grant Smith  

Photographer: Eddie Seal/Bloomberg

Floor hand Alejandro Cabanas holds a line from the floor on Orion Drilling Co.'s... Read More

Related

• Lower Oil May Offer ECB `Good Deflation,' Goldman Says

West Texas Intermediate tumbled below $65 a barrel to the lowest level since July 2009 amid speculation prices have further to drop before OPEC’s decision to maintain output slows U.S. shale supply.
Benchmark futures in New York and London slumped as much as 3.7 percent, before paring some of those losses. Both grades had their biggest monthly loss in November in almost six years after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries signaled it will leave it to the market to reduce a global glut. Current prices are no guarantee of a significant decline in U.S. shale output, Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said in an interview on Nov. 28.
Oil has collapsed into a bear market as the U.S. pumps crude at the fastest rate in three decades while global demand growth slows. OPEC last week resisted calls from

ECB Confronts Cheaper Oil Spilling Onto Stimulus Debate

By Stefan Riecher  

Photographer: Martin Leissl/Bloomberg

ECB President Mario Draghi speaks during a news conference in Frankfurt on Nov. 6, 2014.

Related

• Lower Oil May Offer ECB `Good Deflation,' Goldman Says

Mario Draghi and his colleagues are about to debate whether cheaper energy is a blessing or a curse.
When the European Central Bank president convenes his Governing Council this week, the 24 policy makers will have to judge how the plunge in oil prices will affect inflation expectations in the euro area and what they should do about it. Crude’s biggest drop in three years, after OPEC opted not to reduce a supply glut, puts downward pressure on consumer prices that are already close to stagnating.
German council member Jens Weidmann signaled how oil is now a focal point in the quantitative-easing debate when he said last week that the drop in energy costs is like

East Africa Single Visa: One Step In The Right Direction

 

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VENTURES AFRICA – East Africa, a region recognized as a successful global location for mobile payments and a thriving online space, is embracing technology advancement as part of its growth plan for diverse sectors. The newly recently launched East Africa Single Visa is intended to scale up tourist arrivals in EAC member states; Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda. This multinational-travel certificate which costs $90 will grant tourists a 90-day validity period with no room for extension.
Although termed as ‘long-haul destination’, one cannot stop wondering why, with massive cultural and natural resources, Africa continues to lag behind in recorded tourist visits. According to a report by the World Travel and Tourism Council, of the one Billion tourists who travelled in 2012, only 50 million were destined for Africa, where East Africa only managed to scoop 5 million (1 percent) of the bound-for-Africa travelers. “We need to re-package ourselves” quipped Waturi Matu-Coordinator for East African Tourism Platform in an interview with Jovago.com, a leading online hotel booking platform in Africa. Ms. Matu explains that this revamping process would start with the leadership, down to stakeholders and the African Media, “Africa has suffered blanket misconceptions for a long time. We are yet to carry ourselves from the gripping grief of the term ‘dark continent’. Africa needs to