Bloomberg Canada’s federal housing agency is considering scaling back mortgage underwriting practices to limit excessive borrowing due to the threat of significant declines in real estate prices and rising debt levels. The combination of higher mortgage debt, declining property prices and increased unemployment is “cause for concern for Canada’s longer-term financial stability,” Evan Siddall, chief executive officer at Canada Mortgage ...

Bloomberg One of the UK’s biggest real-estate managers is predicting gloomy times ahead for bricks and mortar. Insurance giant Aviva Plc expects residential property prices to drop 12% and commercial real estate to decline by 15% because of the impact of the pandemic, it said in an earnings update on Thursday. On a slightly brighter note, it sees long-term growth ...

Bloomberg Stocks declined alongside US equity futures on Thursday as deteriorating Sino-American ties cast a cloud over the recent rally in risk assets. Treasuries advanced with the dollar. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index erased Wednesday’s gain, with all 19 sector groups in the red. Contracts on the three main American equities gauges signalled a drop at the Wall Street open, ...

Bloomberg Indian stocks climbed, putting the main indexes on track for the third day of gains, amid optimism of economic revival as the nation gradually exits from the world’s strictest lockdown. The S&P BSE Sensex climbed 0.5% to 30,983.04 as of 10:11 am in Mumbai, while NSE Nifty 50 Index rose by a similar magnitude. Both the measures posted their ...

Bloomberg Malaysian stocks rallied on Thursday led by glove makers, with the benchmark gauge poised for its longest winning streak in almost two years. The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index rose 1% in Kuala Lumpur, its seventh day of gains, sending valuations to a 10-month high. Volumes for the whole market hit a record earlier this week. Top Glove Corp. ...

Bloomberg Oil rose for a fifth day as investors weighed signs the market is rebalancing against what’s still a precarious economic outlook. Futures in New York for July delivery gained to above $32 a barrel. A report that a virus vaccine study didn’t produce enough critical data to assess its success added some caution to markets, which have been buoyed ...

Bloomberg The global plunge in electricity demand will drag on long after nations lift stay-at-home orders, leading to the biggest annual drop since the Great Depression and fundamentally reshaping power markets. As economies struggle to recover, worldwide electricity consumption will decline 5% in 2020, the most in more than eight decades, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). In the ...

Bloomberg New power from wind and solar is set to fall this year for the first time in two decades. Construction of new wind and solar farms is being delayed by factory closures, workers’ needs for social distancing and developers’ financial concerns as they emerge from the coronavirus crisis, according to research from the International Energy Agency. The world is ...

Bloomberg Canadian and Alaskan crude that normally travels to the US West Coast is finding a market in China, where demand is almost back to pre-pandemic levels. The Sofia became the second oil tanker in less than a month to ship Alaskan oil to Qingdao, China, when it left Valdez over the weekend, data compiled by Bloomberg show. At about ...

Bloomberg Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc Chief Executive Officer Warren East’s five-year bid to revive earnings has been shattered by the coronavirus as the UK engineering giant moves to scrap 9,000 jobs and considers closing sites. The jet-engine maker will cut 17% of its workforce and boost savings goals to contend with a travel slump that’s drastically shrunk the aviation market, according ...