Bloomberg US new-home construction unexpectedly fell in March, decelerating to the slowest pace since May 2017 and suggesting builders remain wary even as lower mortgage rates and steady wage gains offer support to consumers. Residential starts fell 0.3 percent to a 1.139 million annualised rate after a downwardly revised 1.142 million pace in the prior month, according to government figures …

Bloomberg Emirates NBD PJSC posted a 15 percent increase in first-quarter profit as lending rose and margins improved at Dubai’s biggest bank. First-quarter profit rose to AED2.74 billion ($747 million) from AED2.39 billion, the bank said in a statement. The mean estimates of three analysts compiled by the lender was for a profit of AED2.5 billion. The rise in profit …

Emirates Business Economic activity in the UAE is set to accelerate to 2.2% in 2019, up from an estimated 1.7% in 2018, according to ICAEW’s latest Economic Insight report. This will be buoyed by a pick-up in non-oil activity, rising public spending at the Federal and Emirate levels, higher investment ahead of the highly anticipated Expo 2020 and continued regional …

Bloomberg Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd. is considering selling as much as 25 percent of its refinery business in a deal that could fetch at least $10 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said. Reliance is sounding out potential investors including state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co (Aramco) to gauge the interest, according to the people, who asked …

Bloomberg Almost 15 months into the job, and the boss of South Africa’s state-owned electricity company is getting to grips with issues spanning corruption to defective power plants that threatened to collapse the grid. “The days of surprises are over,” Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. CEO Phakamani Hadebe said in an interview. “We just have to speed up the process of …

Bloomberg Angela Merkel will leave Brexit worries by the shoreline as she cuts the opening ribbon on a giant wind farm out in the Baltic Sea, a move that will do little to gloss over her tarnished reputation as Germany’s climate chancellor. The Arkona wind park, a joint venture of utility EON SE and Norway’s oil and gas giant Equinor …

Bloomberg An Australian energy startup says it has found a solution to the problem that has dogged some thermal solar technology projects, removing instability in the process of storing the generated electricity. Vast Solar’s technology differs from rivals because it uses liquid sodium as a heat transfer agent, improving control of the sunlight bouncing off specialised mirrors, according to Chief …

Bloomberg The latest batch of corporate earnings whipsawed US stocks as investors sought clues on the strength of the economy after a likely slowdown in the first quarter. The 10-year Treasury yield pushed above 2.6 percent. The S&P 500 Index erased early gains, with healthcare shares again under pressure as concerns mount over potential policy changes. Netflix Inc advanced even …

Bloomberg It was a one-two punch that’s turned the Malaysian ringgit into Asia’s worst performer this month. FTSE Russell said it may drop Malaysian debt from the FTSE World Government Bond Index because of concern about market liquidity, roiling the nation’s currency and bonds. And less than two weeks ago, Norway said its sovereign wealth fund will cut emerging-market debt …

Bloomberg Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues have made an important shift in their strategy for dealing with inflation in a prelude to what could be a more radical change next year. The central bank has backed off the interest-rate hikes it had been delivering to avoid a potentially dangerous rise in inflation that economic theory says could …