May, 2017

• 24 May

  A portentous election in the Peach State

  

  By the time Georgia’s 6th District votes in the June 20 special congressional election, $40 million — perhaps more than $130 per ballot — will have been spent to pick one-435th of one-half of one of the three branches of one of America’s governments. This is an expensive funeral for Tip O’Neill’s incessantly quoted and increasingly inapplicable axiom that “All ...

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• 24 May

  At this rate, fintech will slaughter India’s financial sector

  

  In the match for India’s financial services future, fintech just scored twice while banks are still struggling to retrieve the ball they scuffed into their own net. It’s just the start of what looks like a bruising battle for traditional lenders. India’s banks, which still dominate the country’s financial landscape, appear to have hardly a kick left in them. Stressed ...

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• 24 May

  Canada must deflate its housing bubble

  Canada’s housing market offers a case study in a contentious economic issue: If a central bank sees a bubble forming, should it act to deflate it? In this instance, the answer should be a resounding yes. A combination of foreign money, local speculation and abundant credit has driven Canadian house prices to levels that even government officials recognize cannot be ...

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• 24 May

  Trump’s path-independent theory of mind

  People have been discussing how Donald Trump interacts with other humans, guessing at the extent to which he is capable of anticipating or understanding how they think. Some believe he has no such “theory of mind.” I disagree: He has one, but it’s path-independent. Remember when he thought people would like the fact that he’d fired FBI Director James Comey? ...

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• 24 May

  Region weak; banks boost Egypt

  

  Reuters Major Gulf stock markets weakened on Wednesday, with amusement park operator DXB Entertainments (DXBE) continuing to drag down Dubai while banking shares lif- ted Egypt in the wake of Sunday’s interest rate hike. DXB Entertainments slid by 3.1 percent to 0.782 dirhams, its lowest level since early 2015. The stock has tumbled 40 percent this year on low attendance ...

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• 24 May

  Stocks, currencies on hold as traders wait for Fed

  

  Bloomberg Markets were largely in a holding pattern on Wednesday, with European stocks struggling to maintain gains and the dollar edging lower as investors awaited fresh insight on the path for borrowing costs in the world’s biggest economy. China’s credit-rating downgrade sank industrial metals. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index erased most of its advance as auto makers fell in the ...

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• 24 May

  Kuwait says OPEC, non-OPEC producers could deepen cuts

  

  VIENNA / Reuters OPEC and non-member oil producers could deepen output cuts or extend them for a year when they meet in Vienna this week as they seek to clear a global stocks overhang and prop up the price of crude, Kuwait said on Wednesday. The top oil producer in OPEC, Saudi Arabia, favours extending the output curbs by nine ...

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• 24 May

  Iraq mulls largest sovereign oil-hedging deal

  

  Bloomberg Iraq is mulling an oil hedging program to lock in prices for future crude sales, potentially topping a similar deal run by Mexico that is considered the largest energy trade in Wall Street. The Middle Eastern nation is in the very early stages of exploring a hedge for as much as a quarter of either its crude production or ...

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• 24 May

  Iran’s maxed-out oil output eases push to extend cuts

  

  Bloomberg Iran’s oil industry bounced back from sanctions last year, cranking up output to recover market share from other OPEC producers. Now that its surge has topped out, Iran supports an extension of the group’s cuts to preserve those gains. Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh’s willingness to embrace a deal that leaves Iran room to pump about 3.8 million barrels ...

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• 24 May

  Kuwait sovereign fund posts $1 billion loss

  KUWAIT / Reuters Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), one of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth funds, said it had incurred a loss of 312 million dinars ($1.03 billion) in the financial year ended in March 2016, according to the country’s state news agency. The loss was 0.2 percent of total assets, KUNA quoted a KIA statement as saying late on Monday, ...

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