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Stockholm / AFP Sweden’s central bank on Thursday cut its key interest rate by 15 basis points to a new all-time low of -0.5 percent, citing the risk of slowing inflation and falling confidence in its monetary policy. The bank moved its key rate into negative territory in February 2015 in a bid to encourage spending amid three years of ...

Bloomberg International Islamic Liquidity Management Corp., which counts nine central banks as its shareholders, plans to sell $1.34 billion of three-month bills in its biggest offer since being set up in 2010 to support Shariah-compliant financial activity. The Kuala Lumpur-based institution, which added two more primary dealers to its existing network of nine last week, will auction the Islamic notes ...

Bloomberg The Azeri central bank said the job of overhauling the financial industry is almost done after shuttering every seventh lender in the country in 15 days and pushing several others to merge. “The process of restructuring the banking sector has mostly been completed,” Namiq Aliyev, head of the central bank’s press service, said Thursday in an e-mailed response to ...

Bloomberg When European regulators created a new type of bank debt, the idea was to transfer risk from taxpayers to investors. Now bondholders are learning what that really means. Yield-starved investors bought $102 billion of the contingent convertible bonds, securities created to help troubled banks hang onto cash in times of stress by skipping coupon payments without defaulting and converting ...

Bloomberg Home prices rose in 81 percent of U.S. metropolitan areas in the fourth quarter, with the pace of gains accelerating even as sales slowed from earlier in the year, the National Association of Realtors said. The median price of an existing single-family home increased from a year earlier in 145 of the 179 markets measured, the group said in ...

Manhattan / Bloomberg Dubai’s Damac Properties reported a 12 per cent fall in fourth-quarter net profit on Thursday, according to a company statement on the Dubai stock exchange (DFM). The developer reported a net profit of AED844m ($229.8m) for the three months to 31 December, according to calculations by Reuters, which calculated was the absence of a quarterly breakdown. This ...

Berlin / AFP German retail giant Metro said on Thursday that profits rose strongly in the first quarter, helped by strong Christmas business and gains from divestments. Metro, which runs its business year from October to September, said in a statement that bottom-line net profit rose by 36 percent to 549 million euros ($620 million) in the three months to ...

Bloomberg Spending on business aircraft fell 3.1 percent last year as a commodities downturn crimped demand for long-range jets in emerging markets. Companies and wealthy individuals spent $18.7 billion on private jets, according to the General Aviation Manufacturers Association. The report is adjusted because Bombardier Inc. hasn’t reported fourth-quarter results yet. Sales of large-cabin planes, such as Bombardier’s Global 5000, ...

AUSTIN/ AP Whole Foods says its sales at established locations slipped in its fiscal first quarter and forecast the figure to be flat to down 2 percent for the year, as it works to keep prices down and fend off rivals. The Austin, Texas company noted that its comparable store sales have been “particularly difficult to predict” given the competitive ...

DETROIT / AP Tesla Motors posted its 11th straight quarterly loss, and its results badly missed Wall Street’s forecasts. But the electric car maker’s shares soared anyway on news that its lower-priced Model 3 sedan is on schedule to be released next year. Tesla said it will unveil the much-anticipated $35,000 car on March 31 and expects to start production ...