Bloomberg Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party edged ahead with a two-point lead over its Conservative rival, within the margin of error, according to the latest poll conducted days before Monday’s election. A survey by Nanos Research found 32.6% of respondents favored the Liberals as their top choice versus 30.3% favouring the Conservative Party led by Andrew Scheer. The ...
Read More »Johnson asks EU for Brexit delay, but hopes he won’t need it
Bloomberg Boris Johnson sent the letter to Brussels he never wanted to send. Bound by a law passed by opposition Members of Parliament, he formally asked the European Union to delay Brexit until January 31, but made it clear he’d rather there was no extension. European Council President Donald Tusk said he’ll start consulting EU leaders on how to react, ...
Read More »Kenya, Somalia say aid and trade to keep flowing despite border dispute
Bloomberg The finance ministers of Kenya and Somalia insist that a maritime-border dispute between the two nations won’t stop the cross-border flow of humanitarian aid and trade. The dispute about ownership of a 150,000 square-kilometre (58,000 square-mile) area off their Indian Ocean coastline has not caused any hostility between the two nations, Somalia Finance Minister Abdirahman Duale Beileh and Kenya’s ...
Read More »Zille’s return puts S Africa opposition head on notice
Bloomberg Mmusi Maimane, the leader of South Africa’s main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), saw his hold on the party slip as his predecessor Helen Zille was elected head of the party’s Federal Council. Maimane has come under pressure to quit as leader of the DA after the party’s share of the vote shrank to 20.8% in May elections from 22.2% ...
Read More »Stock Vs. bond showdown tests history, trader nerves
Bloomberg When it comes to mixed messages from markets, 2019 has been a year with few precedents. Whenever a believable signal starts to emerge from stocks or bonds about the economy, it changes. While some disagreement is normal, this is approaching the historic. For context, in a typical year, returns in either equities or Treasuries lead the other by 10 ...
Read More »Libra is ‘neat idea that’ll never happen’: Dimon
Bloomberg Count the chief of the biggest US bank among doubters of Facebook Inc’s effort to create a cryptocurrency. “It was a neat idea that’ll never happen,†JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon said on a panel at a conference hosted by the Institute of International Finance in Washington. Dimon said the idea wasn’t particularly unique and pointed to ...
Read More »UK’s domestic stock ETF most popular in 9 months
Bloomberg Conflicting Brexit headlines keep coming and Boris Johnson’s ability to pull off a deal remains in doubt. But this isn’t stopping stock investors from taking a bet on the UK economy. The Vanguard FTSE 250 UCITS exchange-traded fund, which tracks the index of mid-cap companies that are more sensitive to domestic growth and benefit when sterling is stronger, has ...
Read More »Oil tanker rates surge to new records amid geopolitical risks
Bloomberg Nothing right now is stopping a surge in oil tanker rates that’s given owners of the vessels one of the biggest boosts in years. Rates have rallied so high that a secondhand supertanker could theoretically pay for itself in a couple of voyages, according to estimates from Clarkson Platou Securities AS. A normal payback period would often be about ...
Read More »S Africa’s Eskom ends ‘controlled blackouts’
Bloomberg South Africa’s debt-laden power utility ended controlled blackouts as power supplies improve, though it says shortages gripping Africa’s most industrialised economy may not be over yet. Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., which provides about 95% of South Africa’s electricity, said it wouldn’t be implementing load shedding, a local term for rolling power blackouts, on Sunday. That comes after almost a ...
Read More »Barrick Gold agrees to pay over $300m to end Tanzania dispute
Bloomberg Barrick Gold Corp. agreed to pay over $300 million to the Tanzanian government to end a long-running dispute that it says destroyed the value of its subsidiary Acacia Mining Plc’s assets. As part of the deal, which still must be approved by Tanzania’s attorney general, the government will be given a 16% stake in a renamed company known as ...
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