For The Professional Investor
With Switzerland’s central bank expecting to record big losses for 2013, it finds itself in a position where it will be unable to pay its usual dividends to the government and shareholders. This has been attributed mainly due to the decline in value of its gold holdings. However, Switzerland is not the only central bank […]
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The topic of emerging markets is always interesting, but it is one which is notoriously riddled with uncertainty. As developing economies have begun to emerge from the recession, this has quite often been at the mercy of emerging markets. China’s growth is expected to slow and economies with current account deficits such as Brazil and […]
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Having encountered a number of recent setbacks it perhaps comes as no surprise that Obama’s popularity in the polls has experienced a decline. With three years left to run, it will be interesting to see how he fares during his remaining time in office. When Obama took to his second term, he did so with […]
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Ireland was celebrated last week as the first country to exit the Troika financial-rescue programme. Ireland’s Finance Minister, Michael Noonan, rightly chatacterised the day as a “milestone” for the country as he thanked the rescuers for their support and praised the people for their complying and enduring through the austerity measures of the last few […]
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Last Thursday the Japanese Cabinet approved an 18.6 trln yen ($182 bln) economic stimulus in an attempt to boost economic growth which has fallen behind the 1.9 percent mark set for the year. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seems confident the boost will put businesses at ease and increase GDP even, but his view may be […]
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Is there or isn’t there a youth unemployment crisis? Sensationalist daily press certainly tries to make us believe that we are essentially living through an apocalypse with youth unemployment skyrocketing as futures slip down society’s drains. Reuters blogger Zachary Karabell, however, has recently argued that young people are not forced into unemployment but choosing to […]
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What’s next for the Euro? This is the big question as the currency rose to a five-year high against the Yen last Friday. But is this a positive indication towards the recovery of the Eurozone? The Eurozone may have technically emerged from the recession but it is still combating a protracted economic decline. Whereas the […]
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Internet IPO’s have been big headline news recently. No one can fail to have noticed that Twitter’s initial public offering recently was completely different to the 2012 IPO of its biggest social media rival, Facebook. Twitter wanted to avoid making the same mistake of overpricing but some analysts argued that Twitter failed to raise maximum […]
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The European Union and Canada are on the verge of reaching a breakthrough trade pact which will deeply integrate the two economies. With world economies already intertwined, this particular agreement will inevitably be of major significance, with a host of long-term benefits and repercussions to follow. The pact will eliminate tariffs on almost all goods […]
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No man is an island…..John Donne’s familiar words ring true in today’s world where a country’s economic strength or weakness is largely determined by its trade and relationships with others. Singapore is a prime example of this. The city-state’s economy shrank 1% in the third quarter, beating expectations of a 3.6% contraction but still marking […]
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