What makes a ‘stablecoin’ successful? October 9, 2018 | Sponsored With a number of stablecoins being released recently, we took the opportunity to share our thoughts on what might contribute to their success. Audit: where a stablecoin is backed by another asset, it is important that an independent auditor can verify the holdings of those assets. The absence of a robust audit process and of [...]
Turkey urges businesses to cut prices to fight soaring inflation October 9, 2018 Turkey has urged businesses to cut prices by at least 10 per cent in a bid to control soaring inflation. Finance Minister Berat Albayrak – President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's son-in-law – launched the initiative on Tuesday as part of a “fully fledged flight” against inflation. The discount will not be compulsory but Albayrak encouraged Turks [...]
Royal Mail downgrade forces shares below the government’s 2013 IPO price October 9, 2018 Shares in Royal Mail have dropped below their controversial IPO valuation for the first time after the company was downgraded by two banks this morning. The FTSE 100 company, which floated at 330p a share in 2013, briefly dropped as low as 322p in morning trading. A profit warning issued last Monday sent the company’s [...]
Italy’s stock market sell-off could force its populist politicians to change course October 9, 2018 The start of this week witnessed yet another spike in Italian bond yields, as the country’s coalition government continued to grapple with the details of its 2019 budget. Political leaders also struggled to deliver a consistent message to investors, who have grown increasingly concerned about the state’s future spending and borrowing plans. The depth of [...]
Commercial real estate might be reliably disinteresting now, but don’t get too cosy October 9, 2018 At a time of political and market turbulence in the UK, there is one area where we’ve seen relative stability. Commercial real estate data in recent months has been fairly constant, with no significant changes to the outlook. The returns for commercial real estate have remained disappointing relative to recent years, yet there has been [...]
Sustainable investing is about making bigger profits, say the majority of investors October 9, 2018 | City Talk The majority of investors believe the main reason to invest sustainably is to make bigger profits, a major global study has found. The findings suggest investors increasingly believe that backing sustainable investments, those companies that are most focused on managing environmental, social and governance issues, will deliver better results rather than just be a choice [...]
Oil bankers form advisory firm as price surge fuels deals October 8, 2018 A former adviser to BP has launched a new advisory firm as the oil industry becomes “comfortable with itself” again and companies prepare to make “brave decisions”. Martin Lovegrove, a former adviser to BP and Chevron Corporation, has teamed up with Niels Kirk, a former oil and gas banker at Citi to form an advisory [...]
Acacia raises gold production target after strong quarter across Tanzanian mines October 8, 2018 Acacia mining has increased its full-year gold production target after a strong quarter in Tanzania. The gold miner raised its full-year target to just over 500,000 ounces from its original 435,000-475,000 ounces guidance after reporting “strong” production in its three mines in Tanzania. Production at its North Mara mine was up 24 per cent on [...]
Five charts that explain the case for emerging markets October 8, 2018 | City Talk Investors generally understand the importance of emerging markets in terms of their economic impact but, perhaps due to lack of knowledge, often struggle to know how best to reflect this in their portfolios. Those investors have ignored what are some of the world's best-performing financial markets since the turn of the millennium. What is more, [...]
Elastic, the open-source tech startup behind Uber and Tinder, scores $252m IPO October 6, 2018 Shares in Dutch open-source search startup Elastic skyrocketed as much as 106 per cent in its first day of official trading on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, bucking the trend for tech stocks on Wall Street. The search and data analytics software firm, whose main product Elasticsearch powers technology behind big names such as Uber [...]