Industry

Despite growth in lending, UK mortgage approvals dive down

Contrary to economists' expectations, the number of approvals in UK mortgages suddenly dropped in September for the first time in the past four months. The mortgages rose significantly in August indicating the highest level since early 2014.


Gold down to its lowest for three weeks as investors look for Dec Fed hike

Gold prices are at their lowest in three weeks after the Federal Open Market Committee announced that they won't push through with the interest rates hike.

Chinese jewellery demand decline shadows Canadian Arctic diamond sector's sparkle

The commodity slump caused by China is adversely affecting some of the biggest raw material markets in the world, and now it shades the sparkle that Canada's Arctic diamond industry once had.

Iron Ore Settles at $50, Keeping up with Declining Demand

Iron ore futures approached $50 a tonne Monday, the lowest it has been in three months, going down almost 10 percent in just two weeks. Reuters reported that the $50 a tonne price is a sign that losses will continue after Dalian futures slumped lower on Tuesday as Chinese steel producers cut output due to the decline in demand of iron ore.


Latest News

The strengthening of the US dollar has been hitting Procter & Gamble hard as the company reported its biggest sales drop in seven quarters. The company also cited weak demand especially in the overseas market as the reason behind the low sales performance.
Report on Coca-Cola profit and revenue this quarter shows a drop of nearly 5%. A strong dollar has resulted to a less value in Coca-Cola revenue from outside North America. The global economic slowdown also affected Coca-Cola revenues resulting a revenue cutback.
India, the world's largest democracy and home to highest number of movies, is struggling to perform at box office collections. There's no correlation between the number of movies released every year and revenues they generate for the film industry. The India's film industry is just grossing mere $2billion every year at the box office while it registers about 2,000 movies annually. Considering the number of movies it makes every year, India should have been leading the world in terms of revenues as well. But it couldn't as the piracy alone eating into INR19,000 crore ($3.34billion) revenues every year.
Gone are the days when boom time for technology initial public offerings (IPOs) that showered money on technology companies and startup coupled with huge valuations for investors. Now the situation is totally different on renewed concerns about possible technology bubble burst following the IPO market in Silicon Valley is fast losing its sheen. The dwindling down of market valuations is forcing many companies to cancel their IPOs or postpone the issue dates which affects the US capital market.
Wal-Mart's stock tumbled on the Wall Street following the forecast of earnings drop in the range of 6-12 percent hammered down the market sentiment. Wal-Mart shares fell 10.04 percent or $6.70 to $60.03 indicating biggest fall in a day during the past three decades. The stock was already trading 22 percent lower before the latest drop. Gearing up to compete with Amazon, Wal-Mart Stores Inc hiked investment in internet technology and raised wages. The earnings are expected to be flat for the current fiscal year and one or two percent lower than the previous forecast. The third quarter results from Wal-Mart are scheduled on 17 November.
Netflix reported a lower than expected performance today after the company reported a total revenue of $1.74 billion for its third quarter performance. The revenue contributes to earnings of $0.07 per share, which is lower than analyst expectation of $0.08 per share.
Korean bond market has been volatile dancing to the tunes of varied hopes on interest rate changes. South Korea's sovereign bonds shed early gains as forecasts that Bank of Korea (BoK) may not reduce the interest rate from the record low of 1.5 percent.
What matters the most in investing is the time when you exit. Loss or profit depends upon when you exit. If you can identify the bubble bursting, you can safely walk out of the market well before it happens. The tricky question is how to identify the market before it's blowing up. Investors, who made and lost money in dotcom bubble, fear that history may be repeated for the current tech bubble though the damage wouldn't as much as it was in dotcom crash.
Shrugging from the recent market crash, Nike and Under Armour stocks have emerged as major gainers on the Wall Street. Though these two companies are battle to capture higher market share in sportswear and star endorsements, but the athletic apparel makers are racing ahead in improving their financial performance.
It's a never-ending issue for McDonald's and other restaurants until they cease using antibiotics with their meat products. McDonald's received a "C" score for antibiotics overuse.