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LONDON: Spanish government bonds were steady on Thursday before an auction that is expected to draw strong demand as investors seek to maximise returns in an environment of low official rates.Expectations that the European Central Bank will ease policy further after it cut its key rate last week to 0.50 percent are keeping Bunds yields close to record lows.But those meagre returns are also pushing buyers toward other higher yielding euro zone bonds, lowering the premium they offer over the German benchmark.The trend is likely to continue in the near-term as no major central bank is seen making a U-turn from their current ultra-easy policy any time soon, analysts said.Bund futures, a safe-haven asset that throughout the financial crisis has usually weakened when appetite for riskier assets picked up, were last 16 ticks higher at 146.01.Spanish 10-year bond yields were 1 basis point lower at 4.10 percent. The country aims ...
TOKYO: Japan's All Nippon Airways (ANA), the biggest customer of Boeing's glitch-hit Dreamliner, confirmed on Thursday that it would restart flights with the modified high-tech plane at the start of next month.ANA will resume services from June 1 "following the successful completion of a series of battery system modifications, safety checks and test flights", it said in a statement."Our engineers have worked closely with Boeing to undertake the required improvements and we are fully satisfied ...
TOKYO: Struggling Japanese electronics giant Sony on Thursday said it booked its first annual net profit in five years, offering a glimmer of hope for the once-iconic firm.Sony said it earned 43.03 billion yen ($436.08 million) for the fiscal year to March, reversing a whopping loss of 456.66 billion yen a year earlier, as a sharply weaker yen has helped boost Japanese exporters' competitiveness and inflated the value of their foreign income.Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), ...
TOKYO: US Treasuries were little changed in Asia on Thursday, but the benchmark yield stood near its April peak as the market is pressured by fresh bond offerings this week and a blow from surprisingly strong US jobs data last week.The yield on the 10-year bonds stood at 1.810 percent , near a yield resistance of its April high at 1.814 percent.The yield has risen substantially from a 4 1/2-month low of 1.6140 percent hit ...
HONG KONG: Standard Chartered on Wednesday said its profit for the first-quarter was "slightly down" on year due to increased expenses and moderate growth.The London-based, Asia-focused lender said weak performances in Korea and Singapore offset double-digit income growth in Hong Kong and Africa, while group expenses grew by a "low single digit percentage".Consumer banking operating profit was down by a "mid single digit percentage" in the first quarter, with a double digit increase in loan ...
ACCRA: Ghana's central bank governor governor said on Wednesday that he would step up the supply of dollars to the interbank market to support the local cedi currency.Henry Wampah said the decline of the local unit was seasonal and linked to firms needing dollars to make dividend payments. The bank will "vigourously" apply restrictions on foreign exchange transactions and sanction banks flouting the rules, he added.Copyright Reuters, 2013 
BRUSSELS: The European Central Bank has an open mind on what it could do to spur lending to small- and mid-sized businesses, though other EU institutions might be better placed to help, a top ECB policymaker said on Wednesday.The ECB is concerned that banks, worried about taking onrisk, are not lending to smaller businesses in the euro zone periphery and that this is starving such companies of funds they need to invest and help their ...More Articles...
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