Banco Santander posted on Wednesday a 4 percent fall in fourth-quarter net profit from a year earlier after being hit by extraordinary impairments in its U.S. unit. Santander, the euro zone’s biggest bank in terms of market value, reported net profit of 1.54 billion euros ($1.92 billion) in the period October to December. Analysts had […]
Read moreBritain is seeking a free trade agreement with China, Prime Minister Theresa May said on Wednesday as she flew to the country for talks with Chinese leaders, adding that more should be done immediately to open up market access for British firms. The ambitious long-term goal of securing a free trade deal with the world’s […]
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IN KEEPING with the trend for charging for things travellers used to get free, it should perhaps come as no surprise that sunbeds are the latest feature of a standard holiday on which travel agents are slapping extra fees. Thomas Cook, a British package-holiday firm, has announced that it will allow holidaymakers to pre-book poolside […]
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Forecasters are more optimistic now about the effects of tax cuts on economic growth, but don’t see workers pocketing much of the windfall. Respondents to the CNBC Fed Survey believe that tax cuts will add 63 basis points to GDP this year, up about 20 basis points from their December estimates. This could reflect last-minute […]
Read moreAs two American citizens – one an immigrant, the other a child of immigrants – who have dedicated our careers to fighting for American workers, we believe President Trump’s immigration policies aren’t just morally wrong, they’re economic poison. Take, for example, the story of Marvin Flores. Marvin is a bricklayer who has lived and worked […]
Read moreCurrency, United States Finance
Passing on sanctions, Trump goes even softer on Russia than expected
President Donald Trump once again stands accused of being soft on Russia after he bypassed a deadline to hand down new sanctions on the country. The Trump administration announced late Monday that it would not yet impose new sanctions on Russia as mandated by the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), enacted in August […]
Read moreThe supply crisis in the housing market is not letting up, and consequently neither are the gains in home values. National home prices continued their run higher in November, rising 6.2 percent annually on S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller’s most broad survey, up from 6.1 percent in October. Another S&P index of the nation’s 20 largest housing […]
Read moreCurrency, United States Finance
Sterling predicted to hit pre-Brexit vote level before the end of 2018
Sterling had been on a downward trend since the U.K.’s vote to leave the European Union in 2016, but reduced concerns over an abrupt break-up with the EU are sending the currency higher. The pound traded at $1.40 against the dollar Tuesday morning, not only boosted by a weaker dollar, but also because traders are […]
Read morePresident Donald Trump, in his State of the Union speech Tuesday, plans to discuss a $1.5 trillion infrastructure improvement plan, White House economic advisor Gary Cohn told CNBC. Fresh off a victory on a tax reform plan that Congress approved in December, the president next wants to focus on rebuilding the nation’s aging system of […]
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BACK in the days of the gold standard, central bankers were very concerned about the views of international investors. They believed that maintaining the value of their currencies would reassure creditors. That is why they were so resistant to the idea of floating currencies. Georges Bonnet, a French finance minister, put it best Who would […]
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