Tag: Reuters

Partner and business development leader at PWC Mitchell Roschelle gives his predictions for the U.S. economy for 2019. #DailyBriefing #FoxNews FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service dedicated to delivering breaking news as well as political and…

Visitors come to the Indian Ocean island nation to enjoy its beaches, historic places, interesting nature and tasty food. But Sri Lanka’s current political environment is keeping visitors away. Violence has broken out in parliament and the 2019 national budget has been delayed. The Reuters news agency received that information from someone at the national Sri Lankan airlines. The person told Reuters that, “The crisis started just when tourists take a decision where to go...It has discouraged many of them.” Chandra Mohotti is manager of the high-end Galle Face Hotel in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo. She said that 20 percent of planned visits to the area have been canceled. But instead, the hotel has been forced to offer low-cost rates to appeal to tourists. Sanath Ukwatte, president of the Hotels Association of Sri Lanka, said some companies have chosen to move their planned events to Singapore, Indonesia and other places in Southeast Asia. He said if the current situation continues, the economic effects “will be significant.” More than 2.1 million people visited Sri Lanka in 2017, tourism officials say. I’m Ashley Thompson.

(For a live blog on European stocks, type LIVE/ in an Eikon news window) LONDON, July 2 (Reuters) - European shares opened lower on Monday as on-going worries about the U.S. trade policies and concerns about German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition weighed on sentiment. The pan-European STOXX 600 was down about 1.2 percent by 0730 GMT in line with Germany’s trade-sensitive DAX. In London, the FTSE 100 was down 1.1 percent and British gambling technology company Playtech posted the worst performance, losing over 20 percent after it disappointed investors with a trading update. Among rare winners, British software company Micro Focus International was up 3.3 percent after it said it had agreed to sell its Linux operating system SUSE business to a private equity fund advised by Sweden’s EQT Partners for $2.535 billion. In the mid-cap segment of the market, Vedanta Resources surged over 25 percent after chairman Anil Agarwal’s family trust agreed to a deal that values the mining conglomerate at 2.3 billion pounds. Milan’s FTSE MIB was down 1.9 percent with Italian pharmaceutical group Recordati falling over 15 percent after a consortium of investment funds controlled by CVC Capital Partners has agreed to buy a stake at a discount. (Reporting by Julien Ponthus; Editing by Toby Chopra)

* Italy bond selloff not just about politics - Italy debt official * Contagion from Italy limited - Portugal debt chief * ECB tapering no problem - issuers (Updates throughout) By Abhinav Ramnarayan and Dhara Ranasinghe LONDON, June 19 (Reuters) - Recent sharp volatility in short-dated Italian government bonds was partly due to technical factors in addition to political concerns, a senior official at the Italian government debt agency said on Tuesday. Italian bond markets in May experienced some of their biggest swings in several years as an anti-establishment coalition took shape in Rome. But some technical factors such as the reduced capacity of primary dealers to trade government bonds also contributed to market volatility, Davide Iacovoni, director general, Public Debt Directorate at Italy’s Department of Treasury said at a conference in London. “We have the feeling that the magnitude of the swings is not only attributable to political events but to technical changes in the market as well,” he said a Euromoney conference. He also said that a lack of liquidity in the BTP bond futures market impacted trading in cash bonds. Also speaking at the conference, the Portuguese debt management agency’s chairwoman and chief executive Cristina Casalinho said the contagion from events such as the recent Italy selloff seems to have subsided compared with the height of the euro zone debt crisis. They said that ECB tapering had been well anticipated by markets and that reinvestments from maturing bonds would continue to support bonds well after monthly asset purchases end. The bank also signaled that any interest rate hike remains some way off. Portugal’s Casalinho meanwhile added that effective ECB communication also helped from an issuer’s perspective. “What’s really relevant is good communication and so far the ECB has a good track record on that front,” she told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian President Sergio Mattarella is expected to ask a former International Monetary Fund official on Monday to head a stopgap government amidst political and constitutional turmoil, with early elections looking inevitable. Mattarella has called in Carlo Cottarelli after the anti-establishment Five Star and League parties abandoned plans to form a coalition following his veto of their choice of eurosceptic economist Paolo Savona to become economy minister. “We are seeing a decent relief rally in European markets, starting with the euro overnight, with the risk of an anti-euro finance minister in Italy being averted; but we have to see it in the context of Friday when we had a move reminiscent of 2011 in the heart of the euro zone debt crisis. We go into new elections and (League leader Matteo) Salvini could emerge as a stronger figure at the end of that. “From the macro point of view, the risks for public finances coming from the expansionary spending measures contained in the League-5 Star Movement government contract have clearly decreased, at least in the short term. “The problem both for investors and the rating agencies now is that there is likely to be: 1) an extended hiatus in power over the next few months 2) the prospect that the election campaign will become a referendum on the euro 3) the likelihood that an ever more radical government will take the reins of power after the next election. “We expect that a caretaker government would not win a confidence vote in parliament and that new elections could take place as early as October. On the one hand, a government that could have been perceived by financial markets as calling into question the participation of Italy in the European Union and its membership in the euro area has not been formed. “Now we need to understand what could be the outcome of a new vote, but what’s clear is that Europe will be at the center of the debate of the next campaign.” MARK ZANDI, CHIEF ECONOMIST AT MOODY’S ANALYTICS, in an interview with La Stampa newspaper “The latest developments add fresh uncertainty and complexity to Italy’s political situation. I expect investors to be very nervous and confused.

The special counsel investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin has stepped up pressure on the former campaign manager Paul Manafort by filing new sealed court charges against him. It was not clear if the charges involved alleged bank frauds the special counsel’s office referred to in a court dispute over Manafort’s bail on Friday, in which he is said to have doctored profit and loss statements from his firm, in order to get a mortgage on a property in Virginia. NBC News reported on Wednesday that Manafort was being investigated for having allegedly promised the president of the Chicago-based Federal Savings Bank that loaned him his mortgage a job in the Trump White House in return for $16m in home loans on his properties in Virginia, New City and the Hamptons. The bank president, Stephen Calk, served as a Trump adviser during the campaign but did not get a cabinet post. They face charges including conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy to defraud the United States and failure to file as foreign agents for lobbying work they did on behalf of the pro-Russian Ukrainian Party of Regions. Both have pleaded not guilty. The new charges and the leaked details of an investigation into Manafort home loans come a day after Alex van der Zwaan, a Dutch lawyer who worked with Manafort and Gates in representing pro-Russian interests in Ukraine, admitted lying to investigators as part of a plea deal with Mueller’s office. Gates is also reported to be negotiating a plea deal, increasing the pressure on Manafort to cooperate with the Russia investigation. The special counsel’s office declined to comment on the new court filing, lawyers and representatives for Manafort and Gates could not be immediately reached for comment. Mueller was appointed in May 2017 to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election campaign, possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Moscow with Russia and whether Trump tried to obstruct the investigation.