Author: Press Room

The natural gas war premium is gone

Markets

Welcome to the first Energy Source of 2023! Energy markets have started the new year sliding on warm winter weather and fears that recession is coming for swaths of the global economy. Brent crude prices yesterday closed at $77.84 per barrel, down 5 per cent.Today’s focus is on natural gas markets, where the fall in prices in Europe has wiped out 2022’s war-driven gains. Has the much-feared winter energy crisis been averted? And in Data Drill, Derek looks at how Russia’s state-owned energy companies (and other countries’ government-backed oil firms) have missed out on the market rally while their western…

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SEC intervenes on Binance US bid to buy assets of bankrupt crypto lender

Markets

The Securities and Exchange Commission has intervened in a deal that would see Binance US buy the assets of a bankrupt crypto lender, in a sign of how US authorities are stepping up their scrutiny of the digital asset exchange. Wall Street’s regulator filed an objection to Binance US’s proposed $1bn acquisition of assets belonging to Voyager Digital, which fell into bankruptcy last summer as a sharp downturn in token prices prompted the collapse of several once-prominent crypto companies. Binance, the world’s biggest digital asset exchange, and its global affiliates have come under increasing focus among crypto investors and regulators…

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OK, 2022 was a disaster for Tesla. What next?

Markets

Drew Dickson is the founder and chief investment officer of Albert Bridge Capital. He doesn’t have a position in Tesla’s stock. Despite Tesla surrendering a good portion of its frothy gains in 2022, it is off to a poor start already in the new year. Its market capitalisation has now fallen by nearly $900bn since November 2021 — equivalent to losing nearly half the FTSE 100. FTAV’s Bryce Elder did an excellent job here going through Tesla’s disappointing fourth-quarter results and the Homerian stock market face-plant. Yet there are still many who believe that Tesla’s shares will recover to new…

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Sri Lanka to restart trade deal talks with India, China and Thailand: Official

Asia

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka will restart negotiations on trade pacts with India, China, and Thailand after a four-year hiatus, an official said on Thursday (Jan 5), as the crisis-hit country races to seal deals to help it rebuild its economy. The island of 22 million is in the midst of its worst financial crisis in over seven decades, triggered by a severe shortage of foreign exchange that has left the country struggling to pay for fuel, food, and medicine. Officials from Thailand are scheduled to arrive in Sri Lanka on Monday to start the third round of talks after negotiations were…

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End of the sub-zero bond yield era

Markets

Pour one out for one of the weirdest macroeconomic phenomenons of all time. From the FT’s Tommy Stubbington just now:The global stock of negative-yielding bonds has dwindled to zero after last month’s unexpected policy shift by the Bank of Japan undermined the last bastion of sub-zero yields. Negative yields — which occur when bond prices climb so high that buyers holding them to maturity are guaranteed to lose money — engulfed a broad swath of global fixed-income markets in recent years, with the market value of debt trading at a yield below zero soaring above $18tn in late 2020 after…

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