News Archive - 29 July 2016

By: Kaveh L. Afrasiabi   As the dust settles on the attempted military coup in Turkey, which was entirely subdued by a combination of courageous citizens' resistance and (fractured) army intervention, the extensive government crackdown on the coup-makers and their alleged sympathizers reflects a major political crisis that will...

>LONDON Global investors dumped equities in July and raised bond allocations after Britain's vote to leave the European Union and subsequent signs of damage to economic growth prompted a dash toward fixed income.The Reuters monthly poll of 44 fund managers and chief investment officers in the United States, Europe,...

>Fosun did not disclose the value of the deal, but said in a statement that it expects to take advantage of the "exceptional period of change and economic renewal" taking place not only in Brazil but also in neighboring economies. Reuters reported this week that Fosun was in advanced talks...

>COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said he was taking the gloves off in his battle against Democrat Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House after taking a scorching from speakers at the Democratic National Convention.Trump wrapped up a five-day, seven-state campaign swing...

>NEW YORK Wall Street, seeking direction as the S&P 500 has been stuck in a narrow trading range for 12 days, will next week shift its attention from second-quarter corporate earnings reports to economic data.Investors will be looking for signs of economic strength to reinforce the positive direction hit...

>WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO The computer network used by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign was hacked as part of a broad cyber attack on Democratic political organizations, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.The latest attack, which was disclosed to Reuters on Friday, follows reports of two other hacks on...

>MOSCOW The Kremlin says it had zero involvement in the hacking of Democratic Party emails while U.S. officials say the hack originated in Russia. We may never know who is right, but one thing is for sure - Russia had motive, capability and form.Seen through Kremlin eyes, Moscow...

>The sources asked not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential.Earlier, The Information reported that private equity firms including KKR & Co LP (KKR.N), Apollo Global Management LLC (APO.N) and Carlyle Group LP (CG.O) were "sniffing around" Hewlett Packard Enterprise, contemplating a buyout worth more...

>SIRTE, Libya Libyan forces made a fresh push on Friday to capture ground from Islamic State militants besieged in the center of their former North African stronghold of Sirte.Nearly three months into a campaign to recapture the city, brigades mainly composed of fighters from nearby Misrata are waging sporadic...

>The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors violence in Syria's five-year-old conflict, said air strikes hit the hospital and also a civil defense building. The number of casualties is not yet known, a spokesman for Save the Children said. The hospital in Kafer Takhareem, the only maternity facility for...

>CHICAGO Chicago’s budget deficit could reach a 10-year low next year despite unresolved funding questions for its largest and most underfunded pension system, according to an annual financial analysis released by the city on Friday.The report projected that fiscal 2017 expenditures will exceed revenues by $137.6 million, representing...

>A Delaware judge on Friday ruled that Sumner Redstone's lawyers must defend in a trial his move to oust five directors from Viacom Inc's board and suggested that he wants to get a better picture of the 93-year-old media mogul’s mental capacity.Judge Andre Bouchard proposed Oct. 17 for the...

>Health insurer Cigna Corp (CI.N) reported a lower-than-expected quarterly profit due to losses in its group disability and life business, and said it would look at acquisition targets if its proposed takeover by Anthem Inc (ANTM.N) did not materialize.U.S. antitrust authorities have sued to block Anthem's...

>SAN FRANCISCO Apple Inc (AAPL.O) on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to clear the way for the iPhone maker to secure hundreds of millions in damages from Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) in a case over smartphone design patents.The world's top smartphone rivals have been...

>WASHINGTON Tesla Motors Inc told U.S. Senate Commerce Committee staff it is considering two theories that may explain what led to the May 7 fatal crash that killed a Florida man who was using the car's "Autopilot" system, a person familiar with the meeting told Reuters on Friday.Tesla...

>Google parent Alphabet Inc and e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc capped a blockbuster June quarter for the five biggest U.S. tech companies as their dominance in key markets helped them defy the "law of large numbers".Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp and Facebook Inc, as well as Alphabet and Amazon,...

>SAINT-ETIENNE-DU-ROUVRAY, France Adel Kermiche was an attention-seeking child whose behavioral problems frequently led him to a psychiatric hospital and later a specialist school. He died a cold blooded killer who slit the throat of an elderly French priest in the name of Islamic State.The son of a working class...

>LONDON The Bank of England (BoE) must decide over the coming week how much trouble Britain's economy is in following the shock vote to leave the European Union, and how much firepower it can throw at the problem.After the Bank of Japan (BoJ) on Friday disappointed expectations of a...

>CAMBRIDGE, Mass. The Federal Reserve could raise interest rates up to two times before year end, a top Fed official said on Friday as he downplayed data that showed the U.S. economy grew far less than expected in the last quarter.San Francisco Fed President John Williams said the...

>The DCCC said in a statement that it took immediate action and engaged forensic investigator CrowdStrike to investigate the breach of its systems. The probe is ongoing, it added."The DCCC takes this matter very seriously. With the assistance of leading experts we have taken and are continuing to take...

>The Employment Cost Index, the broadest measure of labor costs, increased 0.6 percent after a similar gain in the first quarter, the Labor Department said on Friday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the ECI rising 0.6 percent in the last quarter. In the 12 months through June,...

>HOUSTON Chevron Corp (CVX.N) posted its worst quarterly loss since 2001 on Friday and Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) reported a 59 percent slide in quarterly profit, both victims of a prolonged rout in crude prices CLc1LCOc1 and sinking income from refining, a sign of the broad malaise across...

>The S&P 500 and the Dow were lower on Friday following weak economic data and poor earnings from oil majors Exxon (XOM.N) and Chevron (CVX.N). However, a surge in Alphabet (GOOGL.O) and Amazon.com's (AMZN.O) shares kept the Nasdaq in positive territory.Investor sentiment was dented...

>Earlier this week, U.S.-based Consumer Reports urged the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to scrutinize Mercedes' "The Future" campaign, which markets automated driving features available in the new E-Class.Mercedes, part of Daimler AG (DAIGn.DE), rejected the allegation that the advert was misleading. Automotive News said...

>The company, which is splitting into two to separate its printer and business process outsourcing businesses, took $71 million in restructuring and related charges in the second quarter, less than the $100 million it estimated in April.The company also cut its estimate for one-time pretax separation costs to $175...

>The company posted net income of $1.7 billion, or 41 cents per share, in the second quarter, compared with $4.19 billion, or $1 per share, in the year-ago period. Production fell about 0.6 percent to 3.9 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d). (Reporting by...

>The agreement will be filed as part of the restructuring of Energy Future, currently before the Delaware bankruptcy court, and it is designed to allow the company to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, NextEra said on Friday.Energy Future, the largest power company in Texas, filed for bankruptcy on April...

>While the level of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in Europe is running below that of last year, partly as political risks, including Brexit, have kept firms cautious about spending on risky deals, the backdrop remains benign, Credit Suisse said.Conditions favoring M&A in Europe -- like the cheap cost of...

>Deutsche Boerse had already said on Tuesday that backing from its shareholders for the $27 billion merger had reached the minimum level of 60 percent. The company said on Friday that shareholders who had not yet tendered their stock could do so during an extended acceptance period through Aug. 12.

>ANKARA/ISTANBUL Turkey has begun overhauling its armed forces following a failed coup, but its NATO ally the United States complained that the purges of generals and officers were hindering cooperation in the fight against Islamic State.The military announced late on Thursday the promotion of 99 colonels to the rank...

>Former Irish Life and Permanent Chief Executive Denis Casey was sentenced to two years and nine months. Willie McAteer, former finance director at the failed Anglo Irish Bank, and John Bowe, its ex-head of capital markets, were given sentences of 42 months and 24 months respectively. All three men were...

>NEW YORK Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton held a 6- percentage-point lead over Republican rival Donald Trump, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll with new wording that was released on Friday, the day after she formally accepted her party's nomination for the Nov. 8 election.Nearly 41 percent of likely voters...

>LONDON/BRUSSELS The board of brewer SABMiller (SAB.L) will recommend its shareholders approve a sweetened takeover offer by Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI.BR), the company said on Friday, capping a week of high drama about the fate of the consumer industry's biggest-ever merger.The deal, worth 79 billion pounds ($104.9...

>TOKYO The United States military said on Friday it was preparing for the biggest land return in Okinawa since 1972, as it faces a surge in opposition to its presence following the arrest of one its civilian contractors for the murder of a local woman.Okinawa is the U.S.

>LIMA Failure to ratify the U.S.-led sweeping trade pact TPP would hand China "the keys to the castle" on globalization and do nothing to solve the real problems underlying American anxiety over jobs, the top U.S. trade official said Thursday.The tariff-slashing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has turned...