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Southeast Asian startups are enjoying a boom in fundraising exercises by venture and buyout funds that are chasing bigger returns and turning away from regulatory turmoil in Chinese markets, even at the risk of slower growth. Firms such as Insignia Ventures Partners and SoftBank-backed East Ventures are among those that have raised a combined total of billions for startups over the past year as the region’s 650 million people take to digital platforms. “Some of the world’s largest institutions are coming up with strategies now to invest and deploy capital ...

US: Housing numbers in focus after Fed’s 75bp hike After the Federal Reserve’s 75bp rate hike this week and Jerome Powell’s commentary that the Fed is prepared to sacrifice growth and jobs to ensure inflation comes back to target, we will be hearing from many more officials over the coming week. Given the strong clustering of near-term forecasts for rates and the economy, the hawkish comments hinting at another 75bp hike in November are likely to come thick and fast. The data calendar is fairly light with housing numbers the ...

Britain’s deputy finance minister on Saturday played down a historic collapse in the pound and government bonds in response to the country’s new economic growth plan, which sent international investors heading for the exit. The pound slumped 3.6% on Friday below $1.09, a new 37-year low against the dollar, while gilts suffered their worst day in decades as the market digested finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng’s announcement of a borrowing-funded drive for growth. “Let’s be clear, the interest rates payable on government gilts is about the same in the United Kingdom ...

Hedge funds around the world fled positions in energy stocks, bonds and futures last week just in time to miss this week’s whipsaw moves in oil, according to data from two banks. Funds dropped their long and short positions in energy stocks, bonds and futures in the week ending Sept. 16 “more than any other time in recent months”, and more than any other sector of the economy in the last 20 days, according to notes by Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) and JP Morgan respectively. It could be a sign that ...

Some U.S. companies with the best credit ratings are looking at shorter-term debt solutions as a bridge to a better funding environment in a year or two, slowing new bond issuance despite demand from investors. The shorter-term debt solutions include getting bank term loans, drawing down on bridge loans and issuing bonds with maturities of five years or less, debt capital market bankers and credit investors said. While loans can be cheaper than issuing bonds, shorter-term debt is currently more expensive than longer tenors. With the move, these companies are ...

Winter power demand across the EU’s main gas-fired power markets is forecast some 5.3% below the five-year average, analysis by S&P Global Commodity Insights shows. November-to-March demand in eight EU member states including Germany, France, Spain and Italy is estimated to average around 216 GW, down 12 GW on the five year average. The European Commission on Sept. 14 proposed a mandatory 5% peakload power demand cut target to reduce gas-for-power demand and peakload power prices. “Proposals to cut peak demand alleviate some of the risk premium embedded in the ...

Brazil’s government admitted that its estimates for coffee crops over recent years have problems and need improvements to better reflect the reality, since the numbers for production have been smaller than the sum of local consumption plus exports. In an interview with Reuters on Thursday, the director of Agricultural Policy at Brazil’s food supply and statistics agency Conab, Sergio De Zen, said that due to those discrepancies there is a process going on do revise numbers and methodology for Conab’s coffee crop forecasts. Conab’s coffee numbers for Brazil, the world’s ...

Russia will maintain contact with the United Nations about a deal to export grain from Ukrainian ports, but says concrete results are needed, Tass news agency cited a senior official as saying on Friday. It also cited Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin as saying Russia had a positive assessment of the U.N.’s efforts to resume the export of Russian fertilizers. Source: Reuters (Reporting by David Ljunggren Editing by Chris Reese)

U.S. wheat futures set fresh two-month highs on Thursday, buoyed by risks of a deepening conflict in Ukraine and dry weather in crop areas of Argentina and the U.S. Plains, traders said. Commodity funds hold a net short position in Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures, leaving the market prone to bouts of short-covering. CBOT December wheat settled up 7 cents at $9.10-3/4 per bushel after reaching $9.22-1/2, its highest since July 11. Corn futures followed wheat higher while soybeans drifted lower. CBOT December corn ended up 2-3/4 cents at ...

Copper prices slid on Friday to their lowest in nearly two months on a strong dollar and fears of recession-hit metals demand after further increases to interest rates. Three-month copper CMCU3 on the London Metal Exchange (LME) had dropped 3.2% to $7,430 a tonne by 1000 GMT for its weakest since July 25. “The macro outlook is hitting industrial metals quite hard. The main worry is that central banks will allow the economy to slip into recession in an attempt to bring inflation under control,” said Ole Hansen, head of ...

Police in South Korea has detained two employees of the Liberian government mission to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for the alleged rape. They are Moses Owen Browne, Liberia’s Permanent Representative to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), and Daniel Tarr, Director of the Department of Marine Environmental Protection at the Liberia Maritime Authority (LiMA) South Korean police had detained the men over the alleged rape of two teenagers in South Korea, Reuters News Agency said. Browne and Tarh were arrested on the spot at a hotel in the southeastern city ...

A crude oil tanker caught fire in the Gulf of Finland but the crew was able to extinguish the flames, Finnish and Estonian rescue officials said. The fire broke out on the 250-meter (820-foot) ship Alexia, 18 kilometers (11 miles) south of the Finnish peninsula of Porkkala, the Helsinki Sea Rescue Command Center said. Tago Trei, chief of operations at the Police and Border Guard Board in Estonia, which was taking the lead in the operation, said the fire was out but officials were still checking to make sure there ...

SAAM Towage will receive a new tug for its fleet in Panama. The SAAM Quibian, purchased from Türkiye-based Sanmar Shipyards, features high maneuverability, which makes for more energy efficient operations. SAAM Towage’s Technical Manager Pablo Cáceres explained that “this tug’s equipment has been specially selected to reinforce our customers’ needs in Panama, while its compact design ensures safe maneuvers.” SAAM Quibian, the third to join the Panamanian fleet, owes its name to the legend of a brave chief from the Caribbean coastal province of Veraguas during Christopher Columbus’s fourth voyage. ...

During August, there were nine new detentions of a foreign flagged vessel in a UK port. In response to one of the recommendations of Lord Donaldson’s inquiry into the prevention of pollution from merchant shipping, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) publishes details of the foreign flagged vessels detained in UK ports under the Paris MOU regime each month. The UK is part of a regional agreement on port state control known as the Paris Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control (Paris MOU) and information on all ships that ...

The Biden administration is not considering right now any restrictions on U.S. oil product exports, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters on Friday. Granholm late last month had urged U.S. refiners to build inventories of oil products like gasoline and diesel given high oil prices, warning that if it did not happen the administration would need to consider federal actions and emergency measures. “Restrictions are not being considered at this time,” Granholm said when asked about any limits on U.S. oil product exports. Source: Reuters