SGX Q3 profit at 10-yr high, focus on new India equity derivatives in June

Singapore Exchange Ltd (SGX) reported its highest profit in a decade on Friday as a strong performance in derivatives and securities powered a 21 percent rise in net profit for the quarter to March 31.

Third-quarter profit of S$100.5 million ($76.5 million) on revenue up 10 percent to a record S$222.2 million.

"Our marketing efforts, together with longer trading hours enabled by our new derivatives trading and clearing platform, added to an increase in global participation across products and trading sessions," CEO Loh Boon Chye said.

"With improved global growth, more central banks are likely to adopt tightening measures. This could lead to investors rebalancing their portfolios," Loh told analysts and reporters. "As a result, we expect market activity to improve."

New India products

Market focus is also on how SGX can cope with an unexpected move by India's three main bourses to stop licensing their indexes and securities to foreign bourses from August. Worried by the potential decline in business, analysts have cut SGX's earnings estimates for the next few years.

Oil jumps after Trump fires Rex Tillerson putting Iran nuke deal in focus

Oil rose after Donald Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday, sparking a dollar fall and concern that a deal on Iran's nuclear programme could collapse.

The U. S. President is replacing Tillerson with loyalist CIA Director Mike Pompeo, an outspoken critic of Iran, who has called for a 2015 nuclear deal to be scrapped.

Trump has threatened to withdraw from the accord between Iran and six world powers, signed before he took office, unless Congress and European allies "fix" it with a follow-up pact.

"The market is having a wobble on the back of the potential impact on future supply from Iran and also for the ramifications for the Middle East as a whole," Saxo Bank's Ole Hansen said.

32 killed as Russian plane crashes in Syria due to technical fault

A Russian transport plane crashed on landing at Russia's Hmeimim airbase in Syria, killing all 32 on board, the defence ministry said in a statement carried by RIA Novosti.
There were 26 passengers and 6 crew, the ministry said.

"The reason for the crash according to preliminary information could have been a technical fault," the ministry added, saying the plane had not come under fire.

Trade war fear, Italian election buffet world shares for fifth straight day

World shares slipped for the fifth straight day on Monday and emerging markets weakened sharply, hit by the prospect of a global trade war and political instability in Europe after Italy's inconclusive weekend election.

While most markets stabilised after sharp losses early in the day, assets considered low-risk - including gold, the yen and German bonds - remained in demand, with yields on the latter at the lowest in a month.

Recent events have again put equity markets, barely recovered from their February selloff, under a cloud.

The European Union, Canada and China are among those threatening to retaliate with tit-for-tat duties if US President Donald Trump proceeds with hefty tariffs on steel and aluminium imports.

UK's Theresa May sets out vision for frictionless trade after Brexit

British Prime Minister Theresa May called for a deep partnership with the European Union after Brexit, setting out ambitions for a tailor-made deal including financial services but accepting EU regulation of chemicals, medicines and aerospace industries.

In an attempt to add detail to Britain's negotiation on leaving the EU, May mixed concessions with a plea for a deal that would keep trade flowing between the world's biggest trade bloc and Britain's $2.7 trillion economy.

May proposed having either a customs partnership, where Britain would implement EU tariffs on its border for goods intended for the EU but could set different ones for goods going elsewhere, or a streamlined customs arrangement, where jointly implemented measures would minimise frictions to trade.

But she also proposed Britain having access to the EU's financial markets in return for having similar standards to those of the EU, which would in turn keep access to Europe's biggest and deepest markets in London.

US consumer spending rises 0.2% in Jan; weekly jobless claims at 48-yr low

US consumer prices increased in January, with a gauge of underlying inflation posting its largest gain in 12 months, bolstering views that price pressures will accelerate this year.
Inflation is also likely to get a boost from a tightening labor market. Other data on Thursday showed the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level in just over 48 years.

A robust labor market and rising inflation could force the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates a bit more aggressively this year than currently anticipated to prevent the economy from overheating. The Fed has forecast three rate hikes in 2018. U. S. financial markets have priced in a rate increase this month.

The Commerce Department said consumer prices as measured by the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index rose 0.4 per cent. That was the biggest increase since September and followed a 0.1 per cent gain in December. In the 12 months through January, the PCE price index rose 1.7 per cent after a similar gain in December.

Zuckerberg sells $500-mn FB stock in Feb to fund philanthropic vehicle

Facebook Inc Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg sold nearly $500 million in the company's shares in February to fund his philanthropic investment vehicle, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), regulatory filings showed.

The move is not a surprise, being part of Zuckerberg's plan to expedite stock sales to fund the initiative he set up in December 2015 with his wife Priscilla Chan.

Two security filings on Thursday showed that Zuckerberg sold 685,000 shares worth $125.4 million in the last three days of February, taking his total sales in the month to about 2.7 million shares worth $482.2 million, according to Reuters calculations. (http://bit.ly/2oyrDTM)

Zuckerberg said in September he would sell 35 million to 75 million shares of Facebook over the next 18 months.

'IBM to reassign 30% of staff for 103,000 service delivery biz in 2018'

International Business Machines Corp plans to reassign up to 30 per cent of staff in its 103,000 computer service delivery business this year with job losses through attrition of around 10,000, technology website The Register reported on Thursday, citing unnamed company insiders.

The news site published a slide it said was from an IBM internal presentation, which showed 10,100 jobs classified as "attrition w/o backfill".

IBM, one of the world's original PC producers but now a broad-based producer, integrator and software maker, beat expectations for revenue in its last quarterly results in October after 22 straight quarters of declines.

Spokesmen for IBM declined to make any immediate comment.
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