Browsing: Business

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Kristalina Georgieva warns that this year will be tougher on the global economy than last year. In a CBS Sunday interview, she said the US, EU, and China are all slowing down simultaneously. “One third of the world economy will be in recession,” she said, adding that even for countries not in recession: “It would feel like recession for hundreds of millions of people.” She said that while the US may avoid a recession, the situation is more bleak in Europe, which has been hard hit by the conflict in Ukraine. “Half of the…

It has been reported by the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF) that the UAE ranked first in the Arab world in terms of the value of manufactured exports in 2021, with a total value of $142.5 billion. According to the AMF’s Joint Arab Economic Report, the UAE’s manufacturing industry exports account for 43.9% of all Arab manufacturing exports, due to strong growth in re-exports. There was a 33.2 percent increase in manufacturing exports in Arab countries in 2021, compared to $244 billion in 2020, as a result of the unwinding of COVID-19 restrictions. It was also reported that Saudi Arabia was…

Gold futures settled unchanged at $1,826.2 on the last trading day of 2022, while spot gold rose 0.2% to $1,818.70. The yellow metal rose on Friday, as the non-yielding metal is on track to close the quarter at its highest level since June 2020, thanks to fewer rate hikes anticipated by the Federal Reserve following a drop from record highs earlier this year. After back-to-back rate hikes by the U.S. central bank in September, gold prices fell to a more than two-year low, but have since rebounded. In response to rising inflation, the reaction of global central banks will determine…

Joe Biden signed a spending bill worth $1.7 trillion on Thursday that will fund the federal government through September 2023, the end of the federal budget year. Just before Christmas, the Democratic-controlled House passed the bill 225-201, mostly along party lines. The House vote came a day after the Senate, also led by Democrats, approved the bill by a vote of 68-29. A total of $772.5 billion will be spent on domestic initiatives as part of the funding bill, an increase of approximately 6%. A total of $858 billion will be spent on defense programs, an increase of approximately 10%.…

Due to the continued decline in Tesla shares, Elon Musk is no longer the world’s richest person. According to a report by S3 Partners, astute investors bet $15 billion that Tesla’s shares would fall this year. Elon Musk’s company has lost almost 70 percent of its value since November 2021. New research shows that short sellers made $15 billion this year betting that Tesla shares would fall, as about $800 billion was wiped off the company’s value. According to S3 Partners, bets against Tesla shares proved to be the most profitable in 2022, with shorts against Amazon shares making a…

Logan Paul, a YouTuber-turned-boxer, purchased a NFT for $623,000 from the Azuki collection. There has been a massive downturn in the crypto market and the NFT niche in particular, resulting in a significant decline in the value of many assets. Logan Paul acknowledged that the price of his NFT had fallen sharply, confirming that it is essentially worthless. Logan Paul’s Azuki Collection NFT is now worth only $10, according to The Wall Street Silver Twitter account. This is another example of a case where crypto assets can lose their value very quickly and abruptly. NFTs are non-fungible tokens that can…

An energy technology pioneer, Form Energy, with the backing of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson has revealed the site of the first factory to manufacture ‘iron-air’ batteries for long-term wind and solar energy storage. In Weirton, West Virginia, Form Energy says it will build a $760m debut plant using its technology that stores massive amounts of renewable energy for days at a time. Over the past few years, Form Energy has attracted an array of high-profile investors, including Microsoft billionaire Gates, Amazon tycoon Bezos and Virgin founder Branson, as well as steel giant ArcelorMittal. The company claims its…

The market was awash with predictions predicting new record highs for bitcoin in 2022, from Tim Draper to top crypto executives. Others were less optimistic, and some correctly predicted bitcoin would sink below $20,000, even as low as $10,000. However, the failure of stablecoin terraUSD, liquidity concerns within the crypto industry, and the dramatic collapse of the FTX exchange shocked investors and sent ripples throughout the market. Investors have been faced with rising interest rates, which have put pressure on risk assets such as stocks and cryptocurrencies. Since reaching an all-time high of nearly $69,000 in November 2021, bitcoin has…

Amazon Inc’s cloud computing division was awarded a $723.9 million enterprise software license contract by the United States Navy. With the deal, the Navy will be able to access Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) commercial cloud environment, Professional Services, and training and certification courses. As part of the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contract, the Pentagon awarded $9 billion in cloud computing contracts to Alphabet, Google, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Corp and Oracle Corp. It is expected that the work will be performed for at least five years, beginning in December this year and ending in 2028.

After the Communist Party loosened anti-virus rules as it tried to reverse a deepening economic slump, a surge of COVID-19 cases was reported in schools and businesses across China on Friday. While official data show a decline in new cases, many people no longer have to go through mandatory testing after the government ended it on Wednesday. It was part of a dramatic shift to gradually lift “zero COVID” restrictions that have confined millions to their homes and sparked protests and resignation demands for President Xi Jinping. After promising to reduce their cost and disruption, Xi’s government began loosening controls…