Friday 24 July 2009

Fars News Agency :: Iran Discovers 46 Oil Fields in Caspian Sea

Fars News Agency :: Iran Discovers 46 Oil Fields in Caspian Sea

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Business Intelligence Middle East - bi-me.com - Abu Dhabi's Dolphin Energy sells US$1.25 billion 10-year debt - News, analysis, reports

Business Intelligence Middle East - bi-me.com - Abu Dhabi's Dolphin Energy sells US$1.25 billion 10-year debt - News, analysis, reports

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Bangor City to be next target for Dubai investment? - Europe - ESPN Soccernet

Bangor City to be next target for Dubai investment? - Europe - ESPN Soccernet

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SEC Harman International complaint (PDF 11 pages)

Bids placed but no sales made at Madania auction

All eight of the properties put up for auction by Madania Real Estate on Wednesday night failed to make their reserve price, with potential buyers saying prices are still too high.

The auction, which was the second held by the property broker in two months, attracted just 30 people, about five of whom registered to take part.

Bids were placed on three of the properties, with the highest being Dh3.3 million (US$898,000) for a four-bedroom villa in The Meadows. A four-bedroom apartment in Jumeirah Beach Residences was also popular and bidding reached Dh2.6m. The highest bidders were given the opportunity to negotiate a price with the seller after the auction.

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Qatar steps behind the wheel at Porsche

Volkswagen Passenger CarsImage via Wikipedia

Qatar will own a 17 per cent stake in Volkswagen (VW) and Porsche after a merger that will see the sports car maker sit alongside 10 VW brands that include Skoda, Bentley and Audi.

Under the deal, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the Gulf state’s sovereign wealth fund, will receive the stake in options that can be converted into shares of VW, Europe’s largest car maker.

Porsche collected the options as part of its quest to seek ownership of VW, but its bid went awry this year when its sales deteriorated and banks grew reluctant to lend more money to the car maker, which has debts of €10 billion (Dh52.27bn).

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ADCB reveals Dh892m in bad loans

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) saw first-half profits fall 44 per cent as it set aside Dh892 million (US$242.8m) in provisions against losses on bad loans.

ADCB is estimated to be owed about $500m by the Saad Group and Ahmad Hamad Al Gosaibi and Brothers, whose billions of dollars in debt to regional banks have become a major factor in second-quarter bank earnings.

Other banks in the UAE, including First Gulf Bank and Union National Bank, have set aside cash that would otherwise have been booked as profits to account for exposures to the firms.

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Wisdom is not the sole prerogative of schoolboys

Last week the financial world was all agog over a report written for Morgan Stanley in London by a 15-year-old intern. Mathew Robson, a schoolboy hoping for a lucrative job in the City one day, got his career off to a flying start with his revelations that people of his generation see advertising as “extremely annoying and pointless”; they “cannot be bothered” to read a newspaper and even find Twitter, the mobile communication tool that limits messages to 140-odd characters, too costly to use.

This news was greeted like a bombshell. Media experts were all a-twitter, financial analysts were amazed and the poor fellows that own Twitter probably wanted to shoot themselves. The Financial Times dubbed him the “most famous intern since Monica Lewinsky”.

I hate to pour cold water on young Master Robson’s brilliance, but frankly, all he was doing was stating the obvious: no 15-year-old boy ever wants to communicate with anyone. They are too busy reading Nietzsche and squeezing their spots. When I was that age and away at school, I was encouraged to write a letter to my mother once a week. Poor mother, for I always managed to find something just that bit more interesting to do than to regale her with tales of what I had eaten that week and how many double maths lessons I had endured.


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Powerful powerful rally July 2009 (Re-post)

It hurts to be a bear these days. Since March, actually. It hurts to have been out of this market. It hurts to have exited losing positions in March or April or May as we did with QLD and SPY…

Will the long-term buyers who bought between March and July exit now? Will they?

Traders who ride momentum should be making good coin.

Anyway, here is a great overview of the situation technically, and a great note on making money as opposed to having deep fundamental convictions regarding where the economy and markets are headed.

I, honestly, fear a great amazing bear market is in play at the moment, because if this is not a real new bull market, buy and holders will get fucked.END

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Tocqueville Shariah Gold Hedge Fund Outperforms Price, Index

U.S.-based Tocqueville Asset Management LP's Shariah-compliant gold hedge fund is outperforming both the metal's price and its Philadelphia index year-to-date, delivering a similar performance to its other gold investments.

That performance should continue, portfolio manager John Hathaway told Dow Jones Newswires, because he forecasts gold to trade into the quadruple digits and stay there.

DSAM Kauthar Gold Fund, managed by Tocqueville Asset Management, is one of four hedge funds offered by Dubai Shariah Asset Management, a joint venture between Dubai Commodity Asset Management, a wholly owned division of the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre Authority, and Connecticut-based Shariah Capital Inc.

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SWFs tipped for greater financing role

Sovereign wealth funds and multinationals from the developing world will in future take the place of the western banking sector in financing and paying for major construction projects, according to consultant Turner & Townsend.

Vince Clancy, chief executive, cited clients Bharti Airtel, the Indian mobile operator, and Qatari Diar, the sovereign wealth fund-owned property company behind the Shard at London Bridge, as emblematic of the trend.

In preliminary results to be released on Fridya, the private construction consultancy will say that a third of its global revenue growth has come from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

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Dubai bank files lawsuit against Algosaibis

Dubai-based Mashreqbank has filed a lawsuit naming almost 20 members of a prominent Saudi family in a bid to recover more than $200m it alleges it is owed.

The lawsuit – which was filed in New York on July 15 – will add to the pressure on the Algosaibis, who have long been considered one of Saudi Arabia’s most respected and powerful merchant families, but whose companies are now facing financial difficulties as they seek to restructure billions of dollars of debt.

Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi and Brothers Company, the family’s main vehicle, has also filed a suit against Maan Al Sanea, a Saudi billionaire and owner of Saad Group, which has also been forced to restructure its debt.

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Sorry output delayed today because of problems with IE8, MS XP, Lenovo! Stories will be posted as soon as CPU'ly possible!

About that Harman International hoax…

Well, the SEC has wasted no time in getting to the bottom of it.

Via Reuters:

SEC NAMES INDIVIDUAL DEFENDANT HAZEM KHALID AL-BRAIKAN IN CASE INVOLVING PURCHASES OF HARMAN INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIES INC SECURITIES

SEC SAYS AL-BRAIKAN ENGAGED IN AGGRESSIVE STRATEGY OF BUYING HARMAN INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIES INC STOCK AND OPTIONS IN THE 4 DAYS BEFORE FALSE TENDER OFFER

SEC SAYS AL-BRAIKAN’S PURCHASES POSITIONED HIM TO REAP LARGE PROFITS FROM HARMAN INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIES INC SHARE INCREASE

SEC SAYS AL-BRAIKAN IS CEO OF DEFENDANT AL-RAYA INVESTMENT , AND IS A RESIDENT OF KUWAIT