Friday 8 July 2016

Property fund turmoil continues as three more firms cut value | Business | The Guardian

Property fund turmoil continues as three more firms cut value | Business | The Guardian:

"Shopping centres, office blocks and warehouses worth up to £5bn could be put up for sale as the turmoil in the UK commercial property sector prompted by the Brexit vote forces fund managers to revalue their portfolios or temporarily prevent investors withdrawing their savings.

With the pound under pressure on the foreign exchange markets, fund managers Legal & General, Foreign & Colonial and Dutch-owned Kames cut the value of their property funds on Thursday. L&G cut the value of its £2.3bn fund by 10% – following a 5% cut last week – while F&C and Kanes both cut by 5%.

Aberdeen Fund Management announced on Wednesday it was halting trading in its property fund for 24 hours and devaluing it by 17% – thought to be the biggest adjustment ever made by a property fund . Aberdeen has since extended the trading ban until Monday."



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Fitch sees tough year ahead for sovereign ratings | The National

Fitch sees tough year ahead for sovereign ratings | The National:

"In a gauge of the global economic unease, the ratings agency Fitch said that sovereign credit ratings are on track for a record number of downgrades this year.

And Brexit is making it worse.

In its latest biannual Sovereign Review and Outlook, the UK agency said that there were 15 downgrades in the first six months of this year compared with the previous annual high of 20 in all of 2011."



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Guessing game on about Saudi oil reserves | GulfNews.com

Guessing game on about Saudi oil reserves | GulfNews.com:

"Rystad Energy, a small Norwegian oil and gas data firm released a contentious study several days ago, which concluded the US held more recoverable oil reserves than both Saudi Arabia and Russia. Although Rystad underlined that “more than 50 per cent of remaining [American] oil reserves is unconventional shale oil,” with an estimated 60 billion barrels in Texas alone, serious environmental and health risks were associated with their extraction.

Still, the report raised highly controversial points about Saudi holdings, and opined that Riyadh will not be able to extract and export its black gold for very long.

The question was not new, and while many wondered whether Saudi Arabia would soon run out, this was mostly fiction."



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IEA warns of ever-growing reliance on Middle Eastern oil supplies - FT.com

IEA warns of ever-growing reliance on Middle Eastern oil supplies - FT.com:

"The world risks becoming ever more reliant on Middle Eastern oil as lower prices derail efforts by governments to curb demand, the west’s leading energy body has warned.
The head of the International Energy Agency told the Financial Times that Middle Eastern producers, such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq, now have the biggest share of world oil markets since the Arab fuel embargo of the 1970s.
Demand for their crude has surged amid a collapse in oil prices over the past two years that has cut output from higher-cost producers such as the US, Canada and Brazil."



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Fed predictions, dependence on Middle East oil | FirstFT - YouTube

Fed predictions, dependence on Middle East oil | FirstFT - YouTube: ""



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