We need to find a fairer way of providing Goods and Services to the rest of the people on Earth.Cryptocurrencies and/or Gold Standard of money....maybe the answer to fight hyperinflation caused by too much printing of paper/fiat currencies by Governments and Central Banks all over the World. (https://nomorefiatmoneyplease.blogspot.com)
Tesla seeks to raise about US$500m through sale of shares
[BENGALURU] Electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc said it planned to raise about US$500 million through the sale of 2.1 million shares.
Chief Executive Elon Musk will buy nearly 84,000 shares for about US$20 million in the offering, the company said on Thursday. Tesla's shares were up 2.2 per cent at US$243.50 in premarket trading. Tesla said it assumed the shares would be sold at Wednesday's closing price of US$238.17.
Musk is already the company's largest shareholder with 22.25 per cent stake.
Tesla had 127.1 million shares outstanding as of July 30.
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The offering comes a week after Tesla reported a larger quarterly loss and said it may raise more cash to offset heavy spending on increasing production.
Up to Wednesday's close, Tesla's shares had fallen 12 per cent since Aug 5 when the company reported its results.
The underwriters have a 30-day option to buy up to US$75 million of additional shares, Tesla said.
The company said it intended to use the proceeds for development of its energy business, its upcoming Model 3 project, its battery Gigafactory and other general purposes.
Goldman Sachs & Co and Morgan Stanley are lead joint book-running managers for the offering, while JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank Securities are additional book-running managers.
BofA Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo Securities are co-managers.
US-China aviation talks hit stumbling block on airport access
[BEIJING] Talks to ease limits on flights between the United States and China's gateway cities have stalled over US fears its airlines will be given less attractive time slots for take-off and landing than their Chinese rivals, people familiar with the negotiations said.
Travel demand by an increasingly affluent Chinese population is set to soar long-term, a huge business opportunity for both countries' carriers. But China's major airports are already heavily congested, limiting the potential for good slots and creating a roadblock to an aviation accord that would deepen ties between the world's two largest economies.
In exploratory talks held in May in Washington, details of which have not previously been reported, China offered to permit more flights to and from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou while lowering caps for other domestic cities, US officials said.
The talks, the first in four years, ended with the US side refusing to pursue formal negotiations until China presents plans to reform what the United States calls an opaque allocation system that tends to give big Chinese state carriers the best time slots, the US officials told Reuters in a telephone interview.
A senior Chinese aviation official said the US was dragging its feet. "In the past, the Chinese side was not as enthusiastic as the Americans when it came to market liberalization because we didn't need that many flights," the source told Reuters. "But it's the other way around now." Washington has made clear the ball is in Beijing's court and is waiting for the Chinese side to respond, one person said. It has encouraged China to follow guidelines from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to accommodate carriers despite congestion.
Officials from both countries spoke on condition of anonymity. China's aviation regulator did not respond to requests for comment.
While there is interest in a new bilateral air services pact, industry experts say an 'Open Skies' agreement, which would remove market restrictions and allow airlines to coordinate capacity and pricing if they have government approval, is likely years away.
HUGE DEMAND SEEN
Under existing agreements, Chinese passenger carriers are limited to 180 round-trip flights per week, while US passenger carriers are allotted 160 weekly round-trip flights between the United States and three of China's mega cities.
But airlines are already brushing up against these limits. The top four Chinese airlines have on average scheduled 148 round-trip flights per week from July through September this year, while their US rivals have hit 128 weekly round-trips on average, according to aviation data and analytics company OAG.
Moreover, the number of air passengers traveling to, from and within China is set to nearly triple by 2034 to some 1.3 billion, surpassing an expected 1.2 billion for the United States, according to IATA.
Singapore banks sees benefits as yuan devaluation boosts rates
Executives from DBS Group Holdings Ltd and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp said the drop in the Singapore dollar should support local interest rates, which in turn is positive for the banks' earnings.
SPH
[SINGAPORE] Singapore's two largest banks said they stand to benefit from higher local interest rates and the weakening in the city's currency that followed the recent devaluation of the Chinese yuan.
Executives from DBS Group Holdings Ltd and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp said the drop in the Singapore dollar should support local interest rates, which in turn is positive for the banks' earnings.
The Chinese yuan recorded its biggest two-day slump in 21 years this week amid concerns about a further economic slowdown in Asia's biggest economy, where the biggest Singaporean banks have been growing their business. The lenders' share prices fell sharply on Wednesday, after news of the devaluation, before rebounding on Thursday.
"Negative sentiments" regarding the impact of a China slowdown on Singapore bank earnings are "overdone," Kevin Kwek, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in Singapore, wrote in a report Thursday. "Further weakness on the Singapore dollar should have been expected and poses offsetting implications." DBS rose 2 per cent on Thursday to close at S$19.02 after plunging 5.5 per cent Wednesday, the most since October 2011. OCBC gained 1.9 per cent after slumping 5.8 per cent. United Overseas Bank Ltd, Singapore's third-largest bank, climbed 1.9 per cent after dropping 4.2 per cent Wednesday. The benchmark Straits Times Index rose 1 per cent on Thursday.
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The Singapore dollar has dropped 1.3 per cent since the Chinese devaluation, while the three-month Singapore interbank offered rate, or Sibor, extended its gains on Thursday.
For DBS, the "positive translation effects" of appreciating US and Hong Kong dollars against Singapore's currency "will more than outweigh the negative impact of a depreciating renminbi," DBS Chief Financial Officer Chng Sok Hui said in an e-mail. "A weaker Singapore dollar could also be supportive of Sibor and swap-offer rates, which will be beneficial to earnings," she said.
Higher local interest rates "would be supportive" to OCBC's earnings, said the bank's Chief Financial Officer Darren Tan, in an e-mail.
Singapore's three largest banks have been expanding in China. DBS took over Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc's retail and commercial banking customers in China in a deal agreed in December 2010. The Singaporean lender now has more than 100 branches in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan.
OCBC spent US$5 billion buying Wing Hang Bank in Hong Kong last year as part of its strategy to expand in Greater China. The region contributed about a fifth of the lender's pretax profit in the first half of this year.
UOB's Chinese unit has more than 10 branches and sub- branches, according to the bank's 2014 annual report. Greater China accounted for about 11 per cent of its first-half pretax profit.
Ms Chng at DBS said the yuan's depreciation "will have some small translation impact" on the bank's earnings in China. At the same time, the weaker yuan "may lead to a pickup in China exports, and this could be helpful to loan growth," she added.
"The recent events in China reflect ongoing uncertainties in the global economy," said Jimmy Koh, UOB's head of investor relations in an e-mail. "Notwithstanding near-term uncertainties, we believe the growth drivers for Asia remain intact," he added.
UOB didn't respond to a request for comment on the impact of the China devaluation on its earnings.
China's gold demand seen holding up as yuan declines: WGC
[MANILA] China's gold demand this year is expected to at least hold steady with last year at just under 1,000 tonnes and will not likely be dented by this week's currency devaluation, the World Gold Council (WGC) said.
Yuan-denominated gold prices in China, the world's top consumer of the metal, spiked nearly 6 per cent this week, boosted in part by investors seeking a secure store of value as their currency weakened, traders said. "(Investors) realise the special role of gold as a hedging tool against the devaluation of the currency," Roland Wang, managing director for WGC in China, told Reuters by phone on Thursday.
He played down the possibility that the relative rise in local prices due to the devaluation would dampen buying and result in a net drop in demand. "I don't think they will see this as too expensive to buy gold," Mr Wang said, adding that gold would also benefit as investors diversify their asset allocation after the recent tumble in equities markets. "We still have the confidence that consumption of gold in China will remain at similar levels as last year," he said.
Spot gold touched a three-week high of US$1,126 an ounce on Thursday as a weaker Chinese yuan raised doubts about the pace of expected US interest rate hikes.
China's central bank said on Thursday that there was no basis for further depreciation in the yuan given strong economic fundamentals.
China consumed 973.6 tonnes of gold last year and the WGC has forecast demand this year at between 900 and 1,000 tonnes.
Chinese demand was around 497 tonnes in the first half of 2015, with second-quarter demand down 3 per cent year-on-year at 216.5 tonnes on slower jewellery buying.
Mr Wang said there have been signs of a recovery in demand for both jewellery and investment since mid-July after gold prices dropped, and he hopes the trend will continue in the last two quarters of the year.
China and India, the world's top two gold buyers, account for about half of global demand, which the WGC said slid to a six-year low in the second quarter.
