SYDNEY : The dollar nursed its biggest losses for years on Wednesday, after a dovish central bank surprise in Australia had investors wondering whether a peak is in sight for global interest rates. Overnight the U.S. dollar fell about 1.6 per cent on the euro to test parity at $0.9999 and 1.3 per cent against sterling to $1.1490. The U.S. dollar index fell 1.3 per cent, its biggest drop since the wild pandemic market of March 2020. It is down more than 4 per cent since hitting a 20-year peak last week. The Aussie and yen were a bit left behind, as was the New Zealand dollar with markets wary the Reserve Bank of New Zealand may also deliver a dovish surprise later in the day. That kept morning moves minor. On Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia hiked interest rates only 25 basis points (

SINGAPORE: Singapore risks gentrification and stratification if it leaves public housing to market forces, said Minister for National Development Desmond Lee on Sunday (Sep 25).Such issues are visible in successful cities around the world, as invisble but  powerful socioeconomic forces segregate where people live according to their means, he added.To prevent this from happening in Singapore, the Prime Location Public Housing (PLH) model was launched last year to build Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats in central locations - so that these areas "do not become exclusive neighbourhoods that only the well-to-do can enjoy in private housing", said Mr Lee.Under the PLH model, selected Build-to-Order (BTO) flats in prime locations will come with extra subsidies, but those who la

Cryptocurrency exchange Blockchain com could lose $270 million on its loans to bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), a source with knowledge of the matter said on Friday.The development comes days after 3AC filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy, seeking protection from creditors in the United States after one of the most high-profile blow-ups of the crypto crash this year."Three Arrows is rapidly becoming insolvent and the default impact is approximately $270 million worth of cryptocurrency and U.S. dollar loans from Blockchain.com," Blockchain.com's Chief Executive Officer Peter Smith said in a letter to shareholders, according to a company spokesperson.The news was first reported by CoinDesk.Earlier this week, digital asset exchange Genesis Trading also said it had been expose

The government has raised fuel prices by about 30 per cent in order to rein in ballooning energy subsidies. Now, small businesses are worried about their profit margins. JAKARTA: Zainal Ridho, 41, owns a car rental company in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan.Previously, the day rate for his Toyota Innova, including the price of subsidised Pertalite fuel, was 800,000 rupiah (US$54). Last week, he raised the price to 900,000 rupiah per day, amid the widespread belief that the government would soon increase the price of subsidised fuel.“I must explain to the customers why I have adjusted the rental price,” he said. While he still has loyal customers, some of them try to negotiate a better deal to get a lower price, he said. Additionally, his 20 employees have also requested a salary increas

A rudimentary prototype of the robot that Elon Musk claims will one day be a part of everyday life for millions of people made its first, tentative public appearance late on Friday: pushed on stage by three Tesla workers, lacking a brain, and barely able to wave to an audience. However, the tech industry’s pre-eminent showman appeared undeterred by the severe limitations of the hotly anticipated robot demonstration, claiming instead that the robot’s hardware was close to what his electric car company would put into mass production. It included 28 specially designed actuators to control the robot’s movements, a slim, shiny metallic body and a battery pack capable of powering the robot for an entire day. “Our goal is to make a usable human robot as quickly as possible,” Musk said, adding tha

SINGAPORE: Employers and workers should adopt a "flexible mindset" on a four-day work week, Minister of State in the Manpower Ministry Gan Siow Huang said in Parliament on Tuesday (Sep 13).She added that a four-day work week may work well for some employers and employees but not others.A four-day work week is one of many types of flexible work arrangements, and the ministry, together with our tripartite partners, strongly encourages employers and employees to be open to flexible work arrangements in all its various forms to identify and adopt those that best suit their unique business needs and their workers' needs," Ms Gan said.She was responding to a question from MP Melvin Yong (PAP-Radin Mas) on whether studies were being conducted by third parties to examine the feasibility of a

The poor are generally quite sensible about money, says Nobel laureate Esther Duflo. The programme In Conversation speaks to the economist who is fighting poverty, one field experiment at a time.SINGAPORE: If you think poor people are less sensible about money than the wealthy, Esther Duflo can probably persuade you to think again, not through rhetoric but through the anti-poverty research she has done.It is research that has made an impact in the real world and made her the youngest winner of the Nobel prize in economics.So why, for example, does someone who does not have enough to eat buy a television instead of more food?“Because there’s much more to life than just food,” the 49-year-old told the programme In Conversation. "Food is important, but when people have a life that's very

$Twitter(TWTR)$ Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter for the originally agreed price of $44bn, in a move that could put an end to one of the most high-profile corporate legal battles in decades, according to two people familiar with the matter. The Tesla chief executive initially agreed in April to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share, before announcing in July that he intended to pull out of the deal, citing concerns that the company had misled regulators and investors over the number of fake accounts on the platform. Twitter sued Musk to complete the deal, arguing that his attempt to back out was motivated by protecting his financial interests during a downturn in tech stocks rather than any valid concerns over account numbers. A trial was set to begi

SINGAPORE: Private home prices rose at a slower pace of 3.8 per cent in the third quarter of this year after a strong second quarter. The private residential property price index increased to 187.8, up from 180.9 in the second quarter, according to real estate statistics released by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) on Friday (Oct 28). Prices of non-landed properties rose 4.4 per cent, up from 3.6 per cent last quarter. Non-landed home prices in the core central region rose by 2.3 per cent, compared with 1.9 per cent in the previous quarter. Those in the rest of the central region went up by 2.8 per cent, a decrease compared with the 6.4 per cent jump in the second quarter. Prices of non-landed homes outside the central region saw the biggest jump, increasing by 7.5 per cen

Baby boomer and Gen X employees climbed the corporate ladder by putting in long hours, but this no longer makes sense to millennial and Gen Z workers, says SPRG’s Edwin Yeo.SINGAPORE: One famous anecdote in my years in the media and communications industry goes like this: An agency head walked into the office at 10pm and, upon seeing only half the staff were still working, shouted, “We must not be having enough business. We need more clients.”It's no secret that some industries want workers who are ready to put in long hours. Indeed, the first advertising agency i had applied to, a fairly well-known one at that point of time, had put out a job ad saying that if you're a clock-watcher, you need not apply.In a meeting discussing work culture almost 10 years ago, an agency head stood up and d

$SINGAPORE AIRLINES LTD(C6L.SI)$ SINGAPORE: The Singapore Airlines (SIA) Group is adding flights to key destinations in East Asia including Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan as entry requirements ease and travel demand rises. The SIA Group passenger network is projected to cover 110 destinations in 36 countries and territories, including Singapore, on Nov 1, the company said in a news release on Monday (Oct 3). "This will allow SIA and Scoot to meet the buoyant demand for international travel, particularly towards the year-end holiday season and in the first quarter of 2023," it said.  MORE FLIGHTS TO JAPAN From Oct 30, SIA will add a second daily service (SQ636) to Tokyo's Haneda Airport, on top of the existing daily service (SQ634) to Haneda an

SINGAPORE: Singapore’s top 20 per cent income group experienced the largest increase in all-items inflation for the first half of the year, the Department of Statistics (SingStat) said on Monday (Jul 25).By household income group, the consumer price index (CPI)-all items for general households increased by 5.2 per cent on a year-on-year basis. This is higher than the 3.1 per cent increase in the second half of 2021.Household income groups are based on monthly household income from all sources, including imputed rentals on owner-occupied accommodation.The highest 20 per cent household income group saw all-items inflation go up by 6 per cent year-on-year, SingStat said in a press release. Meanwhile, the middle 60 per cent and lowest 20 per cent experienced an increase of 4.9 per cent and 4.2

Singapore: As the Ukraine war and supply chain disruptions persist, oil and gases prices have soared, creating huge windfalls for fossil fuel producers- and investors who entered the market at the right time. Net income is set to double to US$4 trillion (S$6 trillion) for oil and gas companies in 2022. With Western economies shunning Russian oil, along with others facing unprecedentedly hot temperatures this summer, some countries have fallen back on coal to meet energy demand. These pressures will not let up, especially when winter hits the northern hemisphere. Investors expect that energy prices will stay high or possibly rise over the coming months. Yet the need to decarbonise energy is still as imperative as ever, as will no doubt be discussed at COP27, the upcoming UN climate summit i

SINGAPORE: There is a famous saying that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. It is especially relevant for the tech companies operating in today’s harsh economic environment – only the strong will take decisive action, even if it hurts. KPMG has found that 86 per cent of CEOs across the globe believe that a recession will arrive in the next 12 months. In the same survey, 51 per cent said they are considering workforce reduction in the next six months. According to news reports on Oct 4, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is looking to cull 15 per cent or 12,000 workers within weeks. It will also close an office in New York and has halted plans to expand office space in the city. Earlier in September, Shopee made headlines for another round of retrenchments, following layoffs

SINGAPORE: New private home sales in Singapore more than doubled in September from a month earlier, driven by the launches of Lentor Modern and Sky Eden@Bedok. This is the highest number of sales since May, when developers sold 1,355 units excluding ECs. Ms Christine Sun, OrangeTee and Tie's senior vice president of research and analytics, said: "New home sales in September climbed to the second-highest level this year on pent-up demand for suburban homes." On a year-on-year basis, home sales in September rose 18.3 per cent from the 834 units sold in the same month last year. Sales in September were boosted by the launch of two suburban projects: Lentor Modern, which sold 512 units, and Sky Eden@Bedok, which sold 121 units. Ms Sun called the sales figures at Lentor Modern and Sky Eden@Bedo

Before i started investing, it always seem easy to just criticise other people for not sticking to the rules: 1. Why dont they DCA (dollar cost averaging) 2. Why dont everyone just close their eyes and buy the index funds? 3. Why dont people just hold on to their stocks even in a crash since market moves in cycles?I look back all the my past belief and what i actually practice in real life for past stormy half year- not practising DCA, not investing mostly in Index, panick selling into the sunset, i realise that investing is all about your mental fortitude and building your financial discipline.Most of my stock holdings fell by 30% or more. But now with the seemingly market rebound, i am glad that i held on to most of them and i think i can DCA more in a structured manner ie. dep

SINGAPORE: WhatsApp users should update to the latest version of the popular messaging app after two "remote code execution" vulnerabilities were reported, the Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team (SingCERT) said in a notice on Wednesday (Sep 28).There are currently no reports of active exploitation of these vulnerabilities, the agency said.The first vulnerability affects the WhatsApp Video Call Handler component, allowing an attacker to exploit the vulnerability during a video call to a targeted user, and take complete control of their WhatsApp application, SingCERT said.This vulnerability affects WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business for iOS and Android prior to version 2.22.16.12.The second vulnerability affects the WhatsApp Video File Handler component, allowing an attack

SINGAPORE: You've just pulled another late shift in the office. Minutes away from home, you realise it’s close to midnight. You remember that you've run out of milk for the children. There isn't a 24-hour supermarket near you, so you decide to go to the convenience store around the corner instead. When you get there, however, the store is shut - with the lone cashier on break. If only the store was automated and self-service, you'd be in and out within minutes, you think to yourself. Convenience stores have long been the quick go-to for newspapers, cigarettes, and snacks. But as retail evolved, so did the corner shops, offering a wide selection of the most frequently purchased categories. Relative to the larger formats of supermarkets like Cold Storage and NTUC FairPrice, or superstor

Will you be following Warren Buffett trades?Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway made big bets on auto and home lender Ally Financial in the second quarter while increasing its wager on iPhone maker Apple.The investments, along with purchases of shares in video streaming service Paramount Global and oil majors Occidental Petroleum and Chevron, showed that Buffett and his investment team continued to bet on the US economy even as the Federal Reserve embarks on a string of sharp interest rate rises. So what will be your trades today?

SINGAPORE: The Energy Market Authority (EMA) will enhance regulatory requirements on electricity retailers to protect consumers amid market volatility, after several players called it quits late last year. "We also plan to impose higher capital/hedging requirements on retailers to ensure that they are sufficiently resilient against market volatility, and additional protections for consumers if retailers prematurely terminate contracts," the ministry added. These are among the measures authorities will implement to ensure Singapore's energy security. In his keynote address at the annual Singapore International Energy Week on Tuesday, Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong said electricity prices rose multiple folds this year due to a “perfect storm” of fossil fuel shortages exacerbate