China’s southern island province of Hainan has drawn up measures to clamp down on real estate speculation, the official Hainan Daily newspaper reported, the latest in a flurry of steps to tame hot property prices. Cities across China have been rolling out much tougher real estate restrictions this year in an effort to contain resurgent demand from home buyers and property speculators, as earlier cooling measures appeared to be having limited effect. In the rest of the province, residents still p

Straits Trading began as a tin smelting business, but it has shifted to become an investment company with a focus on real estate and hospitality. The company has stakes in Straits Real Estate, Far East Hospitality Holdings, ARA Asset Management and Malaysia Smelting Corporation. For now, Chew is bullish on the evolution of the property market in Asia, adding that Straits Trading can become a major player in the securitization of real estate. Real estate investments are a substantial proportion o

Financial literacy gaps could be costing you more than you think. Asked to put a dollar figure on how much money they have lost in their lifetime due to personal finance missteps, nearly 25 percent of consumers estimated the cost at $30,000 or more, according to a new survey from the National Financial Educators Council. More than a third put their losses at $999 or less. They were also less likely than older respondents to say they had lost more than $30,000. (See chart below for a breakdown by

The iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) is an exchange traded note that was constructed to provide investors exposure to the CBOE’s VIX index, which is also known as “the fear index.” This is because the VIX and corresponding VIX futures reflect the demand for protection in options on the S&P 500. That demand for protection manifests itself in higher prices for both VIX and VIX futures. For this reason, the VIX is known as an inversely correlated index, moving up when the S&P 500 move

A phone call to a bond desk promises just one thing—a depressing rundown of all the things markets could possibly fret about—and right now they’re worried about President Donald Trump. The concerns are obviously not irreversible, but they took on a new flavor this week on several fronts. Treasury yields fell, moving inversely to prices, as traders worried about the potential for a North Korea missile launch this weekend in celebration of its founders day. The iShares Barclays 20-plus year Treasu

Apple’s new campus has left some California tree buyers scrambling, according to a Thursday report in the San Francisco Chronicle. As part of the project, the architects have scoured the west coast for what they hope will eventually be 469 trees, according to the Chronicle. But Apple’s new campus — a spaceship-like building that’s estimated to cost billions — requires about 3,000 trees, according to the Chronicle. Apple has been on an environmental bent in recent years, vowing to get more of its

Analysts are cautiously positive about Netflix’s first quarter, granted they hit subscriber growth expectations. Growth is expected mostly from international viewers, while the U.S. market cools as it reaches subscriber saturation. “However, with expectations for a strong overall quarter already high, we’d still be cautious into Q1 results. But Netflix will also have to face more competitors in the over-the-top (OTT) TV space, or TV service that is not reliant on cable or satellite services. Goo

A defiant Musk took to Twitter on Wednesday afternoon to suggest the investors buy stock in Ford Motor instead. The Ford family controls the Detroit automaker through two classes of stock. In a letter dated Monday, five investment groups including the California State Teachers Retirement System, Hermes Equity Ownership Services and CtW Investment Group urged Tesla to have all of its directors re-elected annually. Led by the enigmatic Musk, Tesla recently became the most valuable U.S. car company

PNC Financial’s stock jumped after the bank reported earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street’s expectations. The Pittsburgh-based bank reported first-quarter profit per share of $1.96, beating the Reuters-estimate of $1.82 per share comfortably. Reported revenue was $3.884 billion, beating the expected figure of $3.797 billion. “PNC had a good start to the year,” said PNC CEO William S. Demchak. As of Thursday’s close, shares of PNC are up over 35 percent over the past 12 months.

Bond investor Bill Gross warns a global slowdown in productivity as a result of the financial crisis will make it impossible for President Donald Trump to get economic growth back above 3 percent and will reveal financial markets as overvalued. “Equity markets are priced for too much hope, high yield bond markets for too much growth, and all asset prices elevated to artificial levels that only a model driven, historically biased investor would believe could lead to returns resembling the past si

Leon Cooperman, chairman and CEO of Omega Advisors, expects the market to be flat through the summer due to uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s economic agenda. “It is time for the U.S. equity market to rest,” Cooperman wrote in the April 7 letter to clients. As a result of the domestic political uncertainty, geopolitics and market valuation, the hedge fund manager expects the U.S. stock market will be “trendless/uninteresting at around current levels for a number of months,” he wrote. Coo

Few careers are as storied as Bill Belichick’s 42-year run. He started studying football footage and going on scouting trips at the age of 7 with his father, Steve, an assistant coach at Annapolis. He landed his first NFL coaching gig at 21. And while his story is hardly typical, its many twists and turns have left Belichick with strong views about how to create a successful professional journey — no matter your playing field. In a recent interview with CNBC at his favorite lunch (and dinner) jo

In a significant change of tone, President Donald Trump this week reversed his long-standing call to label China a currency manipulator. Dec. 4, 2016Trump tweets imply that China has devalued its currency to make it harder for U.S. companies to compete. Feb. 23, 2017The Chinese are “grand champions at manipulation of currency,” Trump said in an interview with Reuters. “You know when you talk about, when you talk about currency manipulation, when you talk about devaluations, they are world champi

Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy said on Thursday that he will not seek re-election in 2018, choosing to step down at the end of his second term in office. “I am today announcing that I will not seek a third term as governor,” Malloy, a Democrat, said at a news conference in Hartford, the state capital. “Instead, I will focus all my attention and energy I will use all of my political capital from now through the end of 2018 to continue implementing my administration’s vision for a more sustain

President Donald Trump has signed legislation that lets states withhold federal family planning funds from Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. Trump’s action erases a rule that was finalized shortly before President Barack Obama left office in January. Trump signed the measure Thursday behind closed doors in the Oval Office. The measure narrowly cleared the Senate last month. It took votes by an ailing Republican senator who was recovering from back surgery, and a tie-breaking vote

The Pentagon said U.S. military forces dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan on Thursday. This is the first time the GBU-43 bomb, known as the “mother of all bombs,” has ever been used in combat, according to Adam Stump, the Pentagon spokesman. The bomb contains 11 tons of explosives and is formally known as the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb. The press secretary declined to comment further on the bomb, referring requests to the Department of Defense. The Pentagon said in a

Every year, dozens of companies reference the Easter holiday in their earnings conference calls. Any company expecting a boost in the first quarter like we saw last year is counting its Easter eggs before they hatch. That’s because the holiday doesn’t fall in the same quarter every year — instead, it’s on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox. With Easter shifting back to April this year, first-quarter results are going to look weak when compared to

A daily morning look at the financial stories you need to know to start the day. STOCKS/ECONOMY-Stock futures are lower as investors seem to be focusing mainly on President Donald Trump’s comment that the dollar is getting “too strong.” We get wholesale inflation numbers today along with weekly jobless claims. Bonds are higher with the yield on the 10-year treasury note all the way down to 2.2 percent. -New data shows that the most actively-traded funds over the last 15 years trail the performan

Leon Cooperman, chairman and CEO of Omega Advisors, told his investors how he is positioning his portfolio for the rest of the year and shared his hedge fund’s top holdings. Although the portfolio manager expects the “U.S. equity market to rest” the next few months, he predicts many stocks will outperform. “If our economic outlook and equity market expectations are correct and active management has the various tail winds … we believe our portfolio of names will do quite well over the coming ye

Investors should buy homebuilder shares such as Toll Brothers and Lennar because housing sales are surging this spring, according to Raymond James, which reiterated its strong buy ratings on both stocks. “The 2017 spring selling season is off to a robust and better-than-expected start for most U.S. homebuilders, based on several recent data points and our own feedback received from our travels this spring,” analyst Buck Horne wrote in a note to clients Thursday. “Accordingly, ahead of the upcomi