India Predicts 5% Growth

India's statistics ministry has predicted 5% growth in the current financial year, the lowest in 11 years, and below China and Vietnam. Vietnam is predicting 6.5% growth in 2020 in terms of real GDP. Real GDP measures economic output adjusted for price changes.

Brent Reaches $70 a Barrel on US-Iran tensions

The Brent March 2020 (front month) contract reached $70 a barrel.  Front month Nymex WTI in contrast hovered at $64 a barrel (Feb 2020). Both curves were in backwardation. Gold was trading similarly high around $1580 led by the Feb contract. Gold and silver remain in contango. Stocks overall are down with oil majors bucking the trend (Shell up 1.17% in UK trading - RDSA, BP up 1.81% in US trading - NYSE:BP).

Isabel Schnabel to run ECB Market Operations

Germany's Isabel Schnabel has been appointed to the Board of the ECB overseeing market operations.

This is part of the reshuffle implemented by new ECB President Christine Lagarde (previously Managing Director of the IMF, the highest possible position in the IMF, second only to the First Deputy Managing Director).

Lagarde succeeded Mario Draghi (formerly Governor of Banca d'Italia) on 1 November 2019.

New Bank of England Governor (Bailey) Appointed

Andrew Bailey, chief executive of the FCA, has been appointed as the new governor of the Bank of England. The move is not without controversy, with the FCA being criticised over its supervision of Neil Woodford (formerly fund manager at Invesco Perpetual, since rebranded to Invesco)'s flagship fund which was suspended in June 2019 and eventually closed.

Saudi Aramco IPO Goes Live Raising $25.6bn

The shares were priced at 32 Saudi Riyals or 8.53 USD. The valuation is $1.7 trillion versus $2 trillion target. This makes it more valuable than Apple, valued at $1.17 trillion.

US-China Trade War Hits Hardware Vendors' Bottom Line - Cisco, HP Enterprise and Dell

CISCO CEO, Los Gatos resident and Maths and Computing graduate Chuck Robbins (who succeeded John Chambers as CEO in July 2015), has blamed the macroeconomic climate for poor results. HPE made similar comments.

Saudi Aramco Plans Tadawul Listing

Saudi Arabian Oil Company is planning to list on Tadawul.

The TASI (Tadawul All Share Index) denominated in Saudi Riyal (where one SAR is around 27 cents) is down around 2%.

Foreign listing plans have been put on the shelf for now. Oil in Saudi Arabia is relatively cheap to extract being close to the surface.