US’s top banking regulators have been asked to note that the recent hacks of international banks through the SWIFT messaging system raise serious questions about cyber-related risks to U.S. firms by the Representative Carolyn Maloney in a letter that Maloney wrote on Monday regulators who had asked...

While most of the metals have lost their luster   during the commodity slump, there’s at least one metal that’s been attracting a lot of attention.   A metal - Niobium used to produce stronger, lighter steel for industrial pipes and aircraft parts, is mined in only three places on...

There is pace in the great gold rush of 2016. With investors taking advantage of lower prices over the past two weeks to enlarge stakes on rising concern about central bank policy making worldwide, holdings in exchange-traded funds have now surged by a quarter.   After bottoming at a...

As China looks to improve financial oversight following last year's stock market crash, it has asked Britain for advice on plans to create a financial super-regulator, reported Reuters quoting sources with knowledge of the talks.   Notwithstanding this week's gaffe by Queen Elizabeth, who...

Judging by commercial satellite images of the country's nuclear test site taken on May 5, a U.S. think tank said that North Korea may be preparing to carry out a fifth nuclear test in the near future.   The images showed vehicle movement at the site "not often seen there except during...

The junkyard for scrapped deals is getting crowded.   According to data compiled by Bloomberg about nine percent of the $3.2 trillion in deals announced in the past eight months -- worth $294 billion -- have already fallen apart.   Despite overall deal volumes only ticking...

Cosmetics sales in Iran are among the highest in the Middle East, despite -- or perhaps partly because of -- strict Islamic dress codes.    Many women express their individuality with lipstick, mascara and nail polish in styles that would seem elaborate by Western standards even as they...

Alibaba has signaled Southeast Asia as a regional e-commerce battleground - with 600 million people, and no shortage of logistical headaches with its $1 billion buy of online retailer Lazada. The Southeast Asian region comes with complex regulatory, logistical and language barriers even as the...

As markets took a positive view ahead of top policymaker and oil producer meetings, world stocks rose to their highest level in more than four months on Thursday and the dollar had a third day of gains.   While Europe was watching a meeting of the Bank of England as sterling continued...

As banks make their biggest cuts yet to their loans to the energy sector, the U.S. shale drillers that have upended global energy markets are finally feeling a credit squeeze nearly two years into an epic oil rout.   Based on the value of their reserves in the ground oil and gas producers...

Even as US banks are expected to report their results as earnings season gets under way next week analysts are expecting first-quarter reports in the financial sector to show a 9.2-percent decline in earnings and a 0.2-percent rise in sales.   However the fine print in the results, and what...