Here’s what you need to know in UAE business and globally on this Monday morning.
• Oil on a slippery slope
Oil held its biggest monthly decline in a year as US producers increased drilling for a fifth week amid a glut of crude and fuel supplies that are at the highest seasonal level in at least two decades. “There is a clear downward momentum to the market at the moment,” Michael McCarthy, a chief strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney, told Bloomberg. Brent for October settlement was 18 cents higher at $43.71 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange this morning.
• Results season
The Q2 results are still arriving in the UAE. Most recently, we've had Emaar Properties (8 per cent profit rise), Dubai Investments (2.3 per cent fall), and du (11.3 per cent drop).
• Interest rates
It’s crunch time for the Bank of England. All but two of the 46 economists in a survey forecast that policymakers led by the governor, Mark Carney, will cut the key interest rate from a record-low 0.5 per cent when they meet on Thursday. The pound slid 0.3 per cent in July to $1.32 on Friday, having tumbled about 9 per cent in the previous two months.
• Saudi grinding to a halt?
According to the chief executive of Al Khodari & Sons, the Saudi Arabia construction market has shrunk by up to 80 per cent. Things are still moving in the UAE, however, with progress announced yesterday on two Abu Dhabi projects - Reem Mall, and the Saadiyat Lagoons development.
• Pokemon gone?
Is the app-based game craze already over? The mobile game fell to fourth place among highest-grossing apps for Apple devices in Japan, according to researcher App Annie. Bloomberg reported this morning that Nintendo shares had declined as much as 6.5 per cent after Pokemon Go dropped from the top of app download charts in Japan. “That’s a surprisingly fast and big drop” in the rankings, said Serkan Toto, founder of consultant Kantan Games. “In Japan’s app market in particular, there is a big gap between the top 1 and 2, and the rest.”
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