Day: December 17, 2016

Duterte Says He Killed Three Kidnappers in 1988 to Save Hostage

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he killed three kidnappers in 1988 when he was  Davao City mayor to save a woman hostage. “There were three of them; I didn’t really know how many bullets from my gun went through inside their bodies,” Duterte told reporters in Singapore Friday evening before his flight back home, according to a transcript e-mailed by his office.

BP Gains Abu Dhabi Oil Field Stake for $2.2 Billion in Stock

BP Plc cemented its 77-year relationship with Abu Dhabi by swapping about $2.2 billion of its own shares for a stake in one of the emirate’s largest onshore oil concessions.  The U.K.’s second-biggest oil group will issue new ordinary shares to pay for 10 percent of the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Petroleum Operations Ltd., giving the emirate a 2 percent holding in BP, the London-based company said Saturday in a statement. Abu Dhabi investor Mubadala Development Co.

Beijing Orders 1,200 Factories to Close or Cut Output Amid Smog

Beijing municipal government ordered more than 1,200 factories in the printing, construction materials and petrochemical industries citywide to either suspend or cut output after earlier issuing this year’s first red alert warning for severely high levels of air pollution. Under a contingency plan for severe air pollution, the city shut down more than 700 plants with production procedures that will pollute air and required 500 more to reduce production, according to a statement posted on the municipal government website on Saturday.

Chinese Buying Insurance in Hong Kong Said to Face Further Curbs

Chinese residents buying insurance in Hong Kong will no longer be able to swipe their credit cards multiple times to get around previously imposed curbs intended to slow sales, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Purchases of insurance in Hong Kong using MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. credit cards issued in China have been capped at $5,000 per insurance product, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the changes haven’t been made public.

Americans’ 5 Big Fears About Retirement

If you’re among the millions of American workers worrying that retirement may fail to live up to your expectations, you’re not alone.A new study by Transamerica shows that American workers are wrestling with fearsinvolving financial security and health in retirement. If you have similar worries to the respondents to this survey,here are some ways to overcome them.

iRobot’s Roomba 980 Dominates a New Competitor

The primary task of robotic vacuum cleaners might seem pretty straightforward — to navigate any given room and clean up the mess — but it turns out that’s easier said than done. Andto the benefit of home robotics specialist iRobot Corporation In an effort to compare the latest and greatest high-end robotic vacuums last week, theRossen Reports team over at Today featured both the Dyson 360 Eye and iRobot’s Roomba 980 in their “Does It Work?” special series.

Prosecutors: FBI agent leaked info in trading case to media

Federal prosecutors say an FBI agent has acknowledged divulging confidential information to reporters about the investigation into an alleged insider trading scheme. The Las Vegas Review Journal reports that prosecutors in New York told a federal judge by letter Friday that the unnamed agent confessed to be a source for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times regarding the case involving Las Vegas gambler William “Billy” Walters.

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Micron’s stock has risen more than 40% so far in 2016, easily outpacing the Nasdaq ‘s 8% return. However, since the end of the dot-com bubble sell-off around the start of 2003, a far more important long-term pattern has emerged that anyone considering investing in Micron ought to consider: have also underperformed the tech-heavy Nasdaq, Micron shares have performed slightly worse than Intel while also proving far more volatile in the process.

Wanxiang Gets China Electric Vehicle Permit to Make Karma Cars

Wangxiang Group, the owner of Karma Automotive, became the second auto-parts maker to receive permission from the nation’s top economic planner to produce electric cars under a special scheme to encourage companies outside auto manufacturing to develop new-energy vehicles. Founded by Chinese billionaire Lu Guanqiu, Wanxiang Group got approval from the National Development and Reform Commission to invest in facilities to manufacture extended-range electric vehicles with annual capacity of 50,000 units, according to a notice on the agency’s website on Friday.

The S&P in 2017: What to Expect

What’s the S&P 500 going to do in 2017? It’s a question we’d all love the answer to, as it can inform financial decisions we make throughout the year. If it’s going to drop, for example, we might want to sell some or many holdings now.

How Pandora Fell From 1 of the First Players in Music Streaming to 1 of the Last

In this clip from Industry Focus: Tech , Motley Fool analysts Dylan Lewis and David Kretzmann take a look at Pandora’s less-than-spectacular 10-year run in the streaming business, how its competition became so incredibly difficult to face off against, and why it’s going to be so hard for Pandora to recover its edge. 10 stocks we like better than Pandora Media When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen.

2 More Insights From Apple Inc.’s Job Boards

Apple, like most major companies, doesn’t divulge too many specifics on the projects that it’s working on in these listings. Nevertheless, it’s not hard to get some sense of what broad themes and ideas the company is investing in by carefully observing these listings.

Monte Paschi Said to Start Taking Orders for Shares on Monday

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA will begin taking orders for shares as soon as Monday as it aims to complete raising 5 billion euros of capital before Christmas, people with the knowledge of the matter said. Monte Paschi will attempt to sell stock through Thursday, said the people, who asked to not be named because the plan isn’t public yet.

The Latest: Official: 3 reports of dirty water before ban

A top Corpus Christi official says there were three reports of dirty water before the public was told this week of a chemical leak into the water system. Assistant City Manager Mark Van Vleck said Saturday that the city first received a “dirty water report” Dec. 1 from the Valero-owned administration building at the asphalt plant leased to Ergon Asphalt and Emulsions.

Better Buy: NVIDIA Corporation vs. Broadcom

As we hurdle toward the finish line, 2016 will go down as a uniquely active year in the semiconductor market. Spurred on by the onset of several generational tech trends — the Internet of Things , artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, and the like — major semiconductor companies have gone on a buying spree to prepare them to cash-in on this growth.

5 Year-End Tax Moves You Need to Make

Though you have until mid-April of 2017 to file your 2016 taxes, now’s the time to start thinking about what that return might look like. Whether you’re worried about owing taxes or want to increase your refund, here are a few moves to make before 2016 comes to a close.

Netflix Offline Viewing Does More Than Satisfy Subscriber Demand

In this segment of Industry Focus: Consumer Goods , Vincent Shen is joined by Fool.com contributor Daniel Kline as they discuss the recent news that Netflix will be rolling out part of its massive content library for offline viewing and what it means for the company. 10 stocks we like better than Netflix When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen.

China to Return Seized U.S. Drone

China’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday it plans to return an underwater U.S. drone seized this week by a Chinese naval vessel in the South China Sea, but complained the United States was “hyping up” the incident. The drone was taken on Thursday, the first seizure of its kind in recent memory.

BusinessAviationVoice: Finding Opportunity in Creative Disruption

Here’s a prediction for 2017: more private jet charter operators-eager to tap into the “democratization” of business aviation-will announce partnerships with commercial airlines who are demonstrating more imagination of their own in developing new revenue sources. Several months ago, JetBlue Airways made a minority equity investment in JetSuite, helping to fuel its fast growing JetSuiteX service.

For Whom Does the Bond Bell Toll?

After a long, hard summer for Treasury bonds, which resulted in a 30-handle slide in price since July , the question needs to be asked: For whom does the bell toll — bulls or bears? We asked this question in July as T-bonds were reaching overbought extremes, which turned out to be in the same week as the all-time high. This chart updates the one from July’s major sell signal.

Lufthansa, Etihad to Explore Deeper Links After Code-Share Deal

Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Etihad Airways PJSC of Abu Dhabi agreed to share seat sales in the first step of what could be deeper cooperation between the former adversaries. The two airlines will initially code-share on Etihad’s twice-daily flights linking Abu Dhabi with Frankfurt and Munich, and the German carrier’s services connecting Frankfurt with Rio de Janeiro and Bogota, according to a joint statement on Friday.

Goldman Sees Oil Lower for Longer After Getting a Bump From Cuts

Oil prices boosted by global output reductions will be capped because of new supply before long, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The cuts by OPEC members and nations outside the group, as well as strong demand growth, will probably help curb inventories by next summer, analysts including Damien Courvalin said in a note dated Dec. 16. While the bank raised its oil-price forecasts for the second quarter of 2017, it decreased its crude estimates for 2018 on concern that new production will enter the market. Brent crude, the benchmark for more than half of the world’s oil, has surged since the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed Nov. 30 to trim output for the first time in eight years.

Anthem-Cigna Deal Cast by U.S. as Risk to Patients, Providers

Anthem Inc. and the U.S. Justice Department extended their clash over whether the insurer’s planned takeover of rival Cigna Corp. will raise costs, as government witnesses testified Friday that the deal will harm health-care providers and patients. Frank Gorse, a vice president at Patient First, which operates urgent-care centers in the Mid-Atlantic region, said he’s concerned the merger will squeeze providers due to Anthem’s lower payouts, harming patient services.