Business and finance – Page 4

Russia signs oil deal with Iran

Russia signed a historic $20 billion oil deal with Iran to bypass both western sanctions and the dollar based western monetary system yesterday.

Currency wars are set to escalate as the petro dollar’s decline continues.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and his Iranian counterpart Bijan Zanganeh signed a five-year memorandum of understanding in Moscow, which included cooperation in the oil sector.

“Based on Iran’s proposal, we will participate in arranging shipments of crude oil, including to the Russian market,” Novak was quoted as saying.

The five year accord will see Russia help Iran “organise oil sales” as well as “cooperate in the oil-gas industry, construction of power plants, grids, supply of machinery, consumer goods and agriculture products”, according to a statement by the Energy Ministry in Moscow.

The deal could see Russia buying 500,000 barrels of Iranian oil a day, the Moscow-based Kommersant newspaper has previously reported. Under the proposed deal Russia would buy up to 500,000 barrels a day or a third of Iranian oil exports in exchange for Russian equipment and goods.

The Russian government withdrew the statement regarding the deal last night, but said it would issue a new statement today.

In January, Russia said that they were negotiating an oil-for-goods swap worth $1.5 billion a month that would enable Iran to lift oil exports substantially to Russia, undermining Western sanctions.

Yesterday, the Russian President told regional leaders that “the political tools of economic pressure are unacceptable and run counter to all norms and rules.” He said in response to western sanctions he had given orders to boost domestic manufacturers at the expense of non-Russian ones.

The White House has previously said that reports of talks between Russia and Iran were a matter of “serious concern.

“If the reports are true, such a deal would raise serious concerns as it would be inconsistent with the terms of the agreement with Iran,” Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said in January.

U.S. and European Union sanctions against Russia threaten to hasten a move away from the petro dollar that’s been slowly occurring since the global financial crisis.

Source: GoldCore

Glencore accused of funding Colombian terrorist group

Glencore, the largest mining company listed on the JSE and headed by South African Ivan Glasenberg, has been accused in a new 245-page report of mining and exporting “blood coal” from Colombia.

The report, “The Dark Side of Coal”, published by Dutch nongovernmental organisation PAX in Germany last week, says that Glencore’s Colombian arm, Prodeco, secretly supported the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC) during that country’s bloody civil war.

The AUC was listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation in 2005 and demobilised in 2006 after peace negotiations with the Colombian government. Colombia has not resolved its problems yet and the government is still negotiating with left-wing FARC guerrillas in Cuba.

Although the accusations against Glencore date back more than a decade, the report is likely to heighten scrutiny of the way it operates in some of its coal markets.

It has faced claims of tax dodging in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo and of selling materials to Iran for its nuclear programme.

In South Africa, communities who live on its coal mines in Belfast, Mpumalanga, accused Glencore of trampling their rights to blast for new mines in March. Glencore, which is South Africa’s largest exporter of coal, has denied all these claims.

In the Colombian case, Glencore is said to have supported the AUC to counter kidnappings and attacks on infrastructure conducted by left-wing guerrilla groups FARC and the ELN.

The new Colombian accusations are based largely on the testimony of José del Carmen Gelvez Alvarracín, known as “El Canoso”, who was first hired as an intelligence agent by the Colombian army and then became a defence contractor for Glencore’s security department in 1996, before joining the AUC in 2003.

Gelvez described meetings that took place since 1996 between the AUC and Glencore’s security department head, Manuel Gutiérrez.

He testified that he and Glencore’s managers, Manuel Gutiérrez and Luis Ochoa, “drove in a pick-up truck to a farm named La Ucrania …

“On entering, we saw approximately 30 people dressed in camouflage, who introduced us to the commander who went by the alias Lucho,” says the PAX report.

“Manuel Gutiérrez, as head of the security department, spoke on behalf of the company, Prodeco, about providing this group of the AUC with whatever support it might need.

“It was clear that there was a direct link between the company and the AUC.”

Glencore has criticised the report for being one-sided and uncritical in terms of evaluating the testimonies of former paramilitaries.

The company said it had contacted the human rights organisations involved in March, when the report was being written, but PAX did not include its objections in the final draft.

Last month, Glencore’s head of sustainability, Dr Michael Fahrbach, sent a letter to PAX saying: “The report is distorted and unbalanced, and blindly follows accusations made by a condemned criminal, which came up years ago, in a judicial hearing to which we had no access and didn’t have the right to be heard.” – South African Sunday Times Business Report

BP, Siemens, Renault face downturn on EU sanctions

BP Plc (BP/), Siemens AG (SIE) and Renault SA (RNO) are among European companies preparing for a downward turn in their Russian business following the European Union’s decision to impose its widest-ranging sanctions yet over President Vladimir Putin’s involvement in eastern Ukraine.

EU leaders announced plans yesterday to restrict the export to Russia of equipment to modernize the oil industry and forbid the sale of machinery, electronics and other civilian products with potential military uses. New arms contracts with Russia are also not allowed.

The sanctions will have a direct impact on companies like Siemens, which may no longer be able to sell oil equipment to Russia, and an indirect effect on many others like Renault, which expects the country’s auto market to contract more than 10 percent in 2014 as consumers hold back purchases. BP, owner of 20 percent of state-backed OAO Rosneft (ROSN), yesterday warned of risks to its profit and production due to the crisis.

“In Europe, for some companies this is becoming a major problem, and they can see it becoming an even bigger one,” said Andrew Kenningham, an economist at research firm Capital Economics. “The long-term impact of a standoff, if it continues, is clearly very bad for business confidence and future investment in Russia.”

Despite targeting oil production, the EU sanctions have steered clear of the natural-gas sector — leaving unscathed so far companies like BASF SE, the world’s biggest chemical producer, which gets about half its natural gas from state-controlled Gazprom, and other utilities like E.ON AG (TAG1Y) and RWE AG. On average, EU countries get 24 percent of their gas from Russia, according to Deutsche Bank — meaning that confronting Gazprom could result in supply cut-offs.

Source: Bloomberg

Malaysian Airlines losing $2 million a day

Malaysia Airlines is on the verge of bankruptcy, losing up to $2 million every day, after its flight MH370 disappeared in March and MH17 crashed four months later, Agence France-Presse wrote Sunday citing analysts from a Malaysia-based aviation consultancy Endau Analytics.

“The harrowing reality for Malaysia Airlines after MH17 is that if the government doesn’t have an immediate game plan, every day that passes will contribute to its self-destruction and eventual demise,” aviation analyst Shukor Yusof told AFP.

Losing “one to two million US dollars a day,” the airline has “the bandwidth to stay afloat for about six more months based on my estimates of its cash reserves,” Shukor said.

Earlier reports put Malaysia Airlines’ loss in the past 3 year at $1.3 billion.

According to Daily Mail, the airline prepares a range of measures to recover its image. The possible steps include changing the company’s name, creating new air paths, selling the company to a private buyer or filing for bankruptcy with the following renegotiation with the trade unions.

Flight МН370, which was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people, representing 14 nations, disappeared from radars on March 8. Months of search operations in the Indian Ocean have failed to locate the plane’s remains.

The MH17 Boeing crashed in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Region on July 17, killing all 298 people on board, mostly Dutch citizens.

Source: RIA Novosti

Bank Of England leads drive for deposit confiscation

Talks under the auspices of the global Financial Stability Board (FSB) over the summer are approaching a key stage as officials aim to clinch an agreement on bail-ins and the bailing in of creditors including depositors of banks.

Finance officials are hoping to pave the way for proposals to be tabled at the G20 leaders meeting at the Brisbane summit in November.

The issue is of major consequence to globally systemic lenders such as Citigroup, Barclays and BNP Paribas, as some will have to issue billions of dollars of fresh bonds earmarked to carry losses.

The issue is of major consequence also to depositors who could see their savings confiscated as happened in Cyprus.

The complexity of the topic and differences between countries’ legal regimes and corporate structures are raising questions over how detailed any framework will be.

Bank of England officials led by Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, are attempting to bridge sharp differences among leading G20 countries as they prepare a landmark set of proposals aimed at tackling the problem of “too big to fail” banks according to the Financial Times today.

Japan is one of the countries with problems with bail-in plans amid concerns that they are not easily compatible with the structure of its banking system. Its banks are heavily deposit-funded, and officials are uncomfortable about the idea of bail-ins.

Japanese banks are already vulnerable and bail-ins could hurt consumer sentiment in the already struggling Japanese economy. Concerns in Tokyo are said to be sufficiently profound for it to push its case right up to the summit itself.

China is also sceptical about the notion of private sector bail-ins given its banks are state-owned. “There are some very entrenched positions,” one official told the FT.

Russia is likely to oppose the coming bail-in regime as well as many other large creditor nations.

Mr Carney, who also chairs the FSB, said in March he wanted to “break the back” of the too big to fail issue this year. He said regulators sought by Brisbane to have cracked two major issues – on the loss absorbing capacity that big banks have to hold and on contractual provisions in derivatives contracts.

Bail-ins are coming to banks in the western world with consequences for depositors.

Source: CoreGold

Swiss and Chinese central banks enter into currency swap

The Swiss National Bank and the People’s Bank of China reached a currency swap agreement on Monday, allowing the two central banks to buy and sell their currencies up to a limit of 150 billion renminbi, or 21 billion Swiss francs ($23.4 billion).

The deal will also allow the Swiss central bank to invest some of its huge accumulation of foreign exchange reserves in the Chinese bond market, the SNB said in a statement Monday.

The Zurich-based SNB said the agreement will further strengthen collaboration between it and its Chinese counterpart and is a “key requisite for the development of a renminbi market in Switzerland.” It could also facilitate trade and investment between the two countries, the PBOC said.

Switzerland is the latest of a series of countries to set up swap lines with China, which is keen to promote the international use of the yuan.

Last year China signed swap agreements with the European Central Bank and a clutch of others, including the U.K., Brazil and Indonesia.

The agreement between China and Switzerland has a term of three years and can be renewed thereafter, the PBOC said. – Dow Jones Business News

SA expanding nuclear

The department of energy will be devoting almost R1-billion to cementing South Africa’s nuclear energy expansion ambitions.

In her budget vote speech on Monday, Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson said that R850-million had been allocated to the department and its relevant agencies to undertake further research and development into nuclear energy, especially in regard to nuclear safety matters.

“Regulations for the handling of hazardous materials, in terms of international obligations, and the development of nuclear policies and legislation to ensure the peaceful use of nuclear energy will also be pursued,” she said.

How South Africa will finance the expansion of nuclear energy, beyond its single atomic power station Koeberg remains key. The procurement of 9 600MW of nuclear power is expected to cost between R400-billion and R1-trillion.

The state in the meantime has worries of its own, including a large budget deficit and rising government debt levels.

The minister did not reveal the final details of the new Cabinet subcommittee on energy security, which will be integral to plotting the course of nuclear in the country’s energy mix. It will replace the erstwhile Cabinet body responsible for nuclear procurement – the national nuclear energy executive coordinating committee. But she said the “process is being refined and Cabinet will pronounce on this matter shortly”.

Alongside nuclear plans, the department will be turning a renewed eye on the opportunities for gas, including shale gas, in the country’s energy mix.

The lack of infrastructure, including pipelines and storage facilitates had made it difficult for gas to feature as a major energy carrier in South Africa, said Joemat-Pettersson. This was despite the discoveries of extensive reserves in the region, including in neighbouring Mozambique, and off South Africa’s west coast.

The much-anticipated gas utilisation master plan would outline the infrastructure necessary “to open up the gas market for the residential, commercial and industrial sectors”. A draft of the plan was being finalised and would be taken through the Cabinet before being opened for stakeholder consultation, Joemat-Pettersson said.

The plan’s scope includes “investigating the development of a gas- receiving and storage terminal for liquefied natural gas, and to meet the gas to liquids requirements at the Mossel Bay refinery, as well as investigating the conversion of Eskom’s diesel plants,” she said.

This year, the department would also continue to refine the Independent Systems and Market Operators Bill. The Bill, which foundered in the legislature last year, is key to overhauling the electricity sector and improving the access of independent power producers.

Source: M&G

US set to alienate Germany next

It appears that having pushed France forcefully into the Russia-China Eurasian, and anti-US camp, the US will now do the same with Germany. Because after infuriating the German population by first refusing to return their gold at the New York Fed, and then with scandal after spying scandal, most recently involving the CIA directly soliciting a German double agent, now the time has come to punish Germany’s largest banks the same way the BNP was ripped off.

As the NYT and Reuters report, the time has come to shift away from the BNP scandal and focus on what will soon be the Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank fallout.

According to the NYT, the US is bound for another European financial center: Germany. State and federal authorities have begun settlement talks with Commerzbank, Germany’s second-largest lender, over the bank’s dealings with Iran and other countries blacklisted by the United States, according to people briefed on the matter. The bank, which is suspected of transferring money through its American operations on behalf of companies in Iran and Sudan, could strike a settlement deal with the state and federal authorities as soon as this summer, said the people briefed on the matter, who were not authorized to speak publicly.

The contours of a settlement, which the authorities have only begun to sketch out, are expected to include at least $500 million in penalties for Commerzbank, the people added. Although prosecutors were still weighing punishments, the people briefed on the matter said that the bank would most likely face a so-called deferred prosecution agreement, which would suspend criminal charges in exchange for the financial penalty and other concessions.

It’s not just Commerzbank – a settlement with the smaller bank will merely pave the way for the punishment of the biggest bank of all (in terms of groiss derivative notional held): Deutsche Bank.

A potential deal with Commerzbank — which is expected to pave the way for a separate settlement with Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest bank — would pale in comparison to the case announced last week against France’s biggest bank, BNP Paribas. The French bank agreed to pay a record $8.9 billion penalty and plead guilty to criminal charges for processing transactions on behalf of Sudan and other countries that America has hit with sanctions, a rare criminal action against a financial giant.

The Commerzbank investigation features an added twist: The bank is 17 percent owned by the German government. It is unclear whether — as in the BNP case, which led French authorities to intervene on the bank’s behalf — the settlement talks could inflame diplomatic tensions between Washington and Berlin.

Of course, since this is the ridiculous “scorched earth” diplomatic policy of the Obama administration, nobody is surprised any more that the US president is alienating one former ally after another.

As we first observed a few weeks ago when we revealed JPM’s involvement in all of this money laundering, “some critics have questioned why American authorities have set their eye on European banks. The answer, authorities say, is that American banks by and large avoided processing transactions for Iran and Sudan. But American banks are not immune from touching dirtier money.

Citigroup’s Banamex unit is under investigation for processing money linked to a drug cartel. And in January, JPMorgan Chase reached a roughly $2 billion deal with the authorities over ignoring signs of the Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Bernard L. Madoff, who held accounts at the bank for over two decades.”

JPM was “unwittingly” the bank that made French and German “money laundering” around the globe possible. Did we mention unwittingly?

Source: ZeroHedge

Yuan clearing banks in Luxembourg, Paris

In its continued push to make the yuan a global currency, China’s central bank said Sunday it plans to designate clearing banks for its currency in Paris and Luxembourg, as the two financial centers battle with London to become the leading European offshore yuan-trading city.

The People’s Bank of China announced the move in two separate statements Sunday. It didn’t say when it would designate the clearing banks.

The French and Luxembourg central banks said Sunday they had signed agreements with PBOC allowing for greater cooperation in the oversight of their domestic yuan market.

The weekend moves are the latest salvos in the race to win a major share of business in cross-border transactions in the Chinese currency. Singapore and Sydney are also vying for a significant share of the global yuan market, which is expected to expand rapidly along with China’s fast-growing economy.

On June 18, the PBOC appointed China Construction Bank Co., one of the country’s top-four state-owned banks, to clear yuan-related transactions in London. It became the first yuan clearing bank in a European country.

Opening a clearing bank is a critical step in developing an offshore yuan-based business. The designated banks will be able to supply yuan liquidity in case of a shortage by directly accessing China’s onshore currency market.

The Chinese central bank said that setting up the clearing banks will benefit Chinese, French and Luxembourg ” businesses and financial institutions in using the renminbi [yuan] for cross-border transactions and in further promoting trade and investment.”

French authorities have openly pushed for Paris to become a center for yuan transactions.

In March, China also granted 80 billion yuan ($12.9 billion) of quotas to French financial institutions that enable direct investment in the Chinese domestic financial market.

The Bank of France said Sunday the latest decisions by the PBOC “confirm the prominent role of the French market place” in cross-border use of the currency.

Luxembourg, home to a powerful asset-management industry, has built strong ties with Chinese investors in recent years and currently hosts the European headquarters of China’s three leading banks.

Last year, former Luxembourg Finance Minister Luc Frieden cited figures showing that the country was the leading center for yuan business in the euro zone, with some 40 billion yuan in deposits, 62 billion yuan in loans from Luxembourg banks and 220 billion yuan under management in the fund industry.

For China, the move to allow the yuan to be used more freely abroad aims to boost demand for the currency and reduce the amount of dollars entering the country. China still maintains a tight grip on the yuan’s value, with its trading strictly controlled in the mainland market.

Source: Nasdaq

Soros puzzles analysts, investors with cloud investment

Analysts and investors have never disagreed more about what price to pay for shares in ClickSoftware Technologies Ltd. (CKSW), the Israeli developer whose largest stockholder is billionaire George Soros.

ClickSoftware, which makes computer programs to manage workforces, reached a five-month low on June 4 and has plunged 25 percent to $7.60 this quarter, the second-worst performance on the Bloomberg Israel-US Equity Index. Still, analysts maintain the shares will climb to an average price of $13.33 in the next 12 months. That marks the biggest difference on record, according to Bloomberg compiled data going back to 2007.

While the Nasdaq Composite Index (CCMP) has rebounded from its selloff earlier this year, small-capitalization software companies like ClickSoftware that are transitioning their business to cloud computing have missed the recovery rally. Investors dumped the stock even after the company boosted its 2014 revenue forecast, citing increased sales to cloud customers.

The company “was a bystander getting hit by the market accident we saw,” Shaul Eyal, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., said by phone from Tel Aviv on June 27. “I’m approaching the quarter with a positive bias, I’m not expecting any major negative surprises.”

Eyal, one of four analysts covering the stock, has a buy rating on the shares and raised his price target to $13 after the first-quarter earnings report. ClickSoftware’s stock has risen 1.3 percent during the first half of the year, lagging the 5.5 percent gain on the Bloomberg index of the most-traded Israeli shares.

Cloud computing allows information to be stored online instead of on a specific computer. Moving to the cloud means forgoing upfront contracts with lofty profit margins in favor of software-as-a-service (SaaS) products that pay off monthly and can be canceled if customers aren’t satisfied.

Soros Fund Management owned a 9.9 percent stake in ClickSoftware as of March 31, according to regulatory filing. With a net worth of $26.4 billion, Soros is the 23rd-richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Michael Vachon, a New York-based spokesman for the fund, didn’t respond to an e-mailed request for comment.

ClickSoftware’s 25 percent drop in the second quarter compares with an average decline of 3.4 percent on a total return basis among information technology and software industry peers.

Still, three of the four analysts covering the company maintain a buy rating on the stock.

“We too are perplexed by the decline in the stock, and can only point to the overall weakness in SaaS-related stocks over this same period as a possible explanation,” Matt Blazei, an analyst at Lake Street Capital Markets LLC in San Francisco says.

SA’s energy policy for Neanderthals, says Free Market Foundation

Executive director of the Free Market Foundation, Leon Louw says the return of nuclear power run by the current government will be a ‘catastrophe’.

“This government has shown conclusively that it is unable to manage electricity … Nuclear will make the disasters of Medupi and Kusile seem small,” he told The Citizen newspaper.

Louw says he is not principally opposed to nuclear and sees it as a safe and reliable option. However, he’s concerned about nuclear energy investment remaining in government hands.

He has also cautioned that it could also be wide open to kickbacks.

“The only way we can have nuclear is to let private investors risk their own money for which we are not responsible. That’s happening worldwide. Pouring government money into it is irresponsible.

“Taxpayers will end up paying. We are sitting with a dinosaur model, what I’d call an ‘energy policy for Neanderthals’,” said Louw.

Estimates for the programme’s costs are around R1 trillion, with output ambitions indicating three nuclear plants will have to be built.

Louw’s other concern is that nuclear will take far too long to build. He estimates seven years, but in South Africa’s labour climate it could take much longer.

In his address to Parliament earlier this month, President Jacob Zuma said nuclear had the possibility of generating well over 9000MW.

US cuts aid to Uganda over anti-gay laws

Uganda’s shilling dropped to the lowest level in nine months after the US government said it was cutting aid to the East African nation.

The US cut aid over a February law that toughened punishment for homosexual acts.

The currency fell 0.8 percent to 2,610 per dollar by 1:37 p.m. in the capital, Kampala, the lowest since Aug. 26.

The shilling slumped 6.1 percent since President Yoweri Museveni signed the bill on Feb. 24.

The US is discontinuing or redirecting funds for programs in Uganda, where life sentences can be imposed for some homosexual acts, the National Security Council said last week.

Norway, Denmark and Sweden also redirected or withheld aid.

The shilling weakened “because of the negative sentiment after the US announced they are cutting off donor funding,” Joseph Mwanguo, head of treasury at NIC Bank Uganda Ltd. said by phone today. “There will definitely be reduced inflow of dollars.”

It will impact people that the US “purports to support and aims to protect,” the Ugandan government said in an e-mailed statement.

Source: Bloomberg

Is ‘flipping’ property a good investment?

For as little as US$100 a company called F4P tells investors they could get a share of the profits made from buying and selling well-priced properties in the United States, where transfer costs are low and there’s no short supply of distressed sellers.

Empoyees of F4P have ‘guarantees’ that investments pay at least 50 percent in six months.

Sounds too good to be true?

An attendee at a F4P presentation recently, says it left him feeling uncomfortable.

The presentation deals with how one can make money by referring other people to the scheme. There are a lot of commissions being paid to several parties on new money entering the scheme. The performance of the investment would have to be really outstanding in order to give the investor a return, plus pay commissions to all the hangers-on.

“They show images of expensive cars and big houses, and ask, ‘Isn’t this the kind of lifestyle you would like to have?’, but are vague on the details of the scheme. I asked how it had performed as a whole, because your return is from all the properties purchased,” he said.

With high returns go come high risk.

Deposits are being taken by unqualified financial advisers that flaunt a website with no telephone number.

An authority on investing in property, says a legitimate pooled investment would never include a referral commission structure that rewards individual investors for introducing new investors, or a network that offers lifestyle benefits to members for growing a network, as F4P does.

Apparently, the company restores and sells houses fast in a market where eager buyers are also a dime a dozen. This quick buying and selling of property for profit is called “flipping” in the real estate business.

To share in the profits, you pay a once-off joining fee of $249, and $50 a year thereafter, but to sweeten the deal, the company that is offering it, Flipping4Profit (F4P), will reward you – in dollars – for every person you get to become a member of the scheme.

F4P is actively recruiting members in South Africa, but experts in property and financial planning have serious concerns.

US indexes hit record highs

It was another good week for the stock market. The Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index both ended Friday at record highs. It was the third consecutive day the S&P 500 index reached a new record, and it’s now up 6.2% for 2014. The Dow is also up for the year at 2.2%. All the major stock indexes managed to finish the week ahead of where they started at the beginning of the week.

For the week, the S&P 500 index managed to gain 3.39 points to 1,962.87, an increase of 0.17%. The weekly gain is becoming a welcome trend. The S&P 500 has managed to end the week ahead in five of the last six weeks, and it’s the 22nd time this year it’s managed to hit a record high.

The Dow had a slightly smaller percentage gain in the S&P 500 coming in with an increase of 0.15%. That was 25.62 points more than the previous week, and the Dow ended at 16,947.08. This broke the previous record high which was set on June 10, 2014 when it ended at 16,945.92.

While the NASDAQ Composite continued to make gains, it’s still well below the soaring heights of the dot-com era when it managed to peak at over 5,000. It managed a 0.20% increase for the week, or 8.71 points, to end at 4,360.04. While not a all-time record, it is the highest level in 14 years

US government bonds slipped a fraction during the week, with the year for the 10 year Treasury note ending at 2.61%. This was down 0.01% from Thursday.

While all the major indexes were able to finish up, the moves have been coming in small increments. It appears the market is currently focusing on the specific performance of individual companies, rather than the geopolitical unrest in Iraq and Ukraine, and questions about the US economy.

The midweek remarks from the Federal Reserve indicating they plan to keep short-term interest rates low also helped stocks for the week. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) release a statement saying interest rates remained unchanged at 0.00% to 0.25% at the end of their two-day meeting.

Whether week ahead brings about new record highs will depend a lot on housing data which will be coming out during next week, as well as if there are any major new geopolitical developments.