“I had a good time with the floating islands of Driftland, and its indirect control scheme is well compensated by a great AI and a smooth UI. It's an odd mashup of Populus, Dungeon Keeper and Warcraft in a colourful setting” You can fireball bridges and then steal islands from other factions, or carve up an enemy force with a lightning storm, or a tornado, or both. The lack of micromanagement also lets you concentrate on casting magic spells. “It's a gentle gardening game where you nurture a city into existence, lassoing new districts with magic as you expand. Federal Reserve will release its ‘Beige Book’ on Wednesday, which investors will scour for comments on how trade tensions were affecting the business outlook.“Driftland: The Magic Revival is a bit of a unique beast, being an RTS in the old mould of 'build stuff in real time and send units around to do war' Age of Empires style, but with several tweaks that makes anything but the basic buildings unrecognisable.” retail sales and industrial production data will provide clues about the health of the world’s largest economy. It seems that the government’s support has eventually had some positive impact on the economy, especially in the seasonally weak month of June,” said analyst Helen Lau of Argonaut Securities. Gold slipped to 1,412 an ounce, drifting away from a recent six-year top of $1,438.60, but China-sensitive industrial metal copper climbed and nickel prices were boosted by additional supply worries from major producer Indonesia. crude wobbled around $60 a barrel, although that also came after both contracts had posted their biggest weekly gains in three weeks last week on diplomatic tensions in the Middle East and cuts in U.S. “The whole movement in bonds lost steam last week,” said Norbert Wuthe, a rates strategist at Bayerische Landesbank.Ĭommodities markets struggled to make up their minds about how to interpret the Chinese data.īrent crude see-sawed down first and then up to $67.02. The euro barely budged though from $1.1281 as it stuck well within its recent trading range of $1.14 to $1.11. Germany’s Economy Ministry said it expected the economy - Europe’s largest - to turn in a weak second quarter and that there remain significant risks from the ongoing trade conflicts and Britain’s expected departure from the European Union. Germany’s benchmark 10-year bond yield was down just a basis point at minus 0.25%, edging off Friday’s 3 1/2-week high but still about 16 basis points above record lows reached earlier this month. Most euro zone government bond yields edged down from recent 3 1/2-week highs, although the mixed signals from the global economy meant it was all small in scale. Treasury yields continued to nudge higher, with the yield curve between three months and 10 years - whose inversion for much of the past two months was widely seen as a harbinger of recession over the next couple of years - back probing positive territory for the first time since mid-May. In currency markets, the Australian dollar, often played as a liquid proxy for the Chinese yuan, sprang to its highest since July 4 against the dollar as the greenback ticked higher against the yen and Swiss franc.Īt 12.39%, the Vix volatility gauge had its lowest close since April. “It is no surprise that China is slowing down and if you look at the other components of the data like retail sales and industrial production, they are looking a little bit better than expected,” said CMC Markets analyst David Madden. Shanghai and Hong Kong stock markets had ended marginally positive, only held back by the concern that such a brisk pickup in activity may see economic policymakers ease back on the monetary and fiscal stimulus measures that were deemed largely responsible for the acceleration.Ī report by Reuters that Washington may approve licenses for companies to restart new sales to Huawei in as little as two weeks also improved the mood in China’s tech sector, while Europe eventually found traction to edge MSCI’s world index close to February 2018 highs. Investors were picking through Citigroup’s 7% profit jump and waiting on what could be a prickly G7 finance chiefs meeting in France later in the week, but there was already plenty to get on with.Ĭhina’s second-quarter annual GDP growth rate fell to a 27-year low of 6.2% as expected, but its quarterly growth reading of 1.6% was ahead of forecasts along with June reports on industrial production, retail sales and urban investment. LONDON, July 15 (Reuters) - Surprisingly upbeat economic soundings from China pushed world shares towards an 18-month high and steered the Aussie dollar upwards on Monday, as Citigroup delivered Wall Street’s first heavyweight beat of the new earnings season.
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