[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images Aviva (LSE: AV.) shareholders are a patient lot, with the shares struggling. Despite a successful restructuring plus a forecast 7.5% dividend yield, the price is down 17% in five years. With Aviva looking undervalued, I’d even been wondering if someone might make a takeover offer. But then Aviva turned the tables and approached Direct Line Insurance Group (LSE: DLG). On 23 December, we heard that the boards of the two companies have reached an agreement for a recommended cash and share offer for Aviva to buy out Direct Line. No change yet The early market…
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[ad_1] Breadcrumb Trail LinksInvestorPersonal FinanceWhen everyone heads for the exits as this cycle ends, only to find there are few buyers waiting, things will turn very uglyPublished Dec 23, 2024 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 6 minute read You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.We are in a once-in-a-lifetime situation: an investment world where there is no more differentiation between what has traditionally been risky and what is riskless. Photo by Nuthawut Somsuk/Getty Images iStockphoto filesArticle contentHeading into 2025, this question must be addressed: What is a razor-thin equity…
[ad_1] By Ozan Ergenay and Andrey Sychev (Reuters) – Volkswagen (ETR:) shares were down 3% in early trade on Monday with analysts citing uncertainty about the automaker’s cost-cutting deal with unions and likely headwinds in 2025. Friday’s agreement, hailed by unions as a “Christmas miracle”, calls for more than 35,000 future job cuts and a reduction of production by almost a quarter, but without immediate plant closures or layoffs. It fell short of management’s initial ambitions and market expectations, and lacked a sense of urgency, according to Jefferies analyst Philippe Houchois. Given the pace of change at rival firms and…
[ad_1] By Saqib Iqbal Ahmed NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. investors are preparing for a swathe of changes in 2025, from tariffs and deregulation to tax policy, that will ripple through markets as President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House, putting the focus on whether the U.S. economy can continue to outperform. The changing of the guard in Washington has big implications for how stocks, bonds and currencies fare in the new year and may require investors to rejig portfolios. Forecasts call for another buoyant year for stocks, the dollar to maintain its recent strength over the coming months…
[ad_1] The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo for allegedly failing to protect consumers from “widespread fraud” on the Zelle payments platform. Early Warning Services, which developed and operates Zelle, has also been named in the lawsuit. It is jointly owned by Bank of America, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, Truist, US Bank, and Wells Fargo. The CFPB claims that since Zelle’s launch in 2017, customers of the three banks have lost over $870m due to inadequate fraud prevention and detection measures. Zelle facilitates electronic money…
[ad_1] Author: Lin Bo-yu Regulation December 23, 2024 Thai government exempts mangrove land tax to encourage development. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons) Mangroves are three to five times more effective at carbon sequestration than tropical forests, and the Thai government is optimistic about their substantial carbon credit potential. Recently, Thailand amended tax laws to encourage mangrove restoration, with plans to exempt land taxes on green area, such as mangrove forests, starting in 2025. This initiative aims to accelerate the goal of restoring 80,000 hectares of mangrove forests by 2031. Land taxes trigger shift from mangroves to farms Under the 2019 Land and Building Tax…
[ad_1] Taking nonfinancial information into account when conducting financial analyses is not entirely new to professional investors and analysts. But the demand for information beyond revenue, earnings, and other conventional accounting measures has increased significantly in recent years. This year, investors with over $130 trillion in assets asked more than 15,000 companies worldwide to specifically disclose environmental information so that they could evaluate how it impacted their investments. Companies now report more nonfinancial environmental, social, and governance (ESG)-related data than ever before. Indeed, an analysis of 50 Fortune 100 companies by White & Case LLP found that all 50 had…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images One of the great things about value shares is they can get motoring if some good news comes along. However, that’s balanced by the patience that investors often need. Sometimes businesses with low valuations remain forgotten and overlooked for years. In addition, there’s always the risk that an already cheap stock will just keep getting cheaper. So it’s possible to end up holding shares that grind lower over days, weeks and even years. Sometimes it pays to hold and wait It’s enough to make the dourest of value investors cry into their beer. But the waiting game…
[ad_1] Silver price recovers further to near $29.90 even though US bond yields rise as Fed officials support fewer interest rate cuts in 2025. Soft monthly US PCE inflation raised uncertainty over the Fed’s shallow rate-cut path. Silver price is expected to struggle in an attempt to extend the upward-sloping trendline above $30.00. Silver price (XAG/USD) extends Friday’s recovery move to near $29.90 in Monday’s European session. The white metal rebounded strongly on Friday from a more than three-month low of $28.75 after the release of the United States (US) Personal Consumption Expenditure Price Index (PCE) data for November, which showed…
[ad_1] By Kantaro Komiya TOKYO (Reuters) – Honda (NYSE:) and Nissan (OTC:) are in talks to merge by 2026, they said on Monday, a historic pivot for Japan’s auto industry that underlines the threat Chinese EV makers now pose to the world’s long-dominant legacy car makers. The tie-up would create the world’s third-largest auto group by vehicle sales after Toyota (NYSE:) and Volkswagen (ETR:). It would also give the two companies scale and a chance to share resources in the face of intense competition from Tesla (NASDAQ:) and more nimble Chinese rivals, such as BYD (SZ:). The merger of Honda,…