Word: hsbc
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Inevitably, though, the laws of economics have reasserted themselves. Since oil prices plummeted, and world stock markets crashed last fall, some $75 billion worth of real estate projects have been suspended and canceled in Dubai, according to a report by the local branch of HSBC bank. Business journal the Middle East Economic Digest puts the figure at more than $300 billion. Postponed developments include the World, a luxury man-made island community designed to resemble a world map, and Dubailand, a theme park planned to be twice the size of Florida's Disney World. Housing prices have fallen...
...provided homes for nervous depositors' cash. But as the economies of those three countries flounder, it's time to look around, and smart investors think they've discovered a new harbor to protect them from the choppy economic seas. "The best safe haven currency," analysts at banking giant HSBC wrote in a research note this month, is Norway's. According to HSBC's reading, right now the Norwegian krone is "probably the best currency in the world...
...That's quite some claim. Currently at its strongest against the dollar and euro since last fall, the krone is set for a "sustained appreciation" over the next year and a half, according to HSBC. The main reason: Norway's budget and current-account surpluses are the biggest among nations with the 10 most traded currencies. Factor in the country's $350 billion sovereign wealth fund pumped full of the country's oil revenues, and the cost of insuring against government default in Norway - a key measure of a currency's safety - is the lowest of those countries. With Norway...
...That toxic debt was also behind the other bad company news of the day, when HSBC - Europe's largest bank - said it would seek $17.1 billion in new capital, and close its U.S. consumer-lending unit, Household Finance. The American affiliate had saddled HBSC with $16.3 billion in subprime-rooted losses, and explained the group's 62% dip in 2008 profits of $9.3 billion. But closing the troubled unit means adding its 6,100 employees to the list of 3 million American jobs eliminated since November...
...mere fact HSBC turned a profit despite its troubles was a small ray of light amid an otherwise bleak outlook. New figures covering January showed industrial output falling more than anticipated in the eurozone; joblessness rose from 8.1% in December to 8.2% in January, nearly a full percentage point higher than the same month last year. (Find out 10 things to do with your money...