The price of gold in Thailand dropped by Bt50 per baht weight in morning trade on Tuesday after rising by Bt100 per baht weight at close on Monday, the Gold Traders Association reported.
As of 9.32am, the buying price of a gold bar was Bt26,900 per baht weight and selling price Bt27,000, while gold ornaments were priced at Bt26,408.72 and Bt27,500, respectively.
At close on Monday, the buying price of a gold bar was Bt26,950 per baht weight and selling price Bt27,050, while gold ornaments were Bt26,469.36 and Bt27,550, respectively.
Spot gold price moved to US$1,890 (Bt57,038) per ounce in the morning after rising by US$1.6 to $1,887.8 per ounce at close on Monday from the weakening dollar and uncertainty over the Covid-19 outbreak in US and Europe, resulting in mass buy-ups of safe-haven assets.
Hong Kong gold price dropped by HK$60 to $17,450 (Bt67,924) per tael on Tuesday morning, the Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange Society reported.
The Minor Food Group has announced its new 1112 Delivery Application for restaurant food now covers every region including metropolitan Bangkok until late (2am)
.Until the end of November, the app offers free delivery for the first eight kilometres when spending over Bt400. New customers will also receive a Bt100 discount when spending over Bt300.
The app enables customers to communicate with employees via messaging or calls, and also track their deliveries. It covers Minor Group outlets including The Pizza Company, Bonchon Chicken, Burger King, Swensen’s, Sizzler, Dairy Queen and The Coffee Club, while also collaborating with other brands such as S&P and BreadTalk.
Customers can choose to pay by cash, credit or debit card. Currently, the 1112 delivery application is available in all regions in Thailand, with service hours from 7am until 2 am every day in Bangkok and metropolitan areas.
There are also monthly special promotions at chain restaurants, as well as plans to launch a loyalty programme to collect points to exchange for various benefits, products and services from Minor Group.
BTS Group picked as DJSI component for third consecutive year
Nov 16. 2020
By THE NATION
BTS Group has been selected as an index component of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) 2020 in the DJSI Emerging Markets for the third consecutive year, BTS Group Holdings Pcl (BTS Group) revealed.
BTS Group is the only Thai rail transportation company ranked amongst world class DJSI Indices members, the company said.
According to this year’s evaluated performances, BTS Group becomes “DJSI Industry Leader” for transportation and transportation infrastructure Industry.
“This is a proud achievement of the company and Thailand, which has been acknowledged as world class. This demonstrates the strong commitment of the BTS Group to management disciplines during the challenging period and our sustainable business practices,” the company said.
The DJSI, a collaboration between S&P Global and SAM, are a family of indices evaluating the sustainability performance of corporations, broadly recognised worldwide. “The evaluation aims to ensure companies’ commitment to management disciplines, which have been demonstrated in our prudent financial and investment practices, sustainable management policies and viable business progression, covering all three sustainable dimensions — economics, social and environmental — as well as responsibility for all stakeholders.
Meanwhile, on November 11, BTS Group was selected by the Stock Exchange of Thailand to be a member of Thailand Sustainability Investment List for the second time in the service category. “This reflects the commitment of BTS Group to operate and place importance to create sustainable business as well as focus on responsibility for the environment, society and governance,” the company said.
Apple targeted by privacy campaigner who took on Facebook
CorporateNov 17. 2020The Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max is shown during a product launch event in Sydney, Australia, on Nov. 13, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Brendon Thorne.
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Aoife White, Stephanie Bodoni · BUSINESS, WORLD, TECHNOLOGY, US-GLOBAL-MARKETS, EUROPE
Apple’s ad tracking is the target of two complaints to Spanish and German authorities by a privacy advocate whose earlier legal battles are forcing Facebook to change the way it transfers data.
Noyb, a group founded by privacy activist Max Schrems, is accusing Apple of unlawfully installing so-called identification for advertisers on its devices. The service helps Apple and apps track users’ behavior and their consumption preferences without their consent, the group said.
“With our complaints we want to enforce a simple principle: Trackers are illegal, unless a user freely consents,” Noyb lawyer Stefano Rossetti said in a statement on Monday. “Smartphones are the most intimate device for most people and they must be tracker-free by default.”
Schrems made a name for himself as a law student by taking on Facebook over the safety of people’s data when it was shipped to the U.S. He won a landmark European Union court ruling in 2015 and his complaints led to a second key judgment in July that has forced regulators on both sides of Atlantic to rethink data transfer rules. The EU’s revamped data protection rules in 2018 opened the door to mass lawsuits, which led to the creation of Noyb and a promise by Schrems to “look for the bigger cases” with the biggest impact.
Rossetti said the complaints aren’t based on the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, which forces EU regulators to cooperate on probes where the alleged violations had a bloc-wide effect and gives the regulators the power to impose hefty fines. The issues raised won’t need the involvement of the data protection authority in Ireland, where Apple has its main EU base.
The latest complaints by Noyb are based on an old EU law regulating firms’ use of cookies and other tracking devices. They “do not trigger the cooperation mechanism” and “we are trying to avoid endless procedures,” Rossetti said.
“The action refers to only German and Spanish users” who complained about Apple, Rossetti said in an email. Still, he said the effects of any decision could extend beyond Germany and Spain and “it would be difficult for the company to continue doing with millions” of people “what was declared illegal for two” countries.
Apple and the two data protection authorities didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
App developers have historically used IDFA to help target users with ads and track the performance of ads across different devices. The iPhone maker will require app developers from early next year to show a warning label to users before collecting IDFA info on iOS 14, and will also require that users opt in to sharing it. Those changes have triggered an antitrust complaint from French advertisers who say it could make their revenue plummet.
Noyb in May also took aim at Google in a complaint, accusing the U.S. tech giant of tracking users of Android phones through a unique ID that allowed the firm and third parties to monitor people’s behavior. The Irish Data Protection Commission, which is also the lead EU regulator for Google on privacy matters, in February opened a probe into Google’s processing of location data.
Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) said it has extended its debt moratorium for hotel operators and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) until March next year, after the first phase expired on October 22 this year.
SCB president Apiphan Charoenanusorn said that as of October, the bank was assisting 220 SMEs and 350 hotel operators, adding that the number of debtors has decreased since the first phase.
She said some debtors needed another three to six months of debt suspension because they were unable to generate revenue, especially tourism-dependent hotel operators, while some needed to restructure their debt to support business operations.
“After the second phase of debt moratorium expires in March next year, the bank will evaluate hotel operators’ ability to repay debts again before launching other measures to assist them,” she said.
She said SCB non-performing loans (NPLs) have increased only slightly after the bank launched measures to reduce NPLs.
“The bank’s tier 1 capital adequacy ratio is currently at 18 per cent, so we do not plan to increase funds at this time,” she said.
She said SCB would have to continue assisting debtors next year amid various crises, especially SMEs.
“Meanwhile, we expect large businesses to borrow more next year in line with the many investment projects launched by the government and private sectors,” she said.
She added that the bank and the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) are organising the “SCB IEP Bootcamp: Hospitality Survival” to help hotel operators nationwide survive the economic crisis with four strategies. The four strategies are to join hands with digital partners to increase booking channels, use content marketing and influencers to attract Thai tourists, promote work-from-hotel trends, and monitor the tourism situation in the post-Covid-19 era.
PNC’s $11.6 Billion BBVA deal to boost U.S. banking presence
CorporateNov 16. 2020An American flag flies next to PNC Financial Services Group signage outside a bank branch in New York City on Jan. 11, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Gabriela Bhaskar. Photo by: Gabriela Bhaskar — Bloomberg
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Scott Deveau, Hannah Levitt, Charlie Devereux · BUSINESS, US-GLOBAL-MARKETS PNC Financial Services Group agreed to buy Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria’s banking operations in the U.S. for $11.6 billion, vaulting past rivals to become the country’s largest regional bank.
The cash deal will boost PNC’s earnings by about 21% in 2022 and generate more than $900 million of cost savings, the bank said in a statement on Monday. The addition of BBVA branches across the southern and southwestern U.S. gives PNC a presence in 29 of the country’s 30 largest markets.
U.S. regional lenders are seeking to bulk up to compete with banking giants such as JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, which are moving into new states and spending billions annually on digital offerings. Last year’s $28 billion combination of BB&T and SunTrust Banks was widely seen as the possible start of a new wave of mergers with the potential to build regional banks into national players.
Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit, bringing concerns about a potential wave of loan losses and the prospect of years of prolonged low interest rates weighing on revenue. PNC saw the turmoil as a possible opportunity, and has been on the prowl for a takeover candidate since raising $14 billion earlier this year through the sale of a stake in BlackRock.
Monday’s acquisition is the largest U.S. banking deal since the merger of BB&T and SunTrust. The deal will vault PNC in size past U.S. Bancorp and Truist Financial, which is the new name of the combined BB&T and SunTrust.
For BBVA, the deal allows it to exit a business which has weighed on group earnings while at the same time bolstering its firepower to pay dividends or make acquisitions as consolidation in Spanish banking takes hold.
BBVA took a 2.1 billion-euro ($2.5 billion) goodwill impairment charge on the business in the first quarter, which followed a writedown of 1.4 billion euros in the previous three-month period.
The all-cash deal values the business at 1.34 times its tangible book value as of September and will boost the bank’s capital ratio by about 300 basis points to a pro-forma CET1 ratio of 14.5%. The Spanish lender said the deal will give it the option of carrying out buybacks to boost a share price that has plunged by 36% this year.
“There may be value-creating opportunities in the markets where we have superior franchises,” BBVA Chairman Carlos Torres said on a conference call. “The buyback is very exciting and tremendously attractive, investing in organic growth as well. Those are the options to redeploy.”
BBVA USA has more than 600 branches in several states, including Texas, Florida and Alabama. About half of the business’s deposits are located in Texas, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. BBVA acquired the company in 2007, when it was called Compass Bancshares, according to its website.
The transaction excludes broker dealer BBVA Securities and the branch in New York, which will continue to provide corporate & investment banking services to large corporate and institutional clients. It also excludes the representative office in San Francisco and fintech investment fund Propel Venture Partners.
PNC, which is based in Pittsburgh, primarily has branches in the mid-Atlantic, southeast and midwest U.S.
The deal “would bolster PNC’s existing southeastern presence and jump-start the bank’s forays into Texas, where it currently employs a branch-lite model in Dallas and Houston,” Herman Chan, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, wrote in a note Sunday.
BTS Group Holdings (BTS) became the third-largest shareholder in Ananda Development after buying 249.97 million shares at a cost of Bt332.46 million on Sunday.
According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), BTS bought 249.97 million shares of Ananda, accounting for 7.5 per cent of total shareholding at Bt1.33 per share from Ananda’s president and chief executive officer Chanond Ruangkritya.
The top five shareholders in Ananda as of May 12 were:
▪︎ Chanond Ruangkritya — 1.29 billion shares, accounting for 38.98 per cent of total shares.
▪︎ Pipat Paniangwet — 272.73 million shares, 8.18 per cent stake.
▪︎ Patcharavalai Ruangkritya — 165.65 million shares, 4.97 per cent stake.
▪︎ Malika Ruangkritya — 147.11 million shares, 4.41 per cent stake.
▪︎ Natthavipha Ruangkritya — 102.95 million shares, 3.09 per cent stake.
Worawat Pitayasiri, president and chief executive officer of Global Power Synergy Public Company (GPSC), the power flagship of PTT Group, said the company’s board has approved Global Renewable Power (GRP)’s plan to set up a new subsidiary called Global Renewable Power One by purchasing a 90-per-cent stake in Sheng Yang Energy Co Ltd.
GRP is a wholly-owned subsidiary of GPSC.
Sheng Yang Energy, meanwhile, is owned by Tatung Forever Energy (TFE), a subsidiary of Tatung Co Ltd that is listed in the Taiwan Stock Exchange with a trading value of T$2.52 billion (approximately Bt2.74 billion).
The purchasing of Sheng Yang Energy’s shares will boost GPSC’s ratio of electricity generation capacity per share held by 50 megawatts. Its existing capacity is 5,026MW, 563MW of which comes from renewable energy sources in Thailand and overseas.
“Sheng Yang Energy has the capacity to produce 55.8MW from solar power, 54.4MW of which will come from existing plants and the remainder will come from plants being constructed,” Worawat said.
“GPSC has realised in Sheng Yang Energy’s potential as it is getting support from the Taiwan government, which will purchase power from it through a renewable energy promotion campaign at a fixed rate throughout the duration of the contract.
“This deal will strengthen the company’s financial stability and will be in line with GPSC’s strategy to expand its renewable energy operation in foreign countries,” he added.
By The Washington Post · Taylor Telford · BUSINESS, US-GLOBAL-MARKETS
U.S. stocks closed at new records Monday, after promising trial news from Moderna left investors hopeful that the country may have two coronavirus vaccines available on a limited basis by the end of 2020.
After a preliminary analysis, biotechnology firm Moderna reported that its experimental coronavirus vaccine, which it is co-developing with the National Institutes of Health, was almost 95% effective at preventing illness, including severe cases. The news comes just days after pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech reported that its experimental vaccine was 90% effective, spurring optimism on Wall Street that powered the S&P 500 to a record Friday.
By market close, the Dow Jones industrial average was up nearly 471 points, or 1.6%, at 29,950, a new record close. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index advanced 1.16% to 3,626. The tech-heavy Nasdaq closed up 0.8% to 11,924.
“With Moderna reporting such positive results, investors have another piece of the puzzle on how we will solve the current health crisis,” Wayne Wicker, chief investment officer at Vantagepoint Funds, said in an email to The Washington Post. “While the next few months may contain some tragic statistics associated with Covid 19, investors are looking forward 9-18 months with a vision that we will be returning to a more normal environment.”
The promising vaccine news comes as the United States braces for what many expect to be the darkest period of the pandemic. The total number of reported U.S. coronavirus cases surpassed 11 million on Sunday, only one week after hitting the 10 million mark. The number of fatalities from the virus now stands at more than 246,000.
Moderna’s stock soared with Monday’s trading, closing up nearly 9.6%. Investors flocked back to companies whose stocks have been heavily battered by the pandemic, especially in travel and hospitality. Carnival cruises climbed nearly 9.5%, while United Airlines closed up almost 5.2% and American Airlines gained almost 4.5%.
“Energy stocks and travel & leisure stocks will be the first benefactors on this news as they have been some of the hardest hit sectors due to distancing and shutdowns,” Anthony Denier, chief executive of the app-based brokerage Webull, said in an email to The Post. “We will also see a rotation out of the stay at home winners like tech and media as portfolios start to rebalance for a re-opened economy.”
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who was one of three people briefed on the Moderna data by an independent committee Sunday morning, called the results “as good as it gets.” He predicted that some doses could be available for high-risk people before the end of 2020 and become widely available in the spring.
Unlike Pfizer, which invested $2 billion of its own money in researching and developing a vaccine, Moderna is part of Operation Warp Speed, a government initiative designed to erase the financial risk of vaccine and therapeutics development by providing upfront funding to companies and helping coordinate the trials. Moderna received $2.5 billion from the U.S. government to support research, development and manufacturing of its vaccine candidate, while Pfizer signed a contract to sell doses to the U.S. government.
David Keller, Chief Market Strategist at StockCharts.com, cautioned investors to stay tuned for market volatility, despite the hopeful news.
“The market moves on expectations so the encouraging news from Moderna certainly provides a boost to stocks,” Keller said in an emailed statement. “This is sort of a continuation of the good news last week from Pfizer and tells investors to be optimistic about the long-term recovery story.”
Hopes of an accelerated return to normalcy fueled higher risk appetites on Wall Street. By 4 p.m., gold, a haven for investors in uncertain times, was flat at 0.01% to trade at $1,886 per ounce. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note edged higher to nearly 1.5%. Bond yields rise as prices drop.
Asian markets soared Monday after China and Japan joined forces with more than a dozen economies in the region to sign the world’s largest trade deal, covering about 30% of the global population and a similar share of economic output, after eight years of negotiations. It is the second major trade pact in two years that excludes the United States.
Oil markets also rose Monday amid the optimism. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading up 2.6%, at $43.89 per barrel, by 4 p.m. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. oil benchmark, rose 3.1%, to trade at $41.38 per barrel.
OPEC+ gets scant relief from vaccine as oil ministers meet
EconNov 17. 2020The tanker Navigator Genesis is moored near the Esso Fawley Oil Refinery in Fawley, England, on May 14, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Luke MacGregor
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Grant Smith, Salma El Wardany, Javier Blas · BUSINESS
Oil markets may be cheering the prospects of a coronavirus vaccine, but OPEC+ can’t celebrate.
Crude prices have rallied to a 10-week high on hopes that Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE’s breakthrough could soon revive the flights, car journeys and other economic activity that underpin fuel consumption.
Nonetheless, the alliance of producers led by Saudi Arabia and Russia is discussing a delay of the supply boost they’d hoped to make in January. Oil demand is currently suffering a fresh blow from a resurgence of the pandemic.
Ministers are focused on a postponement of three to six months, according to delegates familiar with the talks who asked not to be identified. They’ll hold an interim meeting on Tuesday to review the market, then make a final decision in a further two weeks.
Frightening Pullback
“This is the wrong time to be increasing crude supply,” Bob McNally, president of consultant Rapidan Energy Group and a former White House official, said in a Bloomberg television interview. “They really almost have no choice now but to postpone. The demand pullback in Europe is frightening.”
While the vaccine progress relieves some of the pressure on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, it won’t provide a significant boost to demand until the second half of 2021 next year, according to the International Energy Agency in Paris. Economic fallout from the latest wave of lockdowns will linger, OPEC said in a report.
The 23-nation alliance had intended to ease some of the unprecedented supply curbs introduced in May to offset the collapse in demand, restoring 2 million barrels a day of output at the start of next year. They made a similar increase over the summer as the global economy recovered, and hoped that the trend would continue.
But in recent weeks OPEC+ members have acknowledged those aspirations look unfeasible. Instead, the producers look set to keep about 7.7 million barrels a day — roughly 8% of global supply — offline for a little longer.
Deferring the supply boost — and thus supporting prices — may be critical for OPEC+ nations, many of which need oil prices far above the current level of $43 a barrel in order to cover government spending. It would also throw a lifeline to the wider industry, from majors like Exxon Mobil Corp. to independent companies in the U.S. shale patch.
Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman said on Nov. 9 the producers can “tweak this agreement” as required. Algeria, which holds OPEC’s rotating presidency, and group Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo made similar remarks.
Even Russia, usually reluctant to forego oil sales, has signaled support. President Vladimir Putin said on Oct. 22 that delay was an option, and even gestured at the possibility of making deeper production cuts if necessary. Further curbs don’t appear needed so far, delegates say.
“The lockdowns in Europe and what that will mean for demand will be very much on their mind,” Daniel Yergin, vice chairman at IHS Markit, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “The easiest thing for them to do, and as President Putin signaled, is to roll it over.”
While the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee that convenes on Tuesday won’t set policy, Riyadh and Moscow may give some insight into their thinking before the main ministerial meetings on Nov. 30 to Dec. 1. Updates on the different vaccines under development by pharmaceutical companies are expected in the meantime.
Faltering demand isn’t the only headache for the alliance, which is also having to reckon with a surprising increase in supply from one of its own members.
Libya, which is exempt from the agreement to restrain production, has revived output to the highest level in almost a year after a truce in its civil war. The North African nation tripled supply to 450,000 barrels a day last month, and is now pumping above 1 million a day.
The case for extending curbs, though persuasive, could still run into opposition.
The United Arab Emirates, which has recently chafed at its OPEC commitments, emphasized on Nov. 9 that consensus is necessary for the deal to be amended. “We have to be all convinced that tweak is required,” Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said.
One flash-point may be the millions of barrels of outstanding cuts still due from some members, which were supposed to be completed by the end of the year.
OPEC+ nations that flouted their output quotas in the initial months of the agreement, such as Iraq and Nigeria, have been tasked with “compensation cuts.” After making some tentative efforts at these, Baghdad defiantly ramped exports back up last month.
Iraq has often rebelled against OPEC-mandated supply limits as it rebuilds an oil industry and economy scarred by decades of conflict and sanctions.
As Baghdad’s finances come under acute distress, OPEC delegates doubt the country will make further efforts to atone. With Saudi Arabia’s steely energy minister determined that all remaining debts are paid, the group may face a bumpy path to a final agreement.
The Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max is shown during a product launch event in Sydney, Australia, on Nov. 13, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Brendon Thorne. 
An American flag flies next to PNC Financial Services Group signage outside a bank branch in New York City on Jan. 11, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Gabriela Bhaskar. Photo by: Gabriela Bhaskar — Bloomberg 
The tanker Navigator Genesis is moored near the Esso Fawley Oil Refinery in Fawley, England, on May 14, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Luke MacGregor 
