Tag Archives: Far East

News, Politics, Government

Russia to continue using Kazakhstan's space center

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Russian President Vladimir Putin says Moscow will continue to lease the Baikonur space complex in Kazakhstan.

Putin on Friday toured the construction site of the Vostochny launch pad in the Far East which is designed to ease Russia‘s reliance on its ex-Soviet neighbor. Officials have put the total cost of the Vostochny project at about $10 billion. Putin, however, insisted that Russia would not leave the base in Baikonur.

Amid tensions over fees payments a Russian official said in February Russia may suspend its lease for some facilities at Baikonur.

It was from Baikonur where Yuri Gagarin made the world’s first even manned flight into space 52 years ago today.

The first launch from Vostochny, near the Chinese border, is expected in 2015.

From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/HoBlf-U19aI/

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Should You Buy Tate & Lyle Today?

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By Royston Wild, The Motley Fool

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LONDON — Giant sweetener-producer Tate & Lyle has ridden the equities wave since the start of the year and is still up 9% so far in 2013 despite the recent risk-aversion striking financial markets.

Although food producers like Tate & Lyle tend to harbor defensive qualities — populations still need to be fed, regardless of the economic climate — I believe the company could face severe earnings pressure in coming years as competition in its most important markets heats up.

Sucralose volumes headed lower
Tate & Lyle published worrying third-quarter numbers last month, showing weakening demand growth for its artificial sweetener sucralose. The firm now expects sales volume in the year ending March 2013 to come in lower than that of the preceding 12-month period.

Tate & Lyle is expected to face mounting competition in this market, particularly from the Far East, where sucralose production is set to take off. Last month, China’s JK Sucralose, the world’s second-largest producer of the product, announced that it hopes to ramp up capacity to 6,000 tonnes by 2018 from around 1,500 tonnes at present. It also said it expects sales to leap 50% this year.

Elsewhere, competitor PureCircle — the world’s leading manufacturer of natural sweetener stevia — is also reporting rocketing volumes as consumers switch from synthetic alternatives, and it’s due to roll out a range of fresh products in the near future.

Earnings expected to drop in 2013
City forecasters expect Tate & Lyle to post an earnings-per-share decline of 4% to 55 pence in 2013 before recovering modestly in the following years. Respective gains of 9% and 8% are expected in 2014 and 2015.

The sugar specialist was recently changing hands on a P/E ratio of 15, representing a premium to the forward reading of 11.9 for the entire food-producers and -processors sector. This is expected to head lower over the medium term to 13.8 this year and 12.8 next year.

However, the emergence of growing competition in Tate & Lyle’s key markets could pressure the company’s revenue forecasts, which I believe makes Tate & Lyle an expensive choice against its peers right now.

Dividend policy progressive but underperforming
Tate & Lyle is expected to provide a 26.1 pence dividend in 2013, up from 24.9 pence in 2012. And the firm is predicted to ramp these up to 27.6 pence and 29.4 pence, respectively, in 2014 and 2015. Further, these payments are well secured with projected coverage of between 2.1 and 2.2 times through to 2015.

Despite these expected dividend increases, the company’s yield is forecast to remain below the 3.5% mean reading for the U.K.’s 100 biggest listed firms over the medium term. Respective yields of 3.1% and 3.3% are expected this year and next before reaching 3.5% in 2015.

Bolster your investment income with the Fool
If Tate & Lyle’s earnings outlook and low dividend yield fail to excite and you are looking for other FTSE 100 winners to really …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

News, Politics, Government

Spring gets chilly reception as Midwest hit with more snow

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Few signs of spring are being found in parts of the Midwest as a snowstorm tracks mostly along Interstate 70, bringing heavy snow and high winds.

The National Weather Service said parts of Colorado and northwest Kansas saw 10 to 15 inches of snow Saturday, and southwestern Nebraska had up to 7 inches. Winds gusting at speeds of up to 45 mph created snow drifts of 2 to 3 feet in the three states, said Ryan Husted, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Goodland, Kan.

“We have pretty much cleared out. Sunny skies. It’s starting to melt a little bit,” Husted said Sunday.

But points eastward weren’t as lucky as the system moved on. Winter storm warnings and advisories have been issued for Sunday and Monday as far east as Pennsylvania.

The storm dumped 7 to 9 inches of snow from eastern Kansas into central Missouri before tapering off Sunday morning, Dan Hawblitzel, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in suburban Kansas City, said.

College basketball fans in Kansas City had little to worry about though, as the snow didn’t affect the NCAA men’s tournament schedule.

“It’s no distraction, unless the roof goes off, we’ll still be able to play and the whole bit like that,” said North Carolina coach Roy Williams, whose team plays Kansas early Sunday evening.

Snow began to fall in earnest in St. Louis and western Illinois on Sunday morning. St. Louis is forecast to see accumulations of 8 to 10 inches and Illinois 6 to 9 inches, Hawblitzel said. The storm also was brushing northern Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Forecasters predict that the storm will arrive in Indiana late Sunday afternoon and into night, dumping 6 to 10 inches of snow. The system then will move into Ohio on Sunday night, bringing between 5 to 9 inches, Hawblitzel said.

The storm is expected to weaken as it moves into Pennsylvania late Sunday and into Monday, with totals ranging from 3 to 8 inches. Before it exits off the coast of New Jersey on Monday night, the storm could leave 1 to 3 inches in southern New York and New Jersey.

“It’s definitely a wide-hitting system,” Hawblitzel said.

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

1-Star ETFs Poised to Plunge: ProShares UltraShort MSCI EAFE

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By Brian Pacampara, Pacampara, The Motley Fool

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Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool’s free investing community, the ProShares UltraShort MSCI EAFE (NYSE: EFU) have received the dreaded one-star ranking.

With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at EFU and see what CAPS investors are saying about the ETF right now.

EFU facts

   

Inception

Oct. 2007

Total Net Assets

$7.7 million

Investment Approach

Seeks daily investment results that correspond to two times the inverse (-2x) of the daily performance of the MSCI EAFE Index. The index includes 85% of free float-adjusted market capitalization in each industry group in developed market countries, excluding the U.S. and Canada.

Expense Ratio

0.95%

1-Year / 3-Year / 5-Year Return

(28%) / (26.6%) / (27.4%)

Alternatives

ProShares UltraShort S&P500 (NYSE: SDS)

Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (NYSE: TZA)

Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 90% of the 169 All-Star members who have rated ProShares UltraShort MSCI EAFE believe the ETF will underperform the S&P 500 going forward.

Just last week, one of those Fools, TerryHogan, succinctly summed up the bear case for our community:

First I kind of like EAFE [Europe, Australasia and Far East] for the next 15-20 years, barring nuclear war in the Korean Peninsula. Second, ultrashorts stink because they degrade over time with any sort of volatility. Third, there’s an expense ratio that’s going to eat into this thing with regularity.

If you want market-thumping returns, you need to protect your portfolio from any undue risk. Luckily, our special report on ETFs highlights three funds that are poised to soar in the next recovery. It’s 100% free, but won’t last forever, so click here to access it now.

Want to see how well (or not so well) the stocks in this series are performing? Follow the TrackPoisedTo CAPS account.

The article 1-Star ETFs Poised to Plunge: ProShares UltraShort MSCI EAFE originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Brian Pacampara owns no position in any of the companies mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days.
We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Fool’s disclosure policy always gets a perfect score.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

A Whole New World of Investment Possibilities

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By Alex Planes, The Motley Fool

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On this day in economic and financial history…

After completing the first of his three world-changing voyages to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus returned to Europe — Lisbon, to be exact — on March 4, 1493. It had been exactly seven months since Columbus and his three ships departed from the Spanish region of Castile on a journey to the Far East, having since found a New World that turned out to be of far greater importance to global trade and commerce than a new seaward passage to known lands. In his possession was a letter written on the return journey, which was sent to the Castilian court to emphasize the vast untapped commercial potential of the lands he had found. By the time Columbus returned to the Spanish court on March 15, his extravagant embellishments of what he had found had already begun to spread far and wide. Within a year, the letter had reached most of the major cities of Europe, generating enormous interest in the riches of these undiscovered countries.

Columbus had good reason for his hyperbole. The Castilian crown had given him extremely generous terms in return for success, including high titles, control over discovered territories, and 10% of the revenues that might be generated from such discoveries for an essentially unlimited time. These terms were not difficult to extract, as Columbus’ belief in a smaller-sized Earth was not popular, and no one really expected him to return. Contrary to the popular myth, the notion of a spherical Earth was widely accepted in Columbus’ day, and most scholars and navigators adhered to an assessment of size that closely aligns with its actual diameter. Columbus wasn’t ahead of his time; he was backwards. But he got lucky.

Columbus briefly governed the Castilian territories in the New World but was deposed and arrested over the brutality carried out during his tenure. Although he was not held long, Columbus never regained the power and wealth he had held as governor, and the generous terms of his first exploration were never upheld. After his death, Columbus’ heirs initiated a protracted series of lawsuits to gain what they felt were the rights to a perpetual share of the revenue generated by New World activity. The fact that the Columbian heirs are not well-known to history should give you some indication of the ultimate success of those lawsuits.

Columbus’ success generated a huge surge of interest in exploring these new lands, and within a century vast tracts of South American land had been colonized in the name of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns. The widespread exchange of crops, people, culture, and disease between the Eastern and Western hemispheres was later termed the Columbian Exchange, and it would prove to be one of the most transformative periods of humanity’s existence. Corn, potatoes, tobacco, and tomatoes came to Europe, while horses, coffee, and sugarcane were …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance