South Korean currency Won has been volatile as it hit five-year low and recovered marginally. Won was tracking to Chinese currency Yuan as the dragon country is the major foreign market for South Korea. China's GDP rose 6.8 percent during fourth quarter marginally lower than the forecast of 6.9 percent. This disappointed the market.
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Some $46.5 billion treasuries have been reported to liquidate during the first two weeks of the New Year. The present reserve for $2.962 trillion appears to be the lowest since November. China has been reportedly withdrawing funds and injecting to the market to keep hold its currency in place. Considering its financial reserve, it is widely believed that further outflow of US treasuries, possibly with greater vicinity will take place in the coming months.
Airbus Group's corporate venture capital fund Airbus Ventures has announced its first investment that was extended to a Phoenix-based Local Motors Inc. Airbus Ventures is keen on startups in the aviation industry that support Airbus business strategy. Local Motors Inc develops open source designs for building cars, helicopters and airplanes.
Oil and gas market have been tattering due to existing sharp downtrend in price. Many oil companies have been writing down the value of shale assets over the past 20 months since prices started crashing. BHP Billinton Ltd. has also become dependent on bank debts to maintain soaring expenses and plans to cut dividends for the first time in 25 years. Finally, following the industry trend, BHP has announced for writing down US energy assets worth $7.2 billion.
The Wall Street took a second plunge on Wednesday in the first two weeks of 2016 after trading failed to pickup after Tuesday. This sent ripples to global markets especially Asian markets which all closed sharply lower predicating on growing concern for China's slow growth, stability of its currency, and slump in oil prices.
The UK-based technology firms mobilized $3.6 billion (£2.5 billion) funds from venture capitalists (VC) in 2015 and this is 70 percent higher than $2.1 billion in 2014. London technology companies accounted for more than half of the mobilized VC funds. The increasing investor appetite for technology startups and fintech firms has been the main factor that propelled the VC funding.
Qualcomm Inc. and TDK group tie up to form a $ 3 billion project in Singapore. After completion of the venture by 2017, Qualcomm will own 51% of the new company with a provision to purchase TDK’s stake at a later time. Following the joint venture, Qualcom’s share price has fall a little but TDK share price has jumped by 5.5%, highest change within last two moths.
The San Francisco-based cloud software company Anaplan has closed the latest round of VC funding to the tune of $90 million giving a valuation of the company at $1.09 billion. The latest investment round was led by Indian firm Premji Invest.
Like other tech giants, Shape Security Inc., ‘Botnets’ security service provider has been eyeing to enter into Chinese ecommerce market since long. Inclusion of Beijing based investor, Northern Light and raising sufficient funds for spreading elsewhere- appear as two contributing factors. These factors have led Shape to penetrate the world’s largest ecommerce zone.
A group of technology executives in Canada and U.S. launched a Toronto-based $100 million venture fund. The group is focusing to fund enterprise software to establish its investment portfolio.
Venture capital fund in the U.S. dropped by 9% in 2015, but a strong fundraising pace from 2014 continued. Investor become more selective to put the capital in startup companies.
Venture capital firms raise less capital and face a slowdown in tech funding for 2015. However, the number is still above annual average since 2006.
Toyota Mirai has been represented with a flat antenna at this week’s North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Tuesday. The flat antenna technology is capable of widening the coverage area and shares the same communication standard across national borders. The Mirai trial still appears in the early testing stages and Toyota commits to install data communication modules in a wider range of vehicles.
The weakening business confidence coupled with global economic challenges is impacting the UK manufacturing sector in more negative way. Despite odds forecast for 2016, majority of manufacturing firms in the UK are going ahead with their investment plan for technology and innovation. About 44 percent of UK companies participated in a survey expressed their concerns about challenging 2016 year.
