Financial Market News

The number of millionaires in the world jumped 9.2% to 12 million last year, in part because of simultaneous strength in the stock, bond and real estate markets, according to a study of the high-net-worth population.

The Toronto stock market was higher Tuesday as traders hope a two day meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve will yield some guidance on the future of the central bank's stimulus measures.

Expectations that the Federal Reserve will keep in place programs meant to prop up the economy also drove the market higher.

Investors look set to push stocks cautiously higher Tuesday in the hope that the Federal Reserve will calm fears about an early end to cheap money.

Asia's biggest benchmark, Japan's Nikkei stock average, shed early gains to fall 0.2 percent by early afternoon, to 13,007.28.

The Toronto stock market closed higher Monday as traders bought into stocks beaten down in a string of recent declines while hoping for more clarity from the U.S. Federal Reserve on whether it might start to ease up on stimulus measures.

Investors are in a game of wait-and-see with the Federal Reserve. On Monday, they guessed that the Fed will continue trying to prop up the economy, and sent stocks higher.

The price of oil climbed to a high for the year Monday amid concerns over an escalation in the civil war in Syria .

Investors started the week with a bout of optimism as they wait for Federal Reserve to provide more clarity about when it may start to cut back on its bond-buying program.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 158 points, or 1 percent, to 15,228 after the first half-hour of trading.

A rescue plan for the Co-operative's troubled banking arm has been unveiled in a bid to plug a A 1.5 billion hole in its balance sheet.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225, the regional heavyweight, jumped 2.2 percent to 12,960.81, extending Friday's 2.4 percent gain.

Since Ben Bernanke unleashed a bombshell on May 22 by suggesting the U.S. Federal Reserve could before long start to pull back on its massive monetary stimulus, big stock and bond markets have been feeling the pain.

Abenomics' massive monetary stimulus was supposed to depress long-term interest rates to spur economic activity, but the Japanese government bond market has other ideas.

TMB Bank is focusing more on underwriting issues of baht-denominated bonds for foreign sovereigns and corporates as it foresees potential for the Thai market to be the centre of fund mobilisation for the CMLV countries .

Trading will likely be muted for the first half of the week as investors hope to get a better impression of whether the U.S. Federal Reserve will cut back on one of its key stimulus measures soon and, if so, by how much.

New Delhi: Overseas investors have pulled out over Rs 17,000 crore from the Indian debt market in just a fortnight due to weakness in the rupee.

China's government is increasing its equity stakes in two financial companies in a move to restore confidence in China's stock market after the key index hit a six-month low last week.

Jim Cramer fills his blog on RealMoney every day with his up-to-the-minute reactions to what's happening in the market and his legendary ahead-of-the-crowd ideas.

But with limited opportunities in this slow growth environment and low returns on cash in this low interest rate environment, buybacks have been one of the favored methods for returning wealth to shareholders.