Phuket Gazette reports another crime surge

PHUKET: The past week has seen a real change in the weather in Phuket, literally and figuratively.
The monsoon season appears to finally be drawing to a close and with temperatures dropping in colder northern climes, high season is upon us. Hotel occupancy rates are rising and the island’s population continues to swell.
By some estimates Phuket’s [...]

China gets the iPhone

Apple’s iPhone made its long-awaited formal debut in the world’s most populous mobile phone market, without a key feature and at higher prices than widely available black market models.
Apple’s local partner, China Unicom, hopes the sleek smartphone will give it an edge against giant rival China Mobile, the world’s biggest phone company by subscribers.
Unicom started [...]

Red Roadmaster Market Insights on Crude Oil, Natural Gas, Gold and Silver

Crude Oil prices moving laterally, Natural Gas begins moving up in 2009

Nymex Crude Oil (CL)

Crude Oil’s correction from 82.00 continued last week. Despite a intra-week strong recovery, Crude Oil was limited below 82.00 high and weakened to new weekly low on Friday, indicating that such consolidation is still in progress.
Initial bias [...]

Red’s What to expect this week and down the line…

Paul Ebeling the Red Roadmaster

October finished in a storm of action and volatility, the kind of action that sets up for a run North into year’s end. That is a real possibility. The liquidity is there for sure. But savvy observers are saying that investors are waiting to see what the FOMC has [...]

Manufacturing lifts Asia recovery hopes

A raft of positive industrial production reports from Asian countries provided powerful evidence on Monday that the region’s rapid recovery from recession is underpinned by a sustainable improvement in manufacturing output.
Purchasing managers’ index reports from India, South Korea, Australia and Taiwan echoed figures over the weekend from Japan and China in confirming that a robust [...]

Pfizer backs US healthcare reform

The Head of the World’s largest pharmaceuticals company expressed confidence that US healthcare reform would be approved by the end of this year, and praised the Senate finance committee’s latest draft in spite of the extra costs it would impose on his business.
In an interview with the Financial Times of London, Jeffrey Kindler, chief [...]

Luxury retailers focus on Asia

With spending on luxury goods down across the developed world in the economic crisis, luxury brands are increasingly looking far beyond the chic avenues of New York, London or Paris for revenue. The new names on the lips of luxury professionals are far less familiar — Almaty, Shenzhen, Ulan Bator — respectively, the commercial capital [...]

China’s economic recovery widens and moves forward

Last month China’s manufacturing sector grew at the fastest pace since April 2008, according to the country’s official purchasing managers’ index released Sunday.
Savvy China observers said the survey results confirmed that the country’s economic recovery was widening as recovering export demand and consumption joined government stimulus as the Key drivers of the economic growth.
The [...]

Ebeling Heffernan: Thai CP Foods to raise $239m USD

Charoen Pokphand Foods CPF.BK, Thailand’s largest chicken exporter, would sell bonds worth 8 billion baht ($239 million) to repay debt and for working capital, according to its filing with the Thai Stock regulator.
The “A+”-rated bonds would be divided into three tranches, with the four-year issue, worth 2 billion baht, carrying a coupon of 3.90 percent, [...]