Moody's

The currencies of three BRICS economies have steadily strengthened against the US dollar in recent weeks.
Brazil’s real, Russia’s ruble and South Africa’s rand have benefited from a ‘pause’ in the momentum to raise interest rates, particularly in the US.
All three countries have battled recession in contrast to BRICS members China and India, which are forecast to grow 6.7 per cent and 7.6 per cent, respectively, in 2016.
The rand is up nearly 15 per cent against the dollar in 2016 after suffering a significant slump in mid-2015.

Like many undergraduate students who came from a working class background I went through a stage wherein I adopted many of the values espoused by my “left” leaning professors. I have to admit I was also profoundly influenced by a book titled Sweden: the Middle Way by Marquis Childs that was touted to be the way of the future by many leading intellectuals in the academic world.

Despite Israel’s counteroffensive, boycott movement won some key victories in 2015. (Mark Esper/Polaris)

Approximately $8 billion in debt securities are affecting a popular investor’s service decision about one of biotech’s biggest. Investing credit rating company Moody’s has affirmed that Monsanto’s new rating is being downgraded from ‘neutral’ to ‘negative’ following Syngenta’s announcement that it has refused Monsanto’s unsolicited bid of CHF449 per Syngenta share in a combination of cash and stock.

My neighbor Warren doesn’t understand high finance. He’s a physician, and they’re usually pretty savvy market-wise, but he’s an exception. Yesterday over the back fence he was expressing alarm over what he thought was a dangerous development in the banking sector.
“It seems that the next big thing on Wall Street,” said Warren, “is banks and other players bundling rental housing into a new product, that is a rent-backed security, similar to the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) that were at the root of the big crisis in ’09.”