Author: Deep

2016 is proving a difficult year for banks across Europe, as the industry grapples with nonperforming loans, rocky markets, increasing regulation and exposure to emerging market volatility. “We start 2016 with a cautious outlook on European banks despite the sector trading at market lows,” Bernstein analysts led by Thomas Seidl said in a report this month. “We downgrade our last year’s positive outlook due to a slower-than-expected European recovery despite QE (quantitative easing), margin compression, and the unexpected fall and continuing low oil price with its effect on our emerging markets Brazil, Mexico and Russia,” they said. CNBC takes a…

LTE is the champion for smartphone service, but in the Internet of Things, it’s just starting to become a challenger. On Tuesday, Sequans Communications announced what it called the first chip for LTE Category M, a variant of the global mobile standard that is tuned for low-power IoT gear like utility meters, factory sensors and wearables. The chip, called Monarch, will be ready to go into devices when Category M networks go live late this year or in early 2017, the company said. IoT devices need a different kind of network from what phones and tablets use. No one’s firing…

When it comes to economic growth, 2016 is looking a lot like 2015 — and probably even worse. Friday’s report showing that gross domestic product grew just 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter brought to a conclusion another year of dashed hopes for economic liftoff — “escape velocity,” as it is sometimes called. Seven years of zero interest rates, $3.7 trillion worth of Fed money printing and more than $6 trillion piled onto the public debt resulted in an economy still struggling to break 2.5 percent full-year growth. In fact, if the first reading on GDP holds up on revision,…

If you follow performance cars at all, you probably think you’ve got the BMW M2 all figured out. You know the M2 is the spiritual successor to the 1 Series M Coupe, a car so universally lauded by enthusiasts—and so impossible to find in the used market—it’s almost an urban legend. In fact, you’ve probably never even seen the 1 Series M. Only 740 were sold in the US. But your car-crush is real, and in the new M2 you see a second chance to drive something very, very special. You also know the new M2 is the baby of…

The dollar was surging against the yen as the Bank of Japan took the stunning step Friday of adopting negative interest rates in a bid to revive the country’s economy and protect against deflation. What do you buy if this big devaluation by Japan sparks a sustained rally higher in the dollar? The yen was down about 2 percent versus the greenback midday Friday. CNBC Pro searched for the big winners and losers under this scenario. Using Kensho, a hedge fund analytics tool, we looked at all the times when the Japanese currency fell by 5 percent versus the dollar…

While it’s a viable concept in itself, the NexPad is more intriguing for the future it points to. The NexDock promises to transform phones, tablets, and compute sticks into a laptop-like experience. Credit: NexDock 6COMMENTS Mark Hachman | @markhachman Senior Editor, PCWorld Feb 16, 2016 2:02 PM Microsoft’s Continuum technology for Windows 10 makes it possible for a Windows phone to serve as your computer. A new Indiegogo campaign for a product called theNexDock builds on this vision, promising to extend the productivity of a variety of small devices, as well as OSes. It sounds nice in theory, but NexDock isn’t quite…

A key American fuel gauge is on the fritz, and no one seems sure how to fix it — is cheap gas helping the economy or isn’t it? The correlation between oil prices and the stock market has reached a level only rarely ever seen — if oil tanks, it takes stocks right down with it. It’s the tightest correlation in 26 years, according to the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, economists are puzzled that the “lower for longer” gas prices have not contributed more to consumer spending. Wal-Mart is closing stores, and Amazon reported holiday sales that, while good, were…

IBM is betting big on blockchain secure-records technology taking off beyond its traditional use in bitcoin and other financial transactions. The company is now offering a cloud-based service to allow developers to set up blockchain networks and test and deploy related apps. IBM announced a flurry of blockchain-related initiatives Tuesday, including developer services hosted on its Bluemix cloud. Developers can access DevOps tools to create, deploy and monitor blockchain applications on the IBM cloud, the company said. Blockchains, such as the public ledger of bitcoin transactions, are distributed records of events, each block in the record containing a computational “hash”…

U.S. stocks are on pace for their worst January in seven years, but that sort of environment provides an opportunity for “rational” investors to make long-term bets, according to Jim McCaughan, CEO of Principal Global Investors. “This is a buy-on-setbacks U.S. equity market,” he told CNBC’s”Squawk on the Street” on Friday. “Buy when everyone’s miserable, like they were earlier this month. That’s going to be the way to make money in the equity markets,” McCaughan said. The government’s reading on fourth-quarter GDP data came in at 0.7 percent Friday, but economic growth of 1 to 2 percent is actually a…

Microsoft has unveiled a new profile page for Office 365 users aimed at making it easier to collaborate at work. The profile pages, most accessible through Microsoft’s Delve product, show a large photo of the worker, along with the files shared between that person and whoever is viewing their profile. The new feature, announced Tuesday, is a way for people to get a sense of their coworkers’ responsibilities, even if they don’t work in the same office. An Office 365 user’s profile also shows who they work with inside an organization, allowing the viewer to get a sense for how…