Tag Archives: javascript
Fragrances: Middle Eastern Influences Dominate In The Coming Season
Posted on 25 August 2013 THIS year, the stars of the perfume world are scents traditionally associated with the Middle East, such as the once rare and expensive oud wood essence. This fragrant resin features a rich array of nuances, including of wood, leather and animalic notes. Several European fragrance houses have experimented with oud wood recently, creating warm and exotic perfumes. We take a look at some of the most remarkable fragrances of the season illustrating this trend. Musk Oud by Kilian One of the first European perfumers to draw inspiration from Middle Eastern traditions, Kilian presented the first fragrance from its Arabian Nights collection in 2010. Today, the line consists of five fragrances, all with oud wood at their core. The latest essence from the line, Musk Oud was launched last June. The nose Alberto Morillas prepared this intoxicating blend of lemon and mandarin notes, complemented by spicy cardamom and coriander, all over a base of sensual oud wood. The fragrance is priced at €295 for 50 ml. Damask & Oud by Hugo Boss The lifestyle brand released its Damask & Oud eau de toilette June 1 through its luxury menswear label, BOSS The Collection. Available only in an exclusive set of department stores, the fragrance is based on fine and rare essences including white pepper, saffron, rose, oud wood, guaiac wood and papyrus. The eau de toilette is priced at €110 for 50 ml. Flowerbomb Rose Explosion by Viktor & Rolf The famous Dutch designers have issued a new version of their popular 2005 perfume, Flowerbomb, which has been updated with oud wood and bears the name Flowerbomb Rose Explosion. On top of the fragrant woody essence, the perfume layers an ideal pairing of Turkish and Moroccan rose absolutes and a complex burst of mandarin, bergamot, saffron, jasmine, patchouli and amber notes. This new fragrance, launched in early August, is available at the price of €149 for 100 ml. Myrrhe Impériale by Armani Privé Giorgio Armani also pays homage to the Middle East in fragrance through the 1001 Nights collection, named for the folk tales of the Islamic Golden Age. Unlike its predecessor Oud Royal, released in 2012, the latest fragrance in this collection is not based on this year’s star essence but contains a masterful combination of other signature Middle Eastern notes, including benzoin, myrrh, pink pepper and saffron. Myrrhe Impériale eau de parfum will be available from the end of August, priced at €215 for 100 ml. Valentina Oud Assoluto by Valentino The Italian couture brand called upon world famous nose Olivier Cresp to concoct a new version of its signature feminine fragrance, Valentina, with a Middle Eastern twist. The new eau de toilette is based on an alliance of orange blossom and oud wood, with notes of cardamom, Bulgarian rose, leather, saffron and dry wood. The fragrance will be available from September, priced at €106 for 80 ml. – AFP Relaxnews Continue reading
Emerging Market Rout Threatens Wider Global Economy
The $9 trillion (£5.8 trillion) accumulation of foreign bonds by the rising powers of Asia, Latin America and the emerging world risks going into reverse as one country after another is forced to liquidate holdings to shore up its currency, threatening to inflict a credit shock on the global economy. Fears of Fed tightening have pushed borrowing costs worldwide to levels that could threaten global recovery Photo: AFP By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 8:38PM BST 22 Aug 2013 India’s rupee and Turkey’s lira both crashed to record lows on Thursday following the US Federal Reserve releasing minutes which signalled a wind-down of quantitative easing as soon as next month. Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s president, held an emergency meeting on Thursday with her top economic officials to halt the real’s slide after it hit a five-year low against the dollar. The central bank chief, Alexandre Tombini, cancelled his trip to the Fed’s Jackson Hole conclave in order “to monitor market activity” amid reports Brazil is preparing direct intervention to stem capital flight. The country has so far relied on futures contracts to defend the real – disguising the erosion of Brazil’s $374bn reserves – but this has failed to deter speculators. “They are moving currency intervention off balance sheet, but the net position is deteriorating all the time,” said Danske Bank’s Lars Christensen. A string of countries have been burning foreign reserves to defend exchange rates, with holdings down 8pc in Ecuador, 6pc in Kazakhstan and Kuwait, and 5.5pc in Indonesia in July alone. Turkey’s reserves have dropped 15pc this year. “Emerging markets are in the eye of the storm,” said Stephen Jen at SLJ Macro Partners. “Their currencies are in grave danger. These things always overshoot.” It was Fed tightening and a rising dollar that set off Latin America’s crisis in the early 1980s and East Asia’s crisis in the mid-1990s. Both episodes were contained, though not easily. Emerging markets have stronger shock absorbers today and largely borrow in their own currencies, making them less vulnerable to a dollar squeeze. However, they now make up half the world economy and are big enough to set off a crisis in the West. Fears of Fed tightening have pushed borrowing costs worldwide to levels that could threaten global recovery. Yields on 10-year bonds jumped 47 basis points to 12.29pc in Brazil on Thursday, 33 points to 9.72pc in Turkey, and 12 points to 8.4pc in South Africa. There had been hopes that the Fed might delay its tapering of bond purchases, chastened by the jump in long-term rates in the US itself. Ten-year US yields – the world’s benchmark price of money – have soared from 1.6pc to 2.9pc since early May. Hans Redeker from Morgan Stanley said a “negative feedback loop” is taking hold as emerging markets are forced to impose austerity and sell reserves to shore up their currencies, the exact opposite of what happened over the past decade as they built up a vast war chest of US and European bonds. The effect of the reserve build-up by China and others was to compress global bond yields, leading to property bubbles and equity booms in the West. The reversal of this process could be painful. “China sold $20bn of US Treasuries in June and others are doing the same thing. We think this is driving up US yields, and German yields are rising even faster,” said Mr Redeker. “This has major implications for the world. The US may be strong to enough to withstand higher rates, but we are not sure about Europe. Our worry is that a sell-off in reserves may push rates to levels that are unjustified for the global economy as a whole, if it has not happened already.” Sovereign bond strategist Nicolas Spiro said India is “caught between the Scylla of faltering growth and the Charybdis of currency depreciation” as hostile markets start to pick off any country with a large current account deficit. He said India’s central bank is playing with fire by reversing its tightening measures to fend off recession. It has instead set off a full-blown currency crisis that is crippling for companies with dollar debts. India is not alone. A string of countries across the world are grappling with variants of the same problem, forced to pick their poison. Continue reading
Price Of Farmland Trebles In Decade And ‘Set For £10k An Acre’
The price of UK farmland has trebled in less than a decade to hit a record high, according to a new survey, as researchers predicted the average price of an acre could soon hit £10,000. Prices for farmland are climbing, a new survey shows. Photo: Alamy By Emma Rowley 7:00AM BST 23 Aug 2013 Interest from farmers and investors buying to rent land to farmers pushed the cost of farmland to £7,440 an acre across the UK in the first six months of this year – three times the price fetched during the same period in 2004, when an acre cost just more than £2,400. Commercial farmers want to expand production to take advantage of the long-term trend for rising food prices and economies of scale, according to researchers at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), who produced the data. While commodity prices have eased in recent months, demand for food is expected to remain on an upwards path in the long term, driven by growing populations and changing diets around the world. The appeal of farmland as a “safe haven” investment to rival gold also plays a part, researchers said. Farmland has outperformed a number of alternative asset classes, which – combined with tax breaks – has enhanced its appeal as an investment. Analysis by estate agents Knight Frank has shown that for years gold was the only asset to outperform farmland, but in the short term this situation has reversed as the price of the precious metal has weakened. “The growth in farmland prices in recent times has been nothing short of staggering,” said Sue Steer, spokeswoman for RICS. “In less than 10 years, we’ve seen the cost of an acre of farmland grow to such an extent that investors – not just farmers – are entering the market. “If the relatively tight supply and high demand continues, we could experience the cost per acre going through the £10,000 barrier in the next two to three years.” The most expensive farmland was found in the North West – where supply is tight – at £8,813 an acre, the RICS survey showed, while the cost was lowest in Scotland, at £4,438 an acre. None the less, prices north of the border touched record levels for the Scottish market. Some areas are already past the £10,000 mark, surveyors said. A 13.5 acre block of land near Antrobus near Northwich, which was suitable for potatoes, recently went for well over £12,000 an acre, said Andrew Wallace at Cheshire-based auctioneers Wright Manley. He reported “keen farmer competition for extra land”. Graham Bowcock, a surveyor, said last year’s wet summer and a tough winter and spring that followed did not seem to have diminished the appetite for land purchase. “The big [farmers] still want to get bigger but continue to be hampered by shortage of supply,” he said. “There are plenty of non-farmers waiting in the wings and many seem to have cash available.” On a long-term perspective, the demand for farmland looks likely to increase further around the world due to the finite supply of arable land and population and consumption trends. Analysts also say that rising demand for land for renewable energy sources such as biofuels will compete against food production, further increasing pressure on arable land. Against this backdrop, food prices will stick above their historical average over the medium term for both crop and livestock products as demand grows and production slows, according to a recent report published by the OECD think tank and the UN’s food agency. The twice-yearly RICS rural market survey, which began in 1995, tracks market prices for farmland across England, Wales and Scotland. Continue reading
