(NEW YORK) The euro edged up yesterday supported by healthy results at Spanish and French bond auctions and stable global equities, but investors remained cautious ahead of a key reading on the US labour market on Friday.

THE Singapore government has acted swiftly and decisively in introducing new and tougher rules to dampen property speculation - the third time in a year that the authorities have moved to cool an overheating market.

SOMETIMES the headlines don't tell the whole story. A case in point is the recent results of Genting Hong Kong.

ON April 29, Sim Siang Choon Ltd posted on SGX.net details of a mandatory takeover offer from Jit Sun Investments Pte Ltd at 11 cents per share.

US President Barack Obama's televised address marking the end of America's combat mission in Iraq and this week's start of a new round of Israeli-Palestinian talks in Washington are both part of his ongoing efforts to turn back the radical foreign policy approach of former president George W Bush and his neoconservative advisers.

I WONDER how many of us would think of ourselves as being 'middle class', financially speaking, if we had to subsist on an income of US$2 a day (US$730 a year) or even ten times that amount?

THE European Union is dying - not a dramatic or sudden death, but one so slow and steady that one day soon we may realise that the project of European integration that we've taken for granted over the past half-century is no more.

AS correctly pointed out in this column yesterday, the Straits Times Index's 32-point jump on Wednesday was thanks to program buying ahead of a push on Wall Street that came later that day.

PROPERTY stocks took a bit of a hit yesterday after the government announced fresh cooling-off measures. This - and a push on the ever-popular Genting - were the only features of interest on a boring day that ended with the Straits Times Index gaining 18.32 points to 2,957.06.

US unemployment remains stubbornly high, manufacturing is slowing, exports are down and consumer confidence is weak. Yet Wall Street finished the week with a bang on Friday.

M-O-M loan growth momentum moderated: July 2010 m-o-m loan growth was slower at 0.7 per cent compared to an average of 0.9 per cent over January to June.

IT'S the economy that cried wolf. With growth slowing, deflation deepening and the yen inexplicably surging in late August, Japanese policymakers pledged bold action.