Opportunity for financial service providers: Reverse Mortgage

A popular and commonly used financial facility in the United States and Europe, with unexplored yet potential in the Middle East, is the Reverse Mortgage concept. This very secure lending model often could be also highly profitable for financial service providers.

In Dubai, since 2002 foreigners can buy homes and obtain residence visas with a later date. Banks are easily approachable for mortgage financing. Most of them offer competitive interest rates in the range from 4.99% to 8%. During the past few years, property auctions also become a popular term. Only in 2012, up to 80 properties are expected to go under the hammer. Read more

Victoria Secret 2012 What is Sexy? List

Victoria Secret 2012 What Is Sexy? List

Victoria Secret has finally broken its silence, announcing what it thinks is sexy for 2012.

The lingerie retailer’s What Is Sexy? List is more about who is sexy, voting Charlize Theron the Sexiest Actress, which must be like the Valedictorian of Sexy. Other award winners were “Hunger Games” star Jennifer Lawrence  has the Sexiest Eyes, Beyoncé Knowles  is the Sexiest Mom, and Olivia Wilde  shows the Sexiest Summer Glow. Read more

Emirates opens dedicated lounge at Atatürk Airport

 Emirates airline, one of the world’s fastest growing airlines, today celebrated the opening of its dedicated lounge for First Class and Business Class passengers as well as Gold members of Skywards – the airline’s frequent flyer programme, at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport (IST). Read more

Uncertainty drives US Dollar higher

Situation in the US remains relatively better than the European

Markets continue to show deep concerns over a potential shock from Greece exiting the Euro zone and the systemic ramification.

A report prapred by the National bank of Kuwait (NBK) said the flow of negative news remains relentless and fears of markets meltdown continued throughout the week.

Read more

Facebook and Zuckerberg dominate world’s news

Just in a matter of three days, so much happened to Facebook and its founder.

On Friday, with the launch of Facebook’s IPO, Mark Zuckerberg became a billionaire. He toke his company public and raised his personal wealth to more than $19 billion. Facebook’s shares were priced at $38 Thursday and got off to a hot start Friday, opening at $42.05. They briefly shot up to $45 but traded around the $40 mark for most of the day before closing at $38.23.

In the same time, Facebook got hit with a monstrous lawsuit. News broke that the social network was sued for $15 billion in an amended complaint by subscribers who claim the company invaded their privacy by tracking their Internet use.

Nevertheless, Facebook’s founder and CEO got married just a day later. He updated his Facebook status to “married” on Saturday. Zuckerberg and  his girlfriend of nine years 27-year-old Priscilla Chan tied the knot at a small ceremony at his Palo Alto, Calif. home, according to a guest authorized to speak for the couple.

The wedding capped a busy week for Zuckerberg. His birthday and Chan’s graduation from medical school were both Monday, and on Friday, he rang the Nasdaq Stock Market’s bell from Facebook headquarters in California on his company’s first day of trading on the public market.

What happens next? Surely, it wouldn’t be possibly to keep up with so tight agenda….

Facebook IPO live, traded at $42.05 up over 10%

Facebook IPO started trading in New York with approximately 25 minutes delay today

Opening Facebook trade was expected at US $42, with 65 million shares trading, according to insiders. Retail traders changed orders at rapid rates during the final minutes, causing hang time and delay – affecting the  actual opening.

Facebook IPO was oversubscribed nearly 20 times. During the first few minutes it traded over US $80 million.

However, trading did not started well for Facebook. The share price didn’t shoot straight up as during the opening of Google’s IPO, for example.

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Facebook IPO up to 421.2 million shares

Social network company increases IPO size as insiders boost planned sales

Founder Zuckerberg to offer 126 million shares, doubling plans

Facebook raised expected price for shares

Facebook Inc. increased the size of its initial public offering to 421.2 million shares. Major stockholders, including Founder Mark Zuckerberg, decided to offer more shares ahead of Facebook IPO’s launch. Read more

Striking image of Earth by Russian satellite

What does it feel like to orbit Planet Earth?

A new photo of the Earth from space highlights the striking beauty and intensely rich colors of our home planet.
The photo was taken by a Russian weather satellite, called Elektro-L No. 1, which flies in a geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (35,700 kilometers) above the Earth’s equator.

World’s key cities property index turns negative

The Knight Frank Prime Global Cities Index recorded its first quarterly fall since 2009, with the average value of prime property in the world’s key cities depreciating by 0.4% in Q1 2012. This represents the property index’s first quarterly fall since the depths of the global recession.

Although a milestone, the index’s negative quarterly growth is not surprising. Quarterly price growth has been below 2% since Q1 2010 and it averaged only 0.6% in 2011.
Read more

Dust Storm in Southwest Asia

Meteorologists characterized the dust activity as a “super sandstorm”

Dust storms have been raging across southwestern Asia and the Middle East in mid-March 2012. Intense dust events spanned thousands of kilometers from the Red Sea to Afgashistan, and from the Arabian Peninsula to India. Earlier in the month, dust was on the move in Iraq and Syria and along Africa’s Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. Read more

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