Business

Billionaire Elon Musk said he paid a visit to Twitter Inc’s headquarters in San Francisco on Wednesday, ahead of a court-ordered deadline to close his $44 billion deal for the social media platform. “Entering Twitter HQ let that sink in!” said the caption of a video that Musk tweeted in which he was walking into the Twitter office carrying a sink in …

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Fina­n­­ce on Wednesday gave a go-head to pharmaceutical companies to increase the prices of painkiller, para­cetamol, by over 25 per cent, after which one of the multinational companies announced resumption of Panadol. The approval was given at a meeting, which was chaired by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and attended by heads of pharmaceutical companies involved in …

Oil prices rose on Thursday, extending a more than three per cent rally in the previous session, boosted by record US crude exports and a weaker US dollar, though gains were capped in Asia due to lingering fears over slack demand in China. Brent crude futures gained 20 cents, or 0.2pc, to $95.89 a barrel by 0332 GMT. US West …

KARACHI: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Wednesday released $1.5 billion to Pakistan, which is facing a daunting task of arranging about $32bn for debt servicing during the current financial year. “Asian Development Bank has released funds $1.5 billion to Pakistan under BRACE programme for the credit of the government of Pakistan’s account with State Bank of Pakistan. AlhamdoLilah!” Finance …

The euro, pound and yen all held their gains against the dollar on Thursday and equities rose as traders grow increasingly hopeful the Federal Reserve will slow its pace of interest rate hikes. Hong Kong led the gains thanks to a surge in tech firms, extending a recovery from Monday’s rout that was fuelled by worries of President Xi Jinping’s …

ISLAMABAD: While restoring the powers of the intelligence and investigation directorate of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), the Islamabad High Court (IHC) has held that the directorate can take cognisance of and has legal jurisdiction to issue notices under Section 175(1) of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 for the enforcement of any provision of the ordinance. A division bench of …

Oil prices eased on Wednesday after industry data showed United States crude stockpiles rose more than expected, but losses were capped by supply worries. Brent crude futures for December fell 72 cents, or 0.8 per cent, to $92.80 a barrel by 0330 GMT, after settling 26 cents higher in the previous session. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures for …

ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Tuesday approved Rs4.70 per unit reduction in fuel cost adjustment (FCA) for electricity used by K-Electric consumers in September. Once the approval is formally notified in a couple of days, the KE would be required to refund about Rs7.78 billion to consumers through adjustment in November’s bill. The decision was reached …

Shares at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) extended losses during early trade on Wednesday, with analysts attributing the downward trend to worries of political instability following the announcement of the PTI’s long march scheduled to begin on Friday. The benchmark KSE-100 index lost 632.39 points, or 1.5 per cent, to reach 41,557.64 points at 11:17am. Head of Research at Intermarket …

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s energy minister on Tuesday blasted the release of emergency oil stocks as an attempt to “manipulate markets”, the latest apparent salvo in a spat with Washington over oil production. “People are depleting their emergency stocks, had depleted it, used it as a mechanism to manipulate markets while its profound purpose was to mitigate shortage of supply,” Prince …