Bloomberg Developing some form of synthetic central bank digital currency is “worth looking at,” according to Bank of England (BOE) deputy governor Dave Ramsden. The UK central bank is “very focussed” on what should be done to provide public infrastructure to encourage private innovation, said Ramsden, who oversees payments and fintech. Creating a digital currency with other central banks is …

Bloomberg When it comes to mixed messages from markets, 2019 has been a year with few precedents. Whenever a believable signal starts to emerge from stocks or bonds about the economy, it changes. While some disagreement is normal, this is approaching the historic. For context, in a typical year, returns in either equities or Treasuries lead the other by 10 …

Bloomberg Count the chief of the biggest US bank among doubters of Facebook Inc’s effort to create a cryptocurrency. “It was a neat idea that’ll never happen,” JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon said on a panel at a conference hosted by the Institute of International Finance in Washington. Dimon said the idea wasn’t particularly unique and pointed to …

Bloomberg Conflicting Brexit headlines keep coming and Boris Johnson’s ability to pull off a deal remains in doubt. But this isn’t stopping stock investors from taking a bet on the UK economy. The Vanguard FTSE 250 UCITS exchange-traded fund, which tracks the index of mid-cap companies that are more sensitive to domestic growth and benefit when sterling is stronger, has …

Bloomberg Nothing right now is stopping a surge in oil tanker rates that’s given owners of the vessels one of the biggest boosts in years. Rates have rallied so high that a secondhand supertanker could theoretically pay for itself in a couple of voyages, according to estimates from Clarkson Platou Securities AS. A normal payback period would often be about …

Bloomberg South Africa’s debt-laden power utility ended controlled blackouts as power supplies improve, though it says shortages gripping Africa’s most industrialised economy may not be over yet. Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., which provides about 95% of South Africa’s electricity, said it wouldn’t be implementing load shedding, a local term for rolling power blackouts, on Sunday. That comes after almost a …

Bloomberg Barrick Gold Corp. agreed to pay over $300 million to the Tanzanian government to end a long-running dispute that it says destroyed the value of its subsidiary Acacia Mining Plc’s assets. As part of the deal, which still must be approved by Tanzania’s attorney general, the government will be given a 16% stake in a renamed company known as …

Bloomberg A federal judge in Chicago signalled he may let dozens of lawsuits against Boeing Co over the crash of a Lion Air plane be resolved in Indonesia. US District Judge Thomas Durkin said during a status hearing that US Supreme Court and appellate court rulings appear to support the idea of a venue change. “The law is pretty favourable …

Bloomberg The Italian government is readying 350 million euros ($390 million) in bridge financing for bankrupt airline Alitalia SpA, seeking to keep the carrier flying as it scrambles to find bidders for a last-ditch rescue. The financing, due to cover six months of operations, was finalised in a cabinet decree document seen by Bloomberg. The companies leading the bid to …

Bloomberg Gulfstream is signalling that it will reveal a new aircraft design on October 21 at a private-jet conference in Las Vegas. “History is made by those who dare,” Gulfstream said in an invitation to the event. “Please join us for the biggest announcement in business aviation.” The corporate-jet unit of General Dynamics Corp is touting the event less than …