There is perhaps no greater success story in the world over the last three decades than Colombia. To see this, just stand in the middle of the Plaza de Bolivar in the centre of Bogota. In 1988, there was a gaping hole along one entire side of the square. That was where the Palace of Justice had been, before guerrillas ...

There was a time when Bitcoin earned its stripes as a safe asset in times of crisis or uncertainty. Now, it seems that a global disease outbreak has proven too much for the premier cryptocurrency, with prices plunging over the past month. Bloomberg Opinion first stumbled across the notion that Bitcoin was a sanctuary four years ago during Brexit fever, ...

Italy has adopted seemingly draconian measures to stop the outbreak of Covid-19 that has killed 500 people in the country so far and [the number of virus cases soared by 25% to 9,172 on March 09]. [Italy imposed national restrictions on its 60 million people to control the coronavirus on Tuesday.] Initially, the government had announced the lockdown of northern ...

Bungling the rescue of a bank that has more than $20 billion in deposits is probably the costliest own goal India has scored since its foolish November 2016 ban on most currency notes. Arm-twisting government-controlled State Bank of India to inject capital into failing Yes Bank Ltd was the only option left for New Delhi. But the halfhearted bailout just ...

You may not have been exposed to the new coronavirus yet, but you’ve almost certainly been exposed to an adjacent contagion. Maybe you’ve even helped spread it. It might be retweeting Australian complaints about supermarkets sold out of hand sanitiser. Liking Gwyneth Paltrow’s Instagram post of herself in a face mask. Scrolling agog through Facebook photos from a friend in ...

Bloomberg Stocks climbed globally along with US index futures on Tuesday, recovering some ground after the deepest equity rout since the great financial crisis. Bonds and haven currencies trimmed their exceptional gains from a day earlier and the dollar strengthened. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index jumped alongside contracts on the three main American gauges, though few benchmarks came close to ...

Bloomberg European stocks rebounded on Tuesday from their biggest selloff since 2008 on optimism about stimulus measures to counter the impact of the coronavirus. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index rose as much as 3.5%, tracking gains in US futures, after President Donald Trump said he will seek a payroll tax cut and “very substantial relief” for industries hit by the ...

Bloomberg The S&P/ASX 200 index erased an early loss and surged out of bear market territory amid hopes for government measures that will offset the economic impact of the spreading coronavirus. Australia’s benchmark index rose 3.1% to close at 5,939.6, its largest gain since November 2016, after having earlier declined as much as 3.9%. The market flirted with a bear ...

Bloomberg The coronavirus outbreak will add $100 billion in credit losses to banks in the Asia-Pacific region this year with Chinese lenders bearing the brunt of the damage, according to S&P Global Inc. “Some activity will be lost forever,” Shaun Roache, S&P’s Asia-Pacific chief economist, wrote in a note on Tuesday. “We estimate an income loss of about $211 billion, ...

Bloomberg Bank of East Asia Ltd., (BEA) the Hong Kong lender that has been besieged by activist investor Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp., is considering options including a sale of insurance assets as part of its strategic review, according to people familiar with the matter. BEA could seek more than $1 billion from a sale of assets including its life ...