Bloomberg Malaysian ruling party leader Anwar Ibrahim, who cut a deal to become the country’s next prime minister ahead of last year’s election, said he should take power around May 2020. “There’s an understanding that it should be around that time, but I don’t think I should be too petty about the exact month,†Anwar said in an interview, when ...
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Should we love or hate ‘negative’ interest rates?
The idea that interest rates could be “negative” seems so counterintuitive that it defies easy understanding. Yet, here we are. Some foreign central banks (among them, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the central banks of Denmark and Sweden) have adopted them. No less a figure than former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has suggested that it’s just a matter ...
Read More »HK IPOs rush to beat the clock
Hong Kong’s IPO market is unexpectedly coming back to life. It may be a brief revival. Companies from Anheuser-Busch InBev SA’s Asian unit to Megvii Technology Ltd. aim to raise more than $10 billion selling shares before the year is out. It’s a turnaround that appeared improbable as recently as mid-August, when Hang Seng Index erased its gain for the ...
Read More »Success in China is all about having the right formula
Selling infant formula to China seems so 2016. The country abandoned its one-child policy three years ago, spurring expectations of a baby boom. These have been well and truly dashed. Fertility rates remain stuck around the levels they’ve been at for two decades, and the 15 million children born in 2018 was the lowest figure since 1961. Roughly five Indians ...
Read More »Attack on Saudi Aramco needs global response
The attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil and gas facilities in Abqaiq, which has suspended half of the kingdom’s processing — corresponding to 6% of world supply — is a blow to one of the main arteries of the global economy. The Trump administration should use the United Nations General Assembly this week in New York to marshal a global response. ...
Read More »India is dangerously close to becoming an also-ran
India’s government will shortly find itself at a fork in the road. Will it choose globalisation and export-oriented growth? Or will the isolationists in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win, and keep India out of a giant Indo-Pacific trading bloc? This weekend, New Delhi hosted negotiators for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – from the 10 members of ...
Read More »Draghi leaves it next ECB boss Lagarde to pick up the pieces
It is not easy being in Christine Lagarde’s shoes. The incoming president of the European Central Bank (ECB) has not yet presided over her first Governing Council meeting, but she will have to face down a revolt over the central bank’s decision to restart quantitative easing before she even starts. Lagarde may want to thank Mario Draghi for pushing through ...
Read More »Too much rent control is asking for trouble
For years, thriving cities in coastal regions of the US have become increasingly expensive to live in. As cities such as San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles and Seattle became more attractive, thanks to booming knowledge industries and falling crime, rents soared: And for almost as long, people have been hotly debating what to do about the problem. Many ...
Read More »Bonds rally, stocks struggle as traders await Fed move
Bloomberg Bonds rallied globally while stocks struggled for traction as investors marked time until the Federal Reserve was expected to conclude its policy meeting on Wednesday, with officials expected to cut interest rates again and possibly move further to calm overnight-loan markets. The dollar rose. Government bonds climbed from London to Tokyo before the expected easing in the world’s biggest ...
Read More »Hong Kong property stock dive not enticing enough for Eastspring
Bloomberg Even after a plunge in Hong Kong property shares following months of protests in the city, Eastspring Investments says some of the biggest stocks in the sector remain unappealing because of their valuations. John Tsai, a portfolio manager in Singapore, trimmed his holdings of Henderson Land Development Co and Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd in July, and remains underweight ...
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