Bloomberg A further cut to negative Swiss interest rates could have the undesired effect of strengthening the franc as foreign investors pile into the country’s outperforming stock market to reap superior returns over bonds, former Swiss National Bank Chief Economist Kurt Schiltknecht wrote in daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung. “These investment opportunities don’t go unnoticed by foreign investors and often result ...

Bloomberg Singapore’s Hong Leong Finance Ltd sees the country’s plan to issue virtual banking licenses as an opportunity to find new customers and re-invent itself as a tech-savvy lender to the nation’s new businesses. The firm, founded in 1961, has been in talks with financial-technology companies about a joint application for one of the licenses, according to President Ang Tang ...

As we move into the fall, there’s one overriding foreign-policy priority for America: Find a strategy to deal with a rising China that protects US interests but doesn’t subvert the global economy. China is the challenge of our time, and risks of getting it wrong are enormous. Huawei, the Shenzen-based communications powerhouse, argues in a slick new YouTube video that ...

The scrutiny of giant technology companies and the inevitable anxiety that follows are now so commonplace that they have become rote. Once terms like “techlash” become household words, it’s easy to become numb. The attorneys general of 48 US states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico announced an antitrust probe into Google parent firm Alphabet. For those in need ...

The new Italian government coalition of the Democratic Party and the Five Star Movement has been gifted a golden opportunity. The sharp drop in its sovereign bond yields means it can get ahead of its borrowing requirements for this year. Italian yields have fallen to record lows recently as investors have welcomed an administration that’s somewhat less antagonistic to the ...

If the ultimate goal of lower interest rates is to spark economic activity through demand for loans, then the Federal Reserve’s first cut in more than a decade can be deemed a failure. After the central bank lowered its target rate for overnight loans between banks on July 31 to a range of 2% to 2.25%, demand for credit among ...

A type of financial engineering that proved to be toxic during the financial crisis is slowly making a comeback as banks try to offset the risk of their borrowers not repaying their loans. Capital relief trades, or synthetic deals, are making a comeback – and Europe is about to refine the rules of the game. Getting those right will be ...

The longer Hong Kong protests drag on, the less likely China will be to unleash the trillion-dollar stimulus markets seem to want. Beijing has become painfully aware that its easy-money policies of the past inflated asset bubbles and widened the wealth gap. Any repeat endeavours could risk stoking social unrest on the mainland. Over the past decade, China flooded its ...

In Japan, is there one standard of justice for Japanese executives and another for non-Japanese executives? The forced resignation of Nissan Motor Co.’s chief executive officer, Hiroto Saikawa, certainly seems to suggest as much. When Nissan wanted to get rid of its then-chairman Carlos Ghosn, it conducted an internal investigation that was kept from Ghosn, found some examples of allegedly ...

Bloomberg First there was derision. Then mockery turned into admiration. Now a battle is unfolding between two of the most revered names in the automobile world, Porsche and Tesla Inc on one of the world’s most challenging race tracks. The two automakers are vying for electric vehicle bragging rights on Germany’s Nürburgring, a circuit with 73 tight turns (Silverstone in ...