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Italy’s money problems are starting

Italy has managed to scrape by with its 5.5 billion euros ($6.2 billion) monthly auction of three, seven and 20-year government bonds on Tuesday. It has now completed nearly 95 percent of its annual funding target, but that’s where the good news ends. It is still visibly struggling to place longer-dated paper. Benchmark 10-year yields stayed high, even after the ...

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Malaysia’s market calm rests on sticky foundations

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has been lucky, so far. His country looks to have come out of this year’s emerging-markets rout largely unscathed. The ringgit has fallen only 3.4 percent against the dollar, while the MSCI Malaysia Index has dipped a mere 5.9 percent, compared with a 16 percent slump for the broader emerging-markets gauge. Beneath the calm is ...

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Three-minute chat that wiped billions off stocks

A three minute conversation on stage at UBS AG’s Global Technology Conference in San Francisco helped wipe more than $190 billion from global stocks. Lumentum Holdings Inc. makes lasers for 3D facial recognition used by major smartphone makers, with Apple Inc. its key client. On Monday, the company announced a 17 percent cut in its December-quarter revenue outlook. That triggered ...

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India’s shadow banks may need to suffer some pain

In India, crises move slowly. We’ve known for years that the state-controlled banks that dominate the financial sector were groaning under the weight of bad loans. For years, though, the government successfully kicked the can down the road. All those assets haven’t been accounted for yet, the banks haven’t been fully recapitalised, the bankruptcy process isn’t working to schedule, yet ...

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Banks will pay for China’s ‘obsession’

Chinese regulators have stepped back from imposing hard-and-fast rules on how much banks must lend to the cash-starved private sector. Their exhortation isn’t going away, though, and that means investors in shares of lenders should prepare for more pain. Authorities will refrain from imposing specific targets for each bank and are urging firms to conduct appropriate due diligence, according to ...

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One of Facebook’s biggest fans is angry now

Never before has one company’s failure had such a devastating effect on the world, wrote the technology journalist David Kirkpatrick. He continued: Racists, autocrats, and purveyors of hate and disorder have found Facebook the perfect medium for spewing poison, normalising it, and gaining adherents. … Societies around the world are reeling from the consequences. Politics and democracy are under duress. ...

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US stocks pare gains on trade angst; crude rises

Bloomberg US stocks pared an advance after a key Democrat called into question the revamped Nafta deal, rekindling concern over trade. Crude rebounded from the worst rout in three years. The S&P 500 looked for its first gain in five sessions, while technology shares all but erased a rise that topped 1 percent. Bill Pascrell, in line to chair the ...

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Pound volatility soars as traders look ahead to next Brexit hurdle

Bloomberg Volatility in the pound jumped as traders looked ahead to the next hurdle on the Brexit path even if a draft deal is signed off by Prime Minister Theresa May’s senior ministers. Overnight volatility in the pound against the dollar climbed to the highest level in more than a year. One-, two- and three-month measures also rose, suggesting that ...

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Greek banks inch towards relief from $47bn bad loans

Bloomberg Greek authorities are moving forward with two different plans to save their banks from a downward spiral. Some would-be investors think they’re too clever by half. To reduce non-performing loans, the Greek central bank is proposing a special-purpose vehicle created with the stricken lenders’ tax credits — themselves an accounting creation of the nation’s past debt restructuring. With those ...

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Polish bank watchdog resigns after report of $10 million bribe

Bloomberg Poland’s financial industry regulator quit after a newspaper reported that he made an improper offer to the owner of a troubled bank, triggering a government investigation. Financial Supervision Authority Chairman Marek Chrzanowski said allegations by Gazeta Wyborcza were a “dishonest and groundless” provocation, but that he must resign to ensure stability in the banking industry, he told Poland’s PAP ...

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