The next round of US tariffs on Chinese imports — $200 billion worth — could come as soon as this week, after talks to avert them ended without resolution. China is set to retaliate promptly with duties on nearly everything it imports from the United States. Even as he signaled an initial deal with Mexico, President Donald Trump declared it ...
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Argentina’s Macri scores own goal on sliding peso
From debt vultures and cooked books to fiscal time bombs, Argentine President Mauricio Macri inherited quite the mess. In his three years of office, he’s handled most of these challenges remarkably well, drawing cheers from investors and his compatriots. Here was a decisive, business-friendly manager, talking transparency and free-market initiatives to end what might have been “the largest populist experiment†...
Read More »Electric vehicles’ day will come suddenly
This week, California’s state legislature approved a bill requiring the state to get 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources by the year 2045. It’s a landmark for power sector decarbonization, and if Governor Jerry Brown signs the bill, it will require a transformation of the state’s energy system. California already gets 29 percent of its electricity from zero-carbon ...
Read More »Cash ban may have driven Indians away from banks
The Indian central bank’s final tally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2016 demonetization drive, intended to take money derived from tax evasion out of circulation, showed that 99.3 percent of outlawed high-value banknotes had been returned. That’s a severe loss of face for officials, who had argued that holders of the cash would rather destroy it than return it to ...
Read More »$50bn fight over who owns South African central bank
Bloomberg South Africa’s Lesetja Kganyago has a fight on his hands to protect the central bank’s $50 billion of reserves. More than eight months after the ruling African National Congress decided that the South African Reserve Bank should be state-owned, like most other central banks, the governor said his main concern remains to protect the regulator’s independence and mandate. But ...
Read More »UBS to start currency pricing and trading engine in Singapore
Bloomberg UBS Group AG will introduce a new electronic currency pricing and trading engine in Singapore next year in a bid to boost liquidity in Asia’s largest foreign-exchange center. The facility will go live in the second quarter of 2019, Zurich-based UBS said in an emailed statement. The bank is undertaking the initiative in partnership with the Monetary Authority of ...
Read More »UK govt plays down reports Carney to stay longer at BOE
Bloomberg Bank of England Governor Mark Carney is still expected to leave the central bank in 2019, according to a UK government spokesman. “The governor has said that he intends to step down in 2019. That is still the plan,†spokesman James Slack told reporters in London. Asked if the government would like him stay, he said “the Prime Minister ...
Read More »â€˜Yuan gaining at cost to dollar, yen’
Bloomberg China’s currency is set to take an increasing share of world foreign-exchange reserves, with the dollar and yen having to make the most room proportionally for the newcomer on the block, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. An acceleration in foreign inflows into Chinese fixed income in recent months — despite a tumble in the yuan — has showcased ...
Read More »ECB’s Mersch calls for Europe’s own global payment services
Bloomberg European Central Bank policy maker Yves Mersch called on Europe to develop its own global card payment services to compete with international peers and as a defense against any further escalation in geopolitical tension. Noting the dominance of California-based PayPal for online payments, and the services offered by Alphabet, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, Mersch warned that European providers such ...
Read More »Rupee weakness poses ‘dilemma’ for RBI at October meeting
Bloomberg A sustained weakness in the rupee may push the Reserve Bank of India to further tighten monetary policy, perhaps as early as next month, JPMorgan Chase and Co.’s chief India economist Sajjid Chinoy said. “The RBI meeting becomes an interesting dilemma,†Chinoy told Bloomberg Television in an interview, adding that after two interest rate hikes since June, he, like ...
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