Bloomberg The US and Mexico are resolving their differences on agricultural products covered under Nafta after the Trump administration withdrew some of its sweeping demands, bringing the nations closer to an overall deal, according to five people familiar with the discussions. American negotiators dropped their demand in the last week to erect barriers against seasonal imports of a wide variety ...
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Tesla board torn between service to shareholders, CEO
Bloomberg Tesla Inc.’s board of directors is at a critical juncture, wedged between a larger-than-life figure to whom many are personally close and their larger responsibility to shareholders. Elon Musk’s astonishing interview with the New York Times has heightened concerns surrounding the health of Tesla’s chairman and chief executive officer, with shares plunging 8.9 percent, the largest drop in nearly ...
Read More »Atlantia prepares Genoa compensation plan
Bloomberg The Benetton family’s Atlantia SpA is preparing a compensation package to help victims of the Genoa bridge disaster and provide the region with funds to repair damaged train links and roads. The plan was worked out in consultations between executives at the family’s holding company, the Atlantia infrastructure company they control, and their lawyers and advisers. Autostrade per l’Italia, ...
Read More »Markets know better what society needs
Governments, seemingly eager to supply their critics with ammunition, constantly validate historian Robert Conquest: The behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies. Consider North Carolina’s intervention in the medical-devices market. Born in India, Dr Gajendra Singh is an American citizen and a surgeon in Winston-Salem ...
Read More »Insurers need to love Amazon
Whenever Amazon. com Inc eyes expansion into a new industry, the stalwarts of that space shudder. A Reuters report that the e-commerce giant has been talking to insurers about introducing a price comparison website in the UK was no different. Incumbents Moneysupermarket.com Group Plc and GoCompare.com Group Plc fell as much as 4.7 percent and 10 percent respectively. But for ...
Read More »CLOs are new hedge funds. Plan accordingly
A number of hedge fund firms have a hot product. It’s not their hedge funds. Och-Ziff Capital Management’s investors withdrew $418 million from its hedge funds in the second quarter. Total inflow of assets under management, however, were $1.2 billion, its largest increase in assets in four years. The firm’s hot product: Collateralised loan obligations — a derivative debt investment ...
Read More »A lovely trade war for China’s property firms
The trade dispute with the US hangs like an ax over China’s economy, but for the country’s real estate developers, it’s a boon. Onshore funding is opening up and the government is once again smiling on higher prices. Property investors should be doubly relieved: Beijing’s measures to rein in financial risk and cut developers’ access to debt have so far ...
Read More »The Trump economy is strong. So why exaggerate?
There’s no denying that, since Donald Trump was sworn in as president in January 2017, the US economy has been doing quite well. Growth in real gross domestic product has been steadily accelerating. Strong job growth has also continued, with gains in nonfarm payroll employment even accelerating a little this year, which is pretty remarkable this deep into an economic ...
Read More »China gives Tencent 1 billion tempting target on WeChat
Pony Ma has been very patient. Unfortunately for him, investors haven’t, and earnings will give them little reason to hold their breath. Net income and revenue at his Tencent Holdings Ltd both missed estimates. Concerns that rising costs would squeeze margins have helped to wipe about $150 billion off the Chinese goliath’s market value since January. Now China’s halt in ...
Read More »The internet doesn’t really need to know your name
In the 1981 sci-fi novel “True Names,†Vernor Vinge describes a dystopian future in which hackers go to great lengths to keep their real-world identities secret for fear that the US government might enslave or assassinate them. Almost four decades years later, it’s not lives that are at risk, but reputations and careers. In recent months, we’ve seen multiple media ...
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