Bloomberg Growth in Europe’s largest economy unexpectedly picked up in April, reversing a slowdown at the start of the year. A Purchasing Managers’ Index for manufacturing and services rose to 55.3 from 55.1, IHS Markit said on Monday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicted the measure would drop to 54.8. “Growth of Germany’s private sector steadied in April, to arrest the ...

Bloomberg British outsourcing firm Capita Plc’s shares pared some of this year’s heavy losses, rising as much as 14 percent in London, after the company announced a restructuring aimed at saving hundreds of millions of pounds. Capita, which provides customer-service functions for the likes of Marks & Spencer Group Plc and is responsible for collecting BBC license fees, is targeting ...

Bloomberg Economic momentum in the euro area kept a steady pace in April after softening earlier in the year, in a sign that growth in the region is set to continue albeit at a slower pace. A composite Purchasing Managers’ Index remained unchanged at 55.2, IHS Markit said on Monday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicted a decline to 54.8. While ...

Sitting at the controls of a Boeing space-flight simulator, ‘docking’ the company’s planned ‘Starliner’ craft with an imaginary space station, you begin to understand why the Pentagon is so focused on such advanced systems. Space is the new frontier of warfare. That was the theme of a ‘Space Symposium’ in Colorado Springs that gathered thousands of military and corporate experts ...

M&A shouldn’t be this easy. London-listed drugmaker Shire Plc has nudged Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. to up its takeover proposal twice to 44 billion pounds ($62.5 billion). Allergan Plc said that it was considering a bid only to say it wouldn’t after its shares suffered a bad reaction. This auction may have a bit further to go. Takeda must have ...

The pound’s slow but steady gains in the past year or so have seen it recover almost all of its post-Brexit referendum losses against the dollar. But in a welcome sign that monetary policy remains data-dependent rather than driven by what might be called fear of missing out, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney may have just halted its ascent. ...

President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion of tax cuts have to be funded somehow. Step forward ever more US Treasury bills and notes. As the bulk of the new supply is coming at five-year maturities or less, that’s having a pronounced effect on the US yield curve. And markets on the other side of the world are starting to feel it. ...

Last Sunday, 13,000 people took to the streets of Berlin carrying signs like ‘Renters Aren’t Lemons.’ Despite Germany’s tenant-friendly laws, a tide of gentrification is gradually turning Berlin from the ‘poor’ capital of cool into another generic hipsterville. The city calls it ‘rent madness.’ The smallest increase in rents between 2007 and 2016 was 34 percent in Marzahn-Hellersdorf, an area ...

This seems to be the year when Americans hit the pause button on the advance of technology in their daily lives and grapple with how we got here and where we’re going. My Bloomberg colleague Tyler Cowen has written about a looming clash between the values of Washington, DC, and the values of the San Francisco Bay Area. They are ...

The US president has repeatedly attacked one of the most successful American companies ever, Amazon.com Inc. Several times he has taken to Twitter to excoriate the giant online retailer, whose chief Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post, a newspaper that has published a steady stream of articles that have proven embarrassing to Donald Trump and his administration. I will leave ...