Bloomberg Oil explorers deployed more US rigs this week as increasingly tight crude supplies pushed prices to their highest since 2014. US working oil rigs rose by five this week to 820, the highest since March 2015, according to data from Baker Hughes. Since the end of January, the rig fleet has expanded in all but two weeks. An Energy ...

Bloomberg Three liquefied natural gas tankers sailed through the Panama Canal on the same day this week, marking a first for the newly expanded waterway and highlighting the booming global gas trade. All three ships — Gaslog Hong Kong, Gaslog Gibraltar and Clean Ocean — entered the canal on a staggered basis from the Pacific side and had completed their ...

Bloomberg US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he’s considering a trip to China amid a trade dispute with Beijing that finance chiefs warn could derail the global economic upswing. Mnuchin said he’s “cautiously optimistic” of reaching an agreement with China that bridges their differences over trade. “A trip is under consideration,” Mnuchin told reporters in Washington at the IMF’s spring ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong’s banks, blindsided by rising funding costs due to the city’s costly defense of its currency peg, are clamping down on popular fixed-rate mortgages. Bank of East Asia Ltd. is no longer accepting applications for these home loans “due to recent movements in interest rates,” the lender said in an emailed reply, more than two months before it ...

Bloomberg India’s ambition to build up its defense industry through a $250 billion program has sent shares of a state-owned metalmaker rocketing just days after a lukewarm trading debut. Mishra Dhatu Nigam Ltd., which makes specialty steel and is the country’s only producer of titanium alloys used in aerospace, has seen its market value surge 88 percent to 32 billion ...

Bloomberg Chinese online healthcare platform Ping An Good Doctor, a unit of the country’s biggest insurer by market value, will start taking investors’ orders for a Hong Kong initial public offering that could raise as much as HK$8.8 billion ($1.1 billion). The Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. subsidiary is offering about 160 million shares at HK$50.80 to HK$54.80 apiece, according ...

Bloomberg When China released its key economic indicators, the statistics agency was quick to highlight how the country’s domestic consumption had propelled growth in the first quarter, offsetting external risks as trade tensions escalate. Yet for the country’s publicly listed companies, foreign business has never been so important. The percentage of sales that mainland-listed companies get outside their home country ...

Bloomberg A top European Union official reiterated the bloc’s demand for a permanent exemption from the US’s steel and aluminum tariffs, as a temporary reprieve is set to expire on May 1 and fears mount that escalating trade tensions could threaten the global economy. European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said the EU is in close contact with US authorities ...

Bloomberg European car sales turned in their weakest performance in the first quarter since an industrywide contraction five years ago, as UK consumers’ apprehension over Brexit continued to erode demand in the region’s second-largest market. First-quarter registrations edged up 0.6 percent, according to figures released by the Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, or ACEA. The gain was the slowest since ...

Bloomberg Netflix Inc. used to worry it would alienate customers by raising prices for its streaming service. Not anymore. The company posted its strongest first quarter since going public 16 years ago, despite raising prices for most of its customers over the past several months. Los Gatos, California-based Netflix added 7.41 million users in the period, accord-ing to a statement, ...