Amazon.com Inc.’s $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods Market has inspired visions of a new breed of grocery juggernaut, trampling rivals still figuring out how to sell food online. At first glance, a recently released consumer survey by RBC Capital Markets offers some justification for those fears, showing Amazon already dominating online grocery shopping. And Amazon has only just begun ...

Remember gold? It seems like only six years ago the shiny metal was flavor of the month, hitting a record $1,900 a troy ounce while its backers prophesied the end of the fiat money system. With bitcoin sucking up all the crazy in financial markets, gold looks to have lost its luster. The CBOE/Comex Gold Volatility Index, a rough proxy ...

Bloomberg Not everyone is convinced that the European Central Bank will be able to move as slowly as it wants on the path away from extraordinary stimulus. At least six banks including Nomura International Plc and Barclays Plc predict that President Mario Draghi will raise interest rates as soon as next year. While those forecasts are outliers — most investors ...

Bloomberg A small economy that’s constantly battling risks beyond its control like typhoons and oil prices has been one of the most successful in managing inflation in Asia. The Philippine central bank, which has an annual inflation target that’s currently set at 2 percent to 4 percent, met its goal six times in the past eight years and the two ...

Bloomberg Banks in Norway, Scandinavia’s most prosperous economy, are among the best capitalised in Europe thanks to rules that are considerably stricter than those recommended by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. Now, the bankers’ association in Oslo is hoping local authorities will ease Norwegian requirements after the Basel Committee sent out its completed framework last week. But Norwegian banks ...

Bloomberg Polish central bank Governor Adam Glapinski makes up in bravado what he lacks in evidence. Glapinski was unapologetic last week when confronted with figures that showed price pressures on the rise and inflation unexpectedly on target months earlier than forecast. In fact, Glapinski said the data “even reinforced” his conviction that the country’s longest-ever pause on interest rates can ...

Bloomberg India’s inflation surged past the central bank’s target, bolstering a view that interest rates may rise earlier than expected and offering little relief to battered bond markets. Consumer prices rose 4.9 percent in November from a year earlier as food and fuel costs surged, the Statistics Ministry said in a statement. That’s the fastest pace in 15 months and ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG is ready to transfer landing rights from Air Berlin Plc to leisure giants Thomas Cook Group Plc and TUI AG in an effort to fend off antitrust concerns about its bid for most of the insolvent carrier, people familiar with the plan said. Lufthansa is proposing that takeoff and landing slots from Air Berlin’s Niki division ...

Bloomberg The Trudeau government is escalating a trade fight with Boeing Co., ditching plans to buy 18 Super Hornets while launching a search for new fighter jets under parametres that could hamper future bids from the US plane maker. Canada said it would instead pursue plans to buy 18 used Australian F-18 fighter jets to supplement its aging fleet, and ...

Bloomberg The airline that passengers love to hate is figuring out how to arrive on time. Spirit Airlines Inc. rose to third place in the Department of Transportation’s monthly tally of US airlines’ on-time performance in October, with 87.2 percent of its flights arriving within 14 minutes of their scheduled time. That placed it ahead of larger Alaska Air Group ...