Bloomberg Chinese consumers may have a lot more cash at their disposal than previously thought — and they’re ready to flash it. That’s the upshot of two items throwing fresh light on the outlook for consumer spending, a key metric in China’s much-vaunted shift from an investment- and export-led economy to one more based on people buying things like holidays, ...
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Singapore startup Sea files for $1bn US IPO
Bloomberg Sea Ltd., Southeast Asia’s most valuable startup, has filed confidentially for a potential US initial public offering that could raise about $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The Singapore-based company, formerly known as Garena, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in the past few weeks, according to the people, who asked not to ...
Read More »Fiat Chrysler in US regulatory crosshairs
Bloomberg Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV keeps running into trouble with the same government that arranged its shotgun marriage. With a US Justice Department lawsuit filed alleging violations of clean-air rules, the Italian-American carmaker now will have to defend itself against accusations it’s run afoul of environmental, safety and securities laws in the span of just a few years. The suit ...
Read More »GOP bill’s fate teeters on new financial analysis
Bloomberg House Republicans are waiting anxiously for a new financial estimate on Wednesday on their Obamacare repeal proposal that could force them into an embarrassing do-over on the bill they barely passed early this month. Speaker Paul Ryan says he is uncertain about the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis of the measure’s budget impact — critical for meeting Senate rules ...
Read More »Mexico oil reform advances with first private well in 80 yrs
Bloomberg For the first time in almost 80 years, a private company has sunk a new offshore oil well in Mexican waters — the latest step in the country’s drive to allow foreign competitors back into its energy markets. A joint venture of London-based Premier Oil Plc, Houston’s Talos Energy LLC and Mexico’s Sierra Oil & Gas began drilling the ...
Read More »China’s deleveraging puts yuan closer to a free float
China’s financial markets are fascinating to watch these days. Efforts by officials to decrease the nation’s enormous debt pile without destabilizing domestic markets are having profound consequences, most visibly in the bond market, where the yields on short-term debt have risen above those on longer maturities for the first time. The implications are more than just academic. In fact, they ...
Read More »Brexit can now be quicker but harder
In one of the most important rulings in its history, the European Court of Justice gave the European Commission broad powers to negotiate trade deals without the approval of each member state. This is likely to make Brexit negotiations much easier than expected, but the final deal — if there is one — worse for the U.K. Formally, the ruling ...
Read More »How to make the service economy really deliver
When we think about productivity, we often have a bias towards physical goods — things we can touch and feel, like iPhones or suits. But over the past century, as the economic historian Stephen Broadberry has shown, services, not manufacturing, have been key to explaining which countries are moving up or down the international productivity league table. And yet advanced ...
Read More »Higher yields could trigger new debt concerns: ECB
Bloomberg The European Central Bank said debt-sustainability concerns have risen in the past six months amid a potential increase in yields and political uncertainty in some countries. “Risks to financial stability stemming from financial markets remain significant,†the Frankfurt-based institution said in its Financial Stability Review. An abrupt bond-market repricing could “materialize via spillovers from higher yields in advanced economies, ...
Read More »IDB to revamp and decentralise operations
SARAJEVO / Reuters The Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the largest development organisation in the Muslim world, plans to revamp its operations, including a shift away from small-scale capital interventions to more sustainable, grassroot-level support. The non-profit group has extended $86.1 billion in financing in the last ten years for energy, transportation, water and sanitation projects. Bangladesh, Pakistan and Egypt are ...
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