International News

  AP U.S. factory output dropped in March for the second straight month as manufacturers churned out fewer cars, metal parts and machinery. Yet other recent data suggests that the sector’s long-running malaise could brighten in the coming months. Factory production fell 0.3 percent last month, following a 0.1 percent drop in February, the Federal Reserve said. Those figures suggest ...

Bloomberg Two big firms, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., have two pretty divergent opinions about what you should own in the U.S. stock market right now. So far, the dollar is making the difference in who’s right. Custom indexes maintained by both banks give the advantage to Dubravko Lakos-Bujas, the JPMorgan chief U.S. equity strategist who ...

  AP A group representing Amazon indigenous people has urged Brazil’s National Development Bank to stop financing projects that cause environmental damage. After meeting with bank representatives, leaders of the Ecuador-based group known as the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin said in a statement that they also asked the bank to adopt policies that safeguard the rights ...

  Bloomberg Struggling Brazilian telephone company Oi SA is arguing that its Dutch unit is free to use borrowed funds to lend to the parent company, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. In a response to a creditor lawsuit, Oi said that individual lenders don’t have the right to question the uses of the money they lent ...

  Bloomberg Argentina seeks to end 15 years of financial isolation on Monday when it sets out to borrow cash on international credit markets for the first time since a 2001 default. The country is looking to boost its struggling economy and settle a 15-year lawsuit by US investment funds which its ex-president Cristina Kirchner branded “vultures.” This week’s debt ...

  New Delhi / Bloomberg Infosys Ltd. forecast better-than-expected sales growth this fiscal year, as India’s second largest software exporter captures new contracts for information technology services. Sales will rise between 11.8 percent and 13.8 percent in US dollar terms for the 12 months ending March, the Bangalore-based company said. That compares with the 10.5 percent to 12.5 percent median ...

  Beijing / AFP China’s finance minister accused international credit-rating companies of ‘bias’ against the country after Standard & Poor’s Rating Services and Moody’s Investors Service lowered their sovereign outlooks on the world’s second-largest economy. “Historically, the market performance of most of China’s sovereign debt was higher than the assessment of the credit-rating agencies,” Lou Jiwei said at a press ...

  Sydney / Bloomberg The Australian federal government’s debt pile is set to increase further without measures to boost revenues, Moody’s Investors Service said. Spending cuts set to be outlined in the May 3 budget “may be modest” and with Treasurer Scott Morrison having excluded steps to bolster income, these “limited” reductions are unlikely to meaningfully advance the government’s aim ...

  Beijing / Bloomberg China’s love affair with physical beauty is helping to fuel a selfie-editing app’s valuation of $3 billion. Meitu Inc. is shooting for at least that much in its latest funding round, according to people familiar with the company, a target that would make it one of China’s 10 largest private startups and eclipse household-names like Yelp ...

AFP The International Monetary Fund said that the fiscal projections underpinning Greece’s proposals for moving ahead in its bailout programme are not realistic. Poul Thomsen, director of the IMF’s European Department, raised questions about the forecast that Greece could maintain a 3.5 percent budget surplus for years as part of its plan for debt relief from European Union creditors. “We ...