International News

Bloomberg European car sales showed first signs of a tepid recovery in May as showrooms reopened after a two-month shutdown because of the coronavirus. New auto registrations across the region fell 57% year-over-year, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association said. While that’s the worst May since the group started tracking the data in 1990, it’s an improvement over the 78% plunge ...

Bloomberg UK inflation slowed to just a quarter of the Bank of England’s (BOE) target in May, boosting the case for policy makers to add to their stimulus plan at their meeting this week. Consumer prices increased just 0.5% from a year earlier, the weakest since 2016, amid falling prices of auto fuel and recreational goods. The core rate, which ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to help Canada’s small businesses pay their rent is off to a slow start, with some landlords hesitant to sign up and others bogged down by red tape. The federal government said earlier this month landlords had applied for only C$90 million ($66 million) from a rent assistance fund on behalf of about 26,000 ...

Bloomberg A tunnel intended to connect Finland and Estonia faces a delay of up to seven years after Finnish policy makers picked a route opposed by the developer. The Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Council’s assembly voted to route the project under the capital and not Espoo, the adjacent city. Finnish entrepreneur Peter Vesterbacka, formerly of Rovio Entertainment Oyj, plans to appeal the ...

Bloomberg Alternative assets such as infrastructure and real estate have been a popular way for Nordic pension funds to pump up returns. But the latest crisis just exposed how risky many corners of the asset class are, when liquidity suddenly dries up. As the chief investment officer of Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Co., Mikko Mursula oversees about 46 billion euros ...

Bloomberg The US tumbled further in a ranking of most competitive world economies, dragged down by the weight of President Donald Trump’s trade wars. After losing the top spot to Singapore in 2018, the US dropped further down the list to 10th place from third, according to an annual ranking from the Institute for Management Development (IMD), a business school ...

Bloomberg UK jobless claims more than doubled to almost 3 million during the virus lockdown, adding urgency to the Bank of England and government’s efforts to cushion the blow. The number of people seeking unemployment benefits increased by more than 1.5 million in the two months through May, the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday. The figures show the ...

Bloomberg Some of Argentina’s largest creditors presented a new debt proposal to the government over the weekend as the two sides edge closer to a $65 billion restructuring deal, according to people familiar with the matter. The Ad Hoc Bondholder Group and Exchange Bondholder Group submitted an offer in which they agreed to accept losses on a net-present value basis ...

Bloomberg Investors see some signs that the recovery in Europe’s largest economy has started to take off. A ZEW gauge of current conditions in Germany advanced in June, and expectations for the next six months continued to improve. The data underscore hopes that the economy will grow again in the second half of 2020. The country’s government has made more ...

Bloomberg Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego called on government health officials to stop imposing “authoritarian” policies to contain the spread of the coronavirus outbreak that the mogul said were damaging the economy. Salinas Pliego, who owns bank and appliance dealer Grupo Elektra and the country’s second largest TV network TV Azteca, said Mexicans needed to be free to decide what ...