International News

Bloomberg Volkswagen AG is starting a sales initiative to revive demand in its domestic German market as consumer uncertainty across Europe’s largest economy risks choking off factory restarts. The world’s biggest carmarker will offer improved leasing and financing terms and payment-protection insurance in case buyers lose their jobs, VW’s passenger-car division said on Monday in a statement. The program for ...

Bloomberg In the middle of a spat between Europe’s top courts over the limits of European Central Bank (ECB) monetary stimulus, President Christine Lagarde is probably preparing to do even more. A lawyer herself, Lagarde says her institution is “undeterred” by a legal tussle over its 2.7 trillion-euro ($2.9 trillion) asset-purchase program, and will do what’s needed to carry the ...

Bloomberg Italian debt is once again the must-watch bellwether for growing tensions within the euro-area. Global investors have lasered in on the nation’s bonds because, while they feature tempting yields, the government’s relatively weak finances add to the shared risk across the region. UniCredit SpA estimates foreign asset managers and hedge funds’ exposure to Italian government bonds may be around ...

Bloomberg Canada lost 2 million jobs in April as a result of pandemic-related shutdowns, by far the biggest decline on record but only about half what economists had expected. The drop in employment adds to the 1 million decline in March. The jobless rate jumped to 13% in April, the agency said in Ottawa. Economists were anticipating a loss of ...

Bloomberg Elon Musk lashed out at the California county blocking Tesla Inc. from reopening its only US car plant, threatening to immediately relocate operations to other states and cease manufacturing at the factory. Hours after the chief executive officer tweeted that Tesla would sue Alameda County, which didn’t allow the facility to resume operations, the electric-car maker filed a complaint ...

Bloomberg The US health-care industry wasn’t immune to the devastating job losses caused by the coronavirus last month. Even as health-care workers battled Covid-19 in emergency rooms and intensive-care units across the country, the industry saw 1.4 million jobs vanish in April, the Labor Department reported on. That equates to about one of every 12 health-care jobs. The largest declines ...

Bloomberg Shares of car-parts suppliers rallied after stronger-than-expected results suggest the companies may be doing better than feared amid the challenges posed by coronavirus. American Axle, Lear and Tenneco were among biggest gainers in the sector after all three reported Q1 results that impressed investors and analysts, though concerns about the second quarter persist. Shares also received a boost on ...

Bloomberg Plant-based protein companies have been trying to sway consumers away from beef for years. Now, meat shortages caused by Covid-19 pandemic are making their job easier. Faux meat producers have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as supplies of beef tighten in the US. Wendy’s Co. has been running out of hamburgers at some locations, while Kroger Co. and Costco Wholesale Corp. ...

Bloomberg Euro-area finance ministers agreed to allow the region’s bailout fund to extend credit lines to each of the bloc’s governments on concessionary terms, paving the way for countries including Italy to draw cheap liquidity amid an unprecedented spending spree. The deal struck at a video conference on Friday forms a key part of the bloc’s response to the crisis ...

Bloomberg The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that the global economic outlook has worsened since its latest forecast three weeks ago and the world can expect more waves of financial-market turbulence. Developing nations’ external financing needs probably will be far above the $2.5 trillion that the IMF has previously projected, Chief Economist Gita Gopinath said in a webcast hosted by ...