International News

Bloomberg The first week of the new year brought a slew of bleak reports for the UK economy, highlighting the scale of the challenges to come as Britain prepares to leave the European Union. Data showed the housing market had its worst 12 months since 2013 last year, consumers remained reticent about borrowing and a gauge of services, the largest ...

Bloomberg PG&E Corp is considering filing for bankruptcy protection within weeks as a way of organising billions of dollars in potential liabilities tied to deadly wildfires that ravaged parts of California in 2017 and 2018, according to people familiar with the situation. The California utility giant may decide to file by February, said the people, asking not to be identified ...

Bloomberg Another year, another increase to your monthly pay-TV bill. Giants including Comcast Corp, Dish Network Corp and AT&T Inc’s DirecTV plan to raise rates again in the new year, a move that could boost revenue but risks alienating subscribers who have been ditching their traditional TV subscriptions in record numbers. Cable and satellite providers are hoping to squeeze more ...

Bloomberg China has sought talks with India to allay concerns on a regional free trade pact it is spearheading, two people familiar with the matter said, as Beijing seeks newer markets amid the ongoing trade war with the US. The 16-country Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has been in the works for a while and China is keen to conclude ...

Bloomberg Tropical Cyclone Penny slammed into the far north coast of Australia’s Queensland state near Rio Tinto Group’s Weipa bauxite mine, triggering warnings of flash flooding and damaging winds. The category 1 cyclone, with wind gusts of up to 100 kilometers per hour, is expected to weaken into a tropical low later Tuesday evening as it crosses Cape York Peninsula, ...

Bloomberg Even after a plunge last month that wiped $46 billion off Chinese health-care stocks, domestic drugmakers may be far from their floor as a Beijing-led policy shift gathers pace. China’s plan to drive down generic drug prices through a centralised bulk procurement programme is set to redraw the industry by forcing its thousands of small generic drugmakers to streamline ...

Bloomberg Coal’s three-year run of blistering gains in Europe is set to end, clobbered by a combination of weakening demand and energy polices aimed at phasing out the dirtiest fossil fuel. After prices more than doubled since 2016 as Asian importers drove demand, coal is expected to fall more than 10 percent to $76.50 a tonne this year in Europe, ...

Bloomberg UK manufacturing growth unexpectedly improved to a six-month high in December 2018, as companies built up inventories and boosted new orders in preparation for a potentially disruptive Brexit. IHS Markit’s Purchasing Managers Index for the industry rose to 54.2, more than the 52.5 expected by economists. Still, the average reading for the final three months of 2018 was the ...

Bloomberg Canadians enter 2019 far less optimistic about the economy than a year earlier. The Bloomberg Nanos Canadian Confidence Index, based on weekly telephone polling, ended 2018 at 55.1, down from 62.2 at the close of 2017. The change was driven more by Canadians’ views of the overall outlook than of their own finances — 39.6 percent expect the domestic ...

Bloomberg Five Federal Reserve indexes of regional manufacturing all slumped in December 2018, the first time they’ve fallen in unison since May 2016 and the latest evidence that a pillar of the US economy has started to wobble heading into 2019. The Dallas Fed’s factory index unexpectedly contracted, falling to a two-year low of minus 5.1 from 17.6 in November, ...