News

Bloomberg Initially investors celebrated a robust quarter from Alphabet Inc., driven by strong sales growth. Then they spotted a red flag: rising costs that could crimp margins going forward. The Google division generated most of the quarter’s revenue but paid out 22 percent of its $22.67 billion in sales in so-called traffic acquisition costs or TAC — payments to partners ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump said the US and the UK are working on a potentially “big and exciting” trade deal and the relationship between the two countries is going to be “even better” after Brexit. Trump’s comments, made in tweets late on Monday and on Tuesday, came as UK Trade Secretary Liam Fox was in Washington to pave the way ...

Bloomberg UK factory production reached a two-decade high last quarter as optimism about export orders swelled to the highest since the 1970s. A Confederation of British Industry survey showed the volume of output rapidly grew in the three months to July, with the CBI index reaching its strongest reading since 1995. Factories are “upbeat in their expectations for overall demand ...

Bloomberg General Motors Co.’s strategy of shunning discounted sales to rental-car companies to focus on more profitable deliveries of pickups and SUVs to U.S. consumers is boosting its bottom line. Adjusted earnings of $1.89 per share in the three months ended in June beat analyst estimates of $1.70 a share. The largest U.S. automaker sold a richer mix of sport ...

Bloomberg Michael Kors Holdings Ltd. agreed to buy Jimmy Choo Plc for about 896 million pounds ($1.2 billion), as the maker of handbags popular with the commuter set seeks to restore lost luster. The purchase of Jimmy Choo, Michael Kors’ first deal to expand beyond its own brand name since its initial public offering in 2011, gives the New York ...

Bloomberg India’s ambitious ‘Housing for All’ plan is bumping up against some harsh realities. Prime Minister Narendra Modi set a target in 2015 of building 50 million homes in less than a decade, or about seven million a year. The nation has since added only 180,877 under the scheme, underscoring the challenge in achieving that target. “It was a moon ...

Bloomberg Economists raised their forecasts for China’s economic output after growth in the first half beat estimates. That robust activity is giving policy makers’ room to curb excessive and speculative borrowing. China’s gross domestic product will expand by 6.7 percent from a year ago in the third quarter and 6.6 percent in the fourth quarter, according to the median of ...

Bloomberg The rise of the machines is coming. In technology-proficient Singapore, their integration into the economy could help the domestic growth rate to almost double and significantly lift labor productivity, according to a report by consultancy Accenture. It found that artificial intelligence, once fully adopted, might lift Singapore’s annual growth rate to 5.4 percent in 18 years. That would be ...

BEIJING / Reuters State oil trader Unipec will develop “really strong” ties with China’s independent refiners, said a company executive on Tuesday, even as they present a growing challenge to its parent and Asia’s top refiner, Sinopec Corp. China issued crude oil import quotas to privately run refiners, often called “teapots”, for the first time in 2015, ending decades of ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia raised 17 billion riyals ($4.5 billion) from its first local Islamic bond sale this year as the biggest Arab economy seeks funds to bridge a budget deficit amid low oil prices. The government received investor offers in excess of 51 billion riyals, three times the deal size, according to a statement posted on the Ministry of Finance ...