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Bloomberg The pound’s best rally in eight months against the dollar may be in danger of unraveling as investors brace for the stewards of both monetary and fiscal policy to give sobering messages on the outlook for Britain’s economy. Sterling, still the worst-performing Group-of-10 currency of 2016, got a reprieve in the past two weeks. The gains reflected easing investor ...

Bloomberg Finland had its credit grade cut to AA+ by Fitch Ratings, which cited a limited potential for a pickup in economic growth. “Economic performance remains weak,” Fitch said in a statement Friday announcing the reduction to the second-highest credit grade. Finland had a triple-A rating from Fitch since 1998. The company changed its outlook to negative in March 2015, ...

Bloomberg The bond market’s outlook for inflation is picking up after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s latest expansion of stimulus. A gauge of German inflation expectations climbed to the highest level since January this week. With Brent crude oil rising for a third week, that’s helping boost optimism among investors before data due on March 17 that, according to ...

Bloomberg Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne will give the green light for driverless cars to be tested on U.K. motorways, helping to make the technology available to consumers by the end of the decade. The government also aims to remove regulatory barriers so that driverless cars can be used on British roads within the current parliamentary term, the Treasury ...

TEXAS / Bloomberg President Barack Obama said that smartphones — like the iPhone the FBI is trying to force Apple Inc. to help it hack — can’t be allowed to be “black boxes,” inaccessible to the government. The technology industry, he said, should work with the government instead of leaving the issue to Congress. “You cannot take an absolutist view ...

Bloomberg Peru’s sol surged the most in almost seven years as a rally in emerging-market currencies erased its losses for this year and prompted traders who had wagered on declines to reverse their bets. The sol rose 2.1 percent to 3.354 per dollar at the close of trading in Lima, its biggest one-day advance since May 2009, according to Datatec ...

Ottawa / AFP The Canadian economy lost 2,300 jobs in February, with fresh losses in the oil-producing provinces raising unemployment to 7.3 percent, the highest level seen in three years, official data showed Friday. The results fell short of analysts’ expectations of 10,000 new jobs and unemployment holding steady at 7.2 percent. Although there was a slight increase in the ...

RIO DE JANEIRO / Bloomberg Brazil’s real advanced for the third week, the longest rally since November, amid growing speculation that a change in government would boost local assets. The currency gained 1.1 percent to 3.5856 per dollar, the strongest level on a closing basis since Aug. 28, bringing its weekly advance to 4.7 percent. It’s up 12 percent this ...

BLOOMBERG U.S. gas drillers battered by the lowest prices in 17 years have found another release valve for their output: Canada. Over the past five years, the shale boom that unlocked vast supplies of natural gas across North America has tripled pipeline shipments from the U.S. to Mexico, and spurred the first seaborne exports from the lower 48 states. Now, ...

BEIJING/ Bloomberg China’s industrial production and retail sales both slowed in the first two months of the year, highlighting the pressure leaders will face to meet this year’s annual growth target even as the central bank governor said major stimulus wasn’t needed. Industrial output rose 5.4 percent from a year earlier in January and February, the National Bureau of Statistics ...