Bloomberg British retailers suffered their biggest sales decline since 2008 last month as two snowstorms dubbed the “beasts from the east” kept shoppers at home. Comparable sales in midmarket stores dropped 10.1 percent in March, the second-worst month on record, business advisory firm BDO LLP said in its monthly report. Several days of subzero temperatures and extraordinary snowfall disrupted Britain’s …

Bloomberg The Middle East is emerging as a potential beneficiary of the brewing trade war between the US and China as the Asian nation strikes back with retaliatory tariffs on American petrochemical products. If China goes ahead with its proposal to slap a 25 percent tariff on polyethylene and liquid propane, which were among 106 American goods targeted, buyers in …

Bloomberg Donald Trump’s got the stock market on a string, but investors are less sure of the game he’s playing. The Republican president’s renewed ramblings on trade dominated US equity markets this week, with a tweet-induced swoon on April 6 leaving the S&P 500 Index 1.4 percent lower than where it started on Monday. The gauge swung wildly, notching four …