Bloomberg JPMorgan Asset Management is preparing for a rough year ahead in financial markets, and is taking to the higher-quality ground of short-dated Treasuries. Escalating trade tensions will likely be “the single most important issue moving global markets” in 2019, as they were in 2018, analysts wrote in a report on the outlook for the coming year. A deeper trade …

Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc is weighing a plan to simplify its structure as the emerging markets lender looks to control costs across its sprawling network from Zambia to Macau, said people familiar with the matter. The London-based bank, which operates in about 60 markets, is exploring how to free up liquidity and reduce funding expenses within its different legal entities, …

Bloomberg Austria’s designated next central bank governor Robert Holzmann should argue for a tighter monetary policy in the European Central Bank’s policy-making body, according to the country’s new central bank vice president. Barbara Kolm, an economist appointed to the institution’s non-policy oversight body by the nationalist Freedom Party, told Austrian daily newspaper Die Presse in an interview that she’s “hoping …