bloomberg Brazil’s central bank said domestic and global uncertainties require further monitoring but could improve conditions for the convergence of inflation toward the target in 2017. Policy makers, led by their President Alexandre Tombini, kept the key rate unchanged at 14.25 percent last week for the fifth straight meeting, matching the median forecast of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Two of …

Bloomberg John Gutfreund, who was proclaimed the “King of Wall Street” in 1985 for harnessing the egos and fiefdoms of Salomon Brothers into one of the most profitable investment-banking firms, only to be deposed after a 1991 trading scandal, has died. He was 86. He died on Wednesday at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York after suffering …

Beijing / AFP China’s consumer inflation jumped to 2.3 percent in February, its highest in nearly two years, official data showed on Thursday, in a positive sign for demand in the world’s second-largest economy. Food prices surged during the annual Lunar New Year holiday, with vegetable prices jumping 30.6 percent year-on. The rise in the consumer price index (CPI) released …