Bloomberg President Donald Trump declared that talks with China on the first phase of a trade deal were near completion after negotiators from both sides spoke by phone, signaling progress on an accord in the works for nearly two years. “We’re in the final throes of a very important deal,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “It’s going very …

Bloomberg Oil sank as production hit a record high and refinery demand slipped, pushing stockpiles higher across US. Futures fell as much as 0.8% in New York after Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that the US commercial crude inventories rose 1.57 million barrels last week and output hit 12.9 million barrels a day. The EIA report also showed gasoline inventories rose …

HANOI / WAM Vietnam attracted $31.8 billion in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), in the first eleven months of 2019, up 3 percent year-on-year, according to the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA), under the Ministry of Planning and Investment. Of the figure, $14.68 billion was poured into 3,478 new projects, up 28 percent for the number of projects but down 7 percent …

GENEVA / WAM More than $500 billion a year needs to be invested if countries are to meet a basic set of social protection measures – known as a social protection floor – by 2030, says a new ILO report. According to report, measuring financing gaps in social protection for achieving SDG target 1.3: Global estimates and strategies for developing …

Bloomberg US equity futures edged up while stocks climbed globally as the risk-on mood that’s driven American benchmarks to record highs showed few signs of abating. The dollar gained and Treasury yields rose after data on economic growth and claims for unemployment beat analysts’ expectations. Contracts on the S&P 500 trimmed some of its advance as farm-equipment maker Deere & …

Bloomberg A third Hong Kong stock in less than a week lost most of its value in a sudden one-day plunge, underscoring concern that the $5.2 trillion market has become a breeding ground for wild volatility. China First Capital Group, an investment company that focusses on financial and education services, plunged as much as 78% on Wednesday before trading was …

Bloomberg Federal Reserve governor Lael Brainard painted a mostly positive picture of the near-term outlook for the US economy while advocating longer-term changes in the conduct of monetary policy in an era of low interest rates and subdued inflation. “There are good reasons to expect the economy to grow at a pace modestly above potential over the next year or …

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG sold another chunk of unwanted assets to Goldman Sachs Group Inc as part of a radical restructuring that’s seeing the German firm exit businesses where it’s been unable to compete. The nation’s largest lender recently sold securities with a notional value of about 40 billion pounds ($51 billion) to the US bank, people briefed on the …

Bloomberg Citigroup Inc was fined 44 million pounds ($57 million) by the Bank of England (BOE) for years of inaccurate reporting to regulators about the lender’s capital and liquidity levels. Applying its largest fine ever, the central bank’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) said that between June 2014 and December 2018, three UK units of the Wall Street bank had significant …

Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc reckons Germany should embrace “a large fiscal expansion” but probably won’t; China should deploy just enough to avert “a sharp slowdown”; and “potential meaningful implications” for budget policy are another reason to watch the US presidential election. In its ‘Top of Mind’ report, Goldman explores the fiscal front given monetary policy is nearly exhausted in …