It’s never good when a CEO has to kick off his company’s year-end earnings report, as Kraft Heinz Co.’s did by saying: “While our 2019 results were disappointing …” Disappointing is putting it mildly, though. Try miserable. To recap: It was one year ago this month that the packaged-food manufacturer suffered a $15.4 billion writedown because of damage — largely ...

Two months after suffering its worst general election result for 84 years, Britain’s Labour Party continues to pick up the pieces. While Boris Johnson’s Conservatives govern with an 80-seat majority in the House of Commons, Labour is simultaneously reflecting on its thrashing and electing a successor to outgoing leader Jeremy Corbyn. This week saw the publication by Lord Ashcroft — ...

Bloomberg Investors who poured money into bond funds last year are showing little sign of stopping in 2020, adding more downward pressure to yields. Inflow to fixed-income assets nearly doubled last year to $1 trillion, according to data from Morningstar Inc. With fears about the coronavirus outbreak dimming growth prospects for the global economy and prompting a search for haven ...

Bloomberg Ether has more than doubled this year, but technical indicators are starting to flash worrying signals for the second-biggest cryptocurrency. Based on the GTI Global Strength Indicator, which measures upward and downward movements of successive closing prices, the coin is at its most overbought level since May 2019. An asset is considered overbought if the indicator exceeds 70 and ...

Bloomberg The broad policy direction for many of the world’s central banks and governments now hinges on one question: how will the Chinese government respond to the economic shock caused by the coronavirus? The Communist Party’s elite Politburo has urged the nation to meet its economic targets this year, an imperative that could shake the government’s recent reluctance to fire ...

Bloomberg Switzerland’s biggest bank wants its airplanes back. For several months, UBS Group AG has sought to reverse a Moscow court decision allowing the seizure of two Bombardier Challenger 650 jets leased to brothers Dmitry and Alexey Ananiev, the former co-owners of Promsvyazbank PJSC. UBS faces powerful opponents: the Russian central bank, which spent 113.4 billion rubles ($1.8 billion) in ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG may have defused a potential land mine in its still-fragile turnaround. A once-treacherous decision about whether to retire one of the bank’s riskiest bonds in April has almost become a nonevent amid signs of progress in the overhaul and overwhelming evidence of the lender’s ability to sell Additional Tier 1 notes in a red-hot market. The ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump’s pick for the Federal Reserve Board, Judy Shelton, came under fire from Republican lawmakers, signalling trouble ahead for her nomination. Speaking to reporters after a Senate Banking Committee hearing on her appointment, Senators Richard Shelby from Alabama, Patrick Toomey from Pennsylvania and John Kennedy from Louisiana all said they had not decided if they would vote ...

Bloomberg The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is in a bind about how to rein in the franc’s unwanted strength without being labelled a currency manipulator by the US. Policy makers, who’ve resorted to tactics including massive foreign exchange interventions over the years, now have a new complication. SNB President Thomas Jordan has to balance the need to protect the economy ...

Bloomberg India’s central bank is reviewing the framework behind monetary policy decision-making as pressure builds on authorities to do more to revive a slowing economy. “Internally we are reviewing, we are analysing how MPC framework has worked” since it’s been in operation, Reserve Bank of India Governor (RBI) Shaktikanta Das told reporters in New Delhi. “If required we will have ...