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Allergan is a $63 billion Botox job for AbbVie

When the maker of the top-selling arthritis drug says it’s buying a leader in anti-wrinkle treatments, you’d be forgiven if your initial response to the news was that it seems like a match made in heaven. But take a closer look, and AbbVie Inc.’s $63 billion purchase of Botox maker Allergan Plc isn’t such a perfect fit. AbbVie is desperate ...

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Trump’s trade truce shows Huawei was political pawn

President Donald Trump’s decision to restart sales of US technology products to Huawei Technologies Co. may ease tensions with China, and even help end the trade war. Yet as far as deals go, this is set to be one of Trump’s worst. It doesn’t stop the technology cold war underway, and weakens the US stance that Huawei isn’t just a ...

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The internet is everywhere, but internet jobs are not

The internet was supposed to render geography irrelevant. But the corporations that dominate the internet have turned out to be remarkably concentrated, geographically speaking. In internet publishing and web search portals, a somewhat ungainly but very important North American Industry Classification System category, 58 percent of all US jobs in December could be found in just five counties, and more ...

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For China, kicking a $9tn habit is a tough work

So much for deleveraging. China’s biggest shadow lenders are back. On the surface, it may look like regulators have managed to shrink the role of trust companies, after a wide-ranging, mo-nths-long crackdown on China’s financial underbelly. Assets und-er management at these lightly regulated non-bank financial firms – a hybrid of private equity, asset management and lending – posted their first ...

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What social media needs now is more humans

Rare is the week that doesn’t bring some new controversy over someone or something being banned from Twitter or Facebook for being too offensive. As regular readers know, I prefer more speech to less speech, but this column isn’t about what content rules private companies should enforce. Today I’m wearing my fair-process hat. These mighty controversies over kicking users off ...

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US stocks pare gains after record; Treasuries retreat

Bloomberg US stocks rallied to all-time highs after a trade truce with China, though gains eased after measures of manufacturing activity showed growth slowing in the world’s largest economy. Gold, the yen and Treasuries all retreated. The S&P 500 surpassed its intraday record, with chipmakers surging after President Donald Trump agreed to ease a ban on American companies supplying Chinese ...

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Germany’s DAX set to enter bull market

Bloomberg Germany’s DAX Index is starting the second half of the year with a bang as the benchmark is set to enter a bull market. The gauge rose as much as 1.8 percent in the first hour of trading on Monday, bringing the total gain to 22 percent since a closing low on December 27. The guage is up 1.5 ...

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Haven currencies weaken

Bloomberg The dollar fell against the yuan and commodity-related currencies in Asia-Pacific trading on Monday after the US and China backed down from threats to escalate their trade war. Haven currencies weakened. The yen and Swiss franc, which tend to act as refuges in times of market distress, declined against the greenback, while the Australian dollar — a proxy for ...

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Deutsche CEO poised to return lender to its pre-crisis roots

Bloomberg Christian Sewing is preparing to undo over a decade of failed expansion at Deutsche Bank AG. The chief executive officer may slash headcount by more than a fifth — as many as 20,000 positions — in what’s shaping up to be the troubled lender’s biggest makeover in years, two people familiar with the matter said. Some of the heaviest ...

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Singapore to issue new digital banking licenses to non-banks

Bloomberg Singapore will issue as many as five new digital bank licenses to non-bank firms as the island nation seeks to strengthen competition in financial services, according to one of its top regulators. “We welcome firms with innovative value propositions to apply for the new digital bank licenses, even if they have not yet established a track record in banking,” ...

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