Bloomberg US President Donald Trump dropped a rhetorical bomb on UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s efforts to get a Brexit agreement through parliament, warning the deal she reached with the EU could jeopardise Britain’s ability to strike a trade pact with the US. “Right now as the deal stands she may not — they may not — be able to ...
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Trump says 10% tariffs could be placed on iPhones
Bloomberg Apple Inc, which has lost a fifth of its value in a tech market rout since October, is poi-sed for another setback after US President Donald Trump suggested that 10 percent tariffs could be placed on mobile phones, like the iPhone, and laptops made in China. The company already is facing reports of suppliers cutting forecasts, signalling the new ...
Read More »Google accused of abusing ‘location-tracking’
Bloomberg Google runs the risk of hefty fines from the European Union’s (EU) beefed-up data-protection watchdogs after consumer groups accused the search-engine giant of abusing tools that track users’ location. Seven European consumer organisations on Tuesday said they would file complaints with their national regulators, who now have powers to levy penalties of as much as 4 percent of a ...
Read More »Uber gets $491k fine over 2016 cyberattack
Bloomberg Uber Technologies Inc, which is already facing a range of legal and regulatory headaches in London, got another on Tuesday after it was fined 385,000 pounds ($491,000) over a cyberattack that compromised the data of millions of customers and tens of thousands of drivers. The Information Commissioner’s Office said that Uber the personal details of about 2.7 million UK ...
Read More »GM plans job cuts, factory closings by 2019-end
Bloomberg General Motors Co will cut more than 14,000 salaried staff and factory workers and close seven factories worldwide by the end of next year, part of a sweeping realignment to prepare for a future of electric and self-driving vehicles. Four factories in the US and one in Canada could be shuttered by the end of 2019 if the automaker ...
Read More »Jobs for youth can add $51bn to UK economy
Bloomberg The UK economy could get a 40 billion-pound ($51 billion) boost every year by creating more jobs for young people. That would be the benefit of reducing the percentage of the young not in employment, education or training to a level similar to Germany, a report by PwC said on Tuesday. The UK ranks 19th among the 35 Organization ...
Read More »Global effort can change China’s economic policies
The behaviour of Chinese officials at last weekend’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Papua New Guinea, reportedly barging into the foreign minister’s office to try to cut mildly critical language on trade from a final communique, seemed intended to signal that China won’t budge an inch on US demands. Commerce Minister Zhong Shan has declared that those who assume ...
Read More »Asia’s liquidity squeeze is the worst
Liquidity is getting tight in Asia. Leave aside Japan, where the printing presses are still pumping out yen. In rest of the region, central banks’ supply of currency plus bank reserves has shrunk 7 percent in real terms since the dollar began surging in April. This is the steepest contraction in base money since the 11 percent fall between January ...
Read More »When going gets tough, traders blame everything
Last week showed you all you need to know about how traders and investors instinctively react when markets get choppy. They’re dazed, confused and quick to cast blame. Consider when the S&P 500 Index capped a two-day decline of 3.5 percent to close near the lowest level since May. “The stock market has a debt problem,†a Bloomberg News article ...
Read More »Italy’s populists aren’t the only ones to blame
The fight between Italy and Brussels over Rome’s budget is blamed widely on Italy’s populist leaders, Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio. The two deputy prime ministers have insisted that Rome should run much higher budget deficits over the next three years, in a bid to fulfill their electoral pledges and kick-start growth. A different government would almost certainly have ...
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