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Tesla isn’t ready to thrive in China’s embrace

The world’s biggest champion of clean-energy vehicles has opened its arms to embattled electric-car maker Tesla Inc. Or so it seems. Beijing is removing caps on foreign ownership of automaker ventures, widening access to its critically important, high-margin car market. The limits will be rescinded over five years, with restrictions on electric cars to go this year. At first blush, ...

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Vietnam stocks might be getting too hot to handle

For investors in Vietnam, discretion is increasingly the better part of valor. You won’t see any sign of caution in the current IPO frenzy, though. Far from slowing down, Southeast Asia’s busiest market for stock offerings over the past year seems to be revving up. GIC Pte, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, is spending about $850 million for a 7.1 percent ...

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Governments should make education a lifelong endeavor

The world’s rich countries face a looming challenge in education: Too many of their citizens lack the skills and credentials needed for the jobs of the future. To keep people productively engaged in work in the coming decades, and to ensure that economies maintain robust growth, governments, educators and employers will need to make lasting investments in a new class ...

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A Google breakup would fit the European Union’s logic

Last week, the European Parliament backed the idea of breaking up Google. It doesn’t have the power to do it, but the legislators’ decision is a notable part of a backlash against the remedial action Google took after the European Commission fined it $2.95 billion for abusing its dominant position in shopping search. That backlash can lead to dire consequences ...

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Unilever’s got ingredients for a shareholder revolt

Just when shoppers are putting more jars of coffee and bottles of shampoo into their baskets, there’s another worry for the big consumer goods groups: they don’t want to pay more for them. Last week both Nestle SA and Unilever NV announced a return to volume growth in the first quarter of their financial years — and pricing that was ...

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The sooner economic policy is fixed the better

Policymakers from some 180 countries wrapped up the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington on Sunday with a warning: Take steps now, while the global economy is still strengthening, to head off escalating risks of instability looming just over the horizon. The message was reminiscent of the “yes, but” theme that dominated the same ...

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Euro bulls feel fatigue as signs of slowing economic growth cloud ECB path

Bloomberg Some euro bulls are wondering if the party is over, for now. The outlook for the past year’s best-performing major currency is being clouded by skepticism the European Central Bank will be able to tighten policy as early as previously thought, given signs of slowing economic growth. OppenheimerFunds Inc.’s multi-asset money manager Alessio de Longis is moving toward a ...

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Deutsche Bank mulls cuts to US cash equities

Bloomberg Barely two weeks into the job, Deutsche Bank AG’s Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing is considering a retreat that could mark the end of the bank’s two-decade quest to compete with Wall Street. Sewing is weighing extensive cuts to the lender’s cash equities business in the US and may announce details as part of a wider restructuring of its ...

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Banks told by EU to solve their $134 trillion Brexit headache

Bloomberg The European Union spurned UK calls for a legislative fix to the threat posed by Brexit to trillions of dollars of financial contracts, telling banks and insurers to solve the problem themselves. Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU’s financial-services policy chief, said the private sector must take the lead in ensuring that existing contracts can continue and not be disrupted when ...

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