Bloomberg The Walton family fortune tumbled almost $19 billion after Walmart Inc slashed its profit outlook. Walmart, controlled by the family, fell 11% in New York trading after the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company reported earnings that lagged analysts’ estimates. Soaring inflation heaped pressure on the retailing giant’s profit margins in the first quarter, testing the company’s appetite to raise prices. …

  Bloomberg Investors are piling into cash as the outlook for global growth drops to an all-time low and stagflation worries mount, according to a Bank of America Corp (BofA) fund manager survey that points to continued stock-market declines. Cash levels among investors hit the highest level since September 2001, the report showed, with BofA describing the results as “extremely …

Bloomberg Societe Generale Chief Executive Officer Frederic Oudea said he will leave the lender next year, bringing to a close a 15-year reign that spans the great financial crisis to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Oudea, the longest-serving CEO of a major European bank, told shareholders of his surprise decision not to seek reappointment during SocGen’s annual general meeting in Paris. …

  Bloomberg Australia’s central bank said it considered three options for the size of its first interest-rate increase since 2010, according to minutes of its May 3 policy meeting, when it raised the cash rate by 25 basis points. The board agreed that hiking by 15 basis points, as forecast by most economists, didn’t make sense given policy was very …

  Bloomberg Americans are putting more on their credit cards and taking out fewer mortgages, as they need to increasingly borrow to cover the higher cost of everyday essentials and respond to rising interest rates. A record 537 million credit card accounts were opened in first quarter, a jump of 31 million over the past year, according to the Federal …

  Bloomberg Uruguay’s central bank increased its benchmark interest rate to 9.25% and signalled borrowing costs will keep rising as monetary policy turns contractive to fight inflation. Policy makers raised the key rate by three quarters of a percentage point, and forecast at least two more increases of half a percentage point at its next meetings. The move came on …

  Bloomberg Banco Santander SA has begun the search for a successor to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jose Antonio Alvarez, the bank veteran who stayed on in the top position after the botched appointment of ex-UBS Group AG banker Andrea Orcel. Santander Chairman Ana Botin and the board are seeking internal and external candidates after Alvarez — who has been in …

Bloomberg Chinese stocks closed lower after rallying in the previous session as traders assessed fresh support pledges from Vice Premier Liu He for the battered tech sector. The Hang Seng Tech Index pared earlier declines to end 0.3% lower in Hong Kong. The benchmark Hang Seng Index eked out gains, while China’s CSI 300 Index trimmed losses to 0.4%. Automakers …

  Bloomberg Stocks in Europe struggled to build on a three-day rally as traders assessed hawkish comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and the latest data on inflation and economic activity. The Stoxx Europe 600 index edged lower, with ABN Amro slumping almost 10% after the Dutch lender reported first-quarter results burdened by rising costs. The energy sector outperformed …

Geneva / WAM A worldwide improvement in students’ capacity for problem-solving to the average level of today’s top 10 scoring countries could add an additional $2.54 trillion to the global economy, World Economic Forum (WEF) said in its latest report. The compound effects of the pandemic, pre-existing inequalities, and the rapid technological change of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), mean …