The Covid-19 epidemic has exposed poor leadership and governance worldwide. From Spain to the UK to the US, politicians have waited far too long before taking the dramatic steps needed to protect their citizens. Greece has been one noticeable — and perhaps surprising — exception to this trend. The government imposed severe social distancing measures at a much earlier stage ...

Bloomberg Global stocks began the week on the back foot as investors readied for the start of an earnings season marked by unprecedented uncertainty over the corporate impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Oil pared earlier gains after a historic deal to cut output. Futures on the three main US equity indexes all dropped, while stocks fell in Asia’s main financial ...

Bloomberg Famed investor Mike Novogratz says this is the time for Bitcoin, citing greater adoption around the globe and unprecedented actions by central banks battling the fallout from the spreading coronavirus. “The risk on any store of value, if it’s gold, is that enough people believe in it,” Novogratz said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “It’s still a question of ...

Bloomberg India’s most ambitious attempt to influence how foreigners trade its currency slipped through with little fanfare two weeks ago. On a day when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) executed an emergency rate cut and pledged $50 billion of liquidity, it also opened the way for local banks to trade non-deliverable forwards (NDFs), a currency derivative often blamed as ...

Bloomberg A “new wave of consolidation” among global investment banks could be triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report by Oliver Wyman and Morgan Stanley. Some banks may find their lack of scale and the short term pressure “too acute” to survive the crisis, particularly in Europe where returns are lower compared to bigger, more profitable global ...

Bloomberg The funding needs of governments in sub-Saharan Africa could rise by $75 billion as the coronavirus pandemic hammers their economies, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. If measures such as tax cuts that some governments, including Kenya’s, have already announced are included, the financing gap might end up being higher, they said. A combination of lockdowns to contain the ...

Bloomberg As banks elsewhere scrap or defer dividend payments, investors in Malaysian lenders can still expect their usual cash rewards. Malayan Banking Bhd., the biggest lender by market value, plans to keep its payout ratio of as much as 60% its profit after tax and minority interests, on top of paying a 2019 interim dividend on May 6, its spokesperson ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan (BOJ) cut its assessment of all the country’s regional economies in response to the damage caused to production, consumption and corporate finances by the coronavirus, with new emergency restrictions set to add to the pain. The central bank’s move to lower its views on all nine regions was the first since the global financial crisis, ...

Bloomberg The EU needs “greater action” to combat the coronavirus economic fallout, whether that’s through issuing coronabonds or other measures, ECB Governing Council member Gabriel Makhlouf said in a Business Post interview. The governor of the Central Bank of Ireland also mentioned use of the European Stability Mechanism or “something new that comes out from the European Commission” as possible ...

Bloomberg Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s insistence that America’s major airlines partially repay taxpayer funds aimed at shoring up the industry has set up a clash between the Trump administration and the carriers. At least some of the large carriers are unhappy with the terms — specifically, that large airlines repay 30% of any grant within five years — and are ...