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Brazil may cut GDP forecast amid coronavirus weakness

Bloomberg Brazil’s government is likely to cut its 2.4% growth forecast for the economy in 2020 to take into account the impact of the coronavirus in slowing global activity, a person familiar with the matter said. A lower-than-expected gross domestic product expansion would lead to reduced inflationary pressure, which may open some space for the central bank to cut the ...

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Uber drivers, pizza delivery workers get lift from Vestager

Bloomberg Uber Technologies Inc drivers and takeout delivery workers have a new champion in European Union’s (EU) antitrust chief, who wants to help them fight for better pay and conditions. In an interview with Bloomberg, Margrethe Vestager says she’s looking at ways to help “people who work in a weak negotiating position” amid concerns about the plight of workers in ...

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Google calls off Las Vegas gathering amid outbreak

Bloomberg Google cancelled a major internal gathering over concerns about the spread of coronavirus, the latest in a wave of events and conferences being called off around the world. The internet giant’s sales and marketing event was set to take place in Las Vegas in March, a Google spokesman said. “In light of the evolving coronavirus situation we made the ...

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Trump and Modi bromance won’t do much for democracy

For decades, the relationship between the world’s two largest democracies, the United States and India, has been held together by two things: hope, and shared values. Hope that India’s rise will not be too long delayed, and that the US will welcome it as an exemplary, responsible great power that helps maintain the global liberal order — because of the ...

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Rejiggering won’t solve Boeing’s woes

When Boeing Co. CEO David Calhoun was asked last month how he would fix the 737 Max crisis as a long-time insider, he bristled at the label, telling reporters, “I watched the same movie you did.” Calhoun, of course, was hardly just an observer, or shouldn’t have been: He has been a director at the company since 2009. A pair ...

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Home Depot delivers but can’t get comfortable

Who would have thought power tools and patio sets would be big holiday-season winners? After big-box retailers such as Walmart Inc. and even superstar Target Corp. came up short during the 2019 holiday shopping sprint, Home Depot Inc. rebounded with a better-than-expected fourth quarter. Same-store sales rose 5.2%, ahead of consensus expectations of a 4.7% gain. The gains indicate the ...

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Coronavirus freaked markets, not the Fed

The US equity market finally is taking notice of the coronavirus, which now is spreading from China to other countries and increasing the risk of a shock that could cause a US recession. So what are the implications for the US economy and the Federal Reserve? Obviously, that is a difficult question to answer because it’s impossible to anticipate what ...

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Coronavirus may be worse than a natural disaster

Everyone is wondering when China will return to work. While it may be tempting to consider past epidemics or labour strikes to gauge how quickly that could happen, the industrial shutdown from the coronavirus is looking more like a natural disaster than anything else. It may even get worse. Chinese industrial activity remains severely depressed. One tracker shows an even ...

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A slimmer Nokia might compete with Huawei

The prospect is tantalising: the Boeing Co. versus Airbus SE battle, but for the 5G era. Nokia Oyj, the Finnish telecommunications equipment firm, is contemplating asset sales and merger options, Bloomberg News reported. That raises the prospect of joining forces with Swedish rival Ericsson AB, thereby creating a European behemoth to compete more effectively with China’s Huawei Technologies Co. A ...

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Central banks seek an edge in a game they can’t win

Monetary-policy specialists are furiously exploring ways to improve central banks’ effectiveness, particularly should economies fall into a recession — a risk heightened by the coronavirus’s cascading economic stop. The underlying policy motivation is the growing recognition that prolonged and excessive reliance on central banks has reduced the power of both conventional and unconventional measures; it has even risked making them ...

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