Smoke and ash erupted from the Taal volcano in the Philippines, with the plume rising almost 9 miles into the atmosphere and threatening hundreds of thousands of people. The Philippine government mobilised quickly. By January 15, more than 38,000 people were staying in evacuation centers, and many thousands more had dispersed to family throughout the country. Meanwhile, the government began ...

The anguish is palpable. First, it was the news that India’s nominal gross domestic product is growing at its slowest pace in more than four decades. Now comes the inflation data for December, showing the steepest rise in consumer prices since July 2014. If this is the onset of stagflation, then it will be very hard to beat back the ...

If you need some clarity around social investing, don’t look to the world’s biggest money manager for help. Larry Fink, chief executive officer of BlackRock Inc., threw social investing into the spotlight in his annual letter to America’s CEOs. Climate change is an urgent problem, he said, and BlackRock will make it the center of its investment approach by “making ...

Bloomberg European stocks and US equity futures trimmed most of an earlier decline on Monday as investors awaited a fresh batch of corporate earnings and some key central bank meetings this week. Crude oil rose following supply disruptions in Libya and Iraq. Activity was muted across most major markets because of a US holiday. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index traded ...

Bloomberg The Thai baht was Asia’s best-performing currency by a country mile last year. This year’s winner looks to have been already decided: the Indonesian rupiah. The currency of Southeast Asia’s most populous nation has rallied for seven straight weeks as the bumper yields offered by the nation’s government bonds enticed carry traders and the central bank said it would ...

Bloomberg Even as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) takes a page out of the Federal Reserve’s playbook to push down borrowing costs, yields are headed higher as inflation is unlikely to abate soon, according to Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC Ltd. Inflation will probably remain elevated over the next six to 12 months, according to Maneesh Dangi, who oversees ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG is offering to buy the debt of an Indian power producer at a discount of about 70%, according to people familiar with the matter, the second such proposal from the German lender in recent weeks. It proposed to pay 11.50 billion rupees ($162 million) for 39 billion rupees of loans, excluding accrued interest, to a power ...

Bloomberg Citi Private Bank appointed Christian Schuwey, formerly from UBS Private Bank, as its head of South Asia FX Advisory, according to a company memo seen by Bloomberg. Schuwey, who worked at UBS for more than 30 years in foreign-exchange roles, is based in Singapore, according to the memo. He will drive Citi’s efforts to grow in Southeast Asia, India, ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co is buying the former BNP Paribas SA offices in central Paris with space to house as many as 450 employees, as banks seek to bolster their footprint in the European Union after Brexit. JPMorgan, which currently has 260 employees in the French capital, is taking over the seven-storey building a short walk from the Louvre ...

Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. received approval from the South African Reserve Bank to conduct the business of a bank in the country, it said. It will open the Johannesburg branch of Goldman Sachs International Bank, and has been admitted as a member of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s interest rate and currency derivatives market, it said in a statement on ...