Bloomberg Peugeot maker PSA Group’s profit margin widened to a record in the first half of the year as the French carmaker cut costs and used the sale of more expensive models as antidotes to the deepening slump in the global auto industry. The company that also makes Citroen cars reported a first-half recurring operating margin of 8.7 percent at ...

Bloomberg Amazon.com, landlords who charge sky-high rents, brands that fail to adapt. The carnage in the retail industry has been blamed on all of them. Now Wall Street is being blamed too. Over the past decade, 597,000 US employees working for retailers owned by private equity (PE) firms and hedge funds have lost their jobs, while the sector as a ...

Bloomberg China accused the US of undermining global stability, as the country released its first defense white paper since Chinese President Xi Jinping initiated a sweeping military overhaul in 2015. The paper titled “China’s National Defense in the New Era” — in a reference to a key Xi slogan — said that the US had provoked competition among major countries. ...

Bloomberg The chaos in Libya, where strongman Khalifa Haftar has vowed to capture the capital from the internationally recognised government, is threatening to further destabilise its West African neighbours, Niger’s interior minister said. Several countries in the Sahel, a semi-arid region on the southern fringe of the Sahara desert, are already struggling to cope with extremist violence and a surge ...

Bloomberg Russian police detained opposition leader Alexei Navalny as a standoff intensified over the authorities’ decision to bar prominent anti-government candidates from September elections in Moscow. Navalny has called for another major rally in front of the mayor’s office after he addressed the biggest protest in three years in the Russian capital on July 20, attended by more than 20,000 ...

Bloomberg Germany’s new defense minister said the country must boost defense spending and overhaul its military equipment, risking a fresh conflict in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s teetering coalition government. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Merkel’s heir-apparent as leader of the Christian Democratic Union, said after her swearing-in that she’ll insist on “reliable and continuous increases,” and that Germany will achieve a NATO-endorsed goal of ...

Bloomberg Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini had everyone worried he would force the collapse of Italy’s government. Now he’s won concessions that have appeased him, at least for the moment. Premier Giuseppe Conte handed Salvini a victory with support for a high-speed Alpine rail link with France, a project the rightist League chief has championed in a long-running clash with ...

Bloomberg US stocks were mixed as investors mulled weak economic data and mixed corporate results, including an unexpected quarterly loss for Boeing. Treasuries advanced along with bonds in Europe. In addition to Boeing, Caterpillar weighed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average after the equipment maker projected earnings at the low end of forecasts. UPS helped to keep the S&P 500 ...

Bloomberg Health-insurance stocks sank across the board after Anthem Inc became the third insurer to report it is paying out a higher percentage of the premiums it takes in to cover patients’ medical claims. Investors watch the so-called medical-loss ratio reported by health insurers closely. The number is a key measure of the companies’ financial health; when the ratio goes ...

Bloomberg Just a few weeks into Deutsche Bank AG’s biggest restructuring yet, the complications are already starting. Germany’s largest lender posted the worst second-quarter trading result of the big Wall Street banks. The bottom line was below expectations after a $3.8 billion restructuring charge. In an interview with Bloomberg Television, finance chief James von Moltke signaled that some turnaround targets ...