Bloomberg Prime Minister Scott Morrison is vowing to put the Pacific islands at the center of Australia’s strategic outlook, amid concerns its influence in the region is waning as China increases its diplomatic and economic presence. The pivot towards the region will see the Australian Defence Force create a Pacific Mobile Training Team to undertake more engagem- ent with other ...

Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Theresa May is preparing to ask the cabinet to approve a draft Brexit deal potentially within days, if she can overcome new resistance to her strategy from euroskeptic Tories in her team. During a cabinet meeting in London, ministers including the pro-Brexit campaigner Michael Gove demanded to see the full government legal advice underpinning a plan ...

Bloomberg US equity futures jumped, the dollar dropped and Treasuries climbed as investors seemed to cheer on an outlook for political gridlock in the wake of the American midterm elections. Risky assets were in favour after results showed Democrats winning control of the House of Representatives and Republicans holding on to the Senate. The outcome dims chances for any more ...

Bloomberg The crowd has yet to disperse. At the end of the worst month in seven years, hedge funds showed few signs they’ve soured on the technology and consumer stocks at the heart of the sell-off. The opposite, in fact: Goldman Sachs data show those groups were the most heavily bought in the last five days of October. Client notes ...

Bloomberg SoftBank Group Corp. is seeking to raise a record 2 trillion yen ($18 billion) from Japanese individuals in the initial public offering (IPO) of its mobile phone unit, targeting investors who often get no interest on their savings, said people familiar with the matter. Nomura Holdings Inc., a joint global coordinator, will sell the biggest part of the shares ...

Bloomberg The ability to communicate, shop online, order rides, read books, play games, get food delivery and pay for anything within a single, unified smartphone app is Asia’s defining innovation, technology leaders said at Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum in Singapore. WeChat, Grab and Go-Jek are prime examples of a breed of software called the Super App. In the US and ...

Bloomberg A Chinese government official has sounded the most direct warning yet about the nation’s slumping car industry. China’s vehicle sales will come in under 30 million units this year and may even fall below the number in 2017, Wu Wei, a divisional director under China’s top economic planning body, said on Wednesday. Companies shouldn’t expand production capacity blindly, and ...

Bloomberg A network of private railroads more than three times the length of the New York subway system is the key lifeline for Australia’s A$61.3 billion ($44.5 billion) iron ore export industry. So when there’s a derailment in the biggest shipper — global markets, as well as the ground, shudder. A runaway train that derailed this week after traveling 92 ...

Bloomberg Even before ballots are counted from the elections, some clear winners have emerged, as Google and Facebook Inc. reap windfalls from political advertising after a season of controversy over online political speech. Political ad spending is on course to set a record, exceeding expenditures in the 2016 presidential election year, with a total of perhaps $9 billion. Political ad ...

Bloomberg Dell Technologies Inc. has reached out to investors to determine what it would take to win their support for its plans to return to the public markets, a person familiar with the matter said. Shareholders, including activist investor Carl Icahn, have balked at the terms of Dell’s proposed deal to take the technology giant public through a $21.7 billion ...