With the latest round of trade talks between the US and China ending in a predictable stalemate, one thing has become clear: The Trump administration’s approach to these negotiations has made it all but impossible for Chinese President Xi Jinping to make a deal. Until that changes, there’s no end in sight for the tariff-for-tariff tussle between the two countries, ...

The natural state of a capitalist economy is expansion. Recessions occur when “something breaks” rather than an expansion simply dying of old age. Unfortunately, central banks have a history of pumping the brakes for too long and too hard when attempting to contain growth and inflation and are often the cause of a recession. Given that the Federal Reserve has ...

I feel like I’ve had illnesses that lasted longer than Tesla Inc.’s completely serious process of considering a buyout. Or maybe it just reminded me of being ill: the disorientation, the fever dreams, the sense that, surely, it must all end soon. And end it did, in the most apt way possible: a blog post saying that, after all of ...

Bloomberg Nordea Bank AB has recently lost a number of its top sell-side bankers amid complaints that management’s focus on cutting 6,000 jobs is hurting morale in key parts of the business. Examples of recent departures include the head of fixed income at Nordea Markets, Torben Pedersen. He’s in the process of starting his own hedge fund with Erik Bo ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Thailand is giving the baht — the most-loved emerging-market currency this month — one more reason to keep up its outperformance. Piggybacking on a strong current-account surplus, the baht has braved developing-market doldrums and topped returns among 24 currencies tracked by Bloomberg. It is also the sole gainer in Asia this quarter. As investors await the ...

Bloomberg The People’s Bank of China and Federal Reserve delivered a one-two punch to the dollar, spurring the biggest selloff in a month and raising the specter of further weakness ahead. The PBOC announced that banks would resume using the “counter-cyclical” factor when calculating the yuan’s daily reference rate, restraining the influence of market forces that have been driving the ...

Bloomberg A discussion of competition and “superstar” firms at an exclusive economic policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, threw up a spirited defense of global trade, while central bankers were also warned of the low level of trust they enjoy among the public. “We should think twice about undermining the discipline of openness” and the competition that’s created by global ...

Bloomberg Banks in the UK may face an unexpected hit to their finances from British regulators if there’s no Brexit deal, further quashing hopes that they can carry on with business as usual. The Treasury in London said banks won’t be able to treat debt issued by European Union governments as risk-free once the nation withdraws from the bloc. That ...

Bloomberg Over the past four months, investor optimism that global crude prices will rise has slumped by almost half. Hedge funds’ net-bullish position on Brent crude, a measure of how positive money managers are that prices will gain, has plunged 49 percent since early April as trade wars cloud the picture for oil consumption. Despite a good week for the ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump said the US may be on the verge of a “big Trade Agreement” with Mexico as the Nafta representative of that nation’s president-elect signalled that the thorny issue of rules for the energy industry seems to be resolved. Trump emphasised the collaboration with the current and incoming Mexican administrations. “Our relationship with Mexico is getting closer ...