Classic Layout

China isn’t using yuan to fight tariffs

Since April, the yuan has fallen by almost 8 percent against the US dollar. This has led many analysts and politicians to speculate that China is intentionally trying to devalue its currency to offset the effect of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. It almost certainly isn’t. In theory, the price of the yuan is set by a basket of more than ...

Read More »

GDP isn’t growing fast enough for markets

President Donald Trump promised last week that the second-quarter gross domestic product number would be unthinkable. The number was, instead, what everyone expected, and that could pose a problem. The Commerce Department reported later that the second-quarter GDP rose an annualized 4.1 percent, just slightly less than forecasts for 4.2 percent. The biggest issue is that the number indicates that ...

Read More »

Trump’s petty insult to former intel chiefs

President Trump has threatened to take away the security clearances of former high-ranking intelligence officials who’ve criticized his policies. Intended as punishment for the likes of former FBI director James Comey, former director of national intelligence James Clapper and former CIA and NSA head Michael Hayden, the idea is petty even by this president’s standards. Fortunately, it’s also largely pointless. ...

Read More »

Twitter and Facebook need a bigger cleanup

The plunge of Facebook and Twitter shares in the last two days shows that both companies are hostages to investors’ unrealistic perceptions of how quickly they should grow even as they purge bots and trolls. Moving to eliminate all fake and malicious accounts, as well as making new ones very hard to register, would be scary given these inflated expectations. ...

Read More »

Singapore worst data breach could damage nation’s banks health

Singapore’s banks should watch the fallout from the island’s healthcare-data breach. This could get ugly for them. The National Electronic Health Record project is taking a pause after hackers stole data on 1.5 million patients including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who was “specifically and repeatedly” targeted. Immediate repercussions for banks have already become obvious, with the Monetary Authority of ...

Read More »

BP tiptoes back into a Permian shale foothold

BP Plc’s return to the Permian basin comes via a splashy $10.5 billion deal. But the oil major is trying its utmost not to make waves — and with good reason. BP is buying the Permian position, along with assets in the Eagle Ford and Haynesville basins, from BHP Billiton Ltd. BP left the Permian back in 2010 in the ...

Read More »

Big tech throws money, talent at robots for the home

Bloomberg Science fiction writers and technologists have been predicting the arrival of robot butlers for the better part of a century. So far domestic robots have been relatively pedestrian: robot dogs, vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers. Rosie of “The Jetsons” fame? Not so much. That may be about to change. Behind the scenes, big tech companies are funding secret projects to ...

Read More »

Company that called demise of CD-ROMs moves away from LCDs

Bloomberg Back in 2004, when selling CD-ROMs was still a lucrative business, BenQ Materials Corp. thought it was time to get out. In the years that followed, the technology became less mainstream, overtaken by everything from flash drives to online downloads. Now, the Taiwanese electronics parts maker is doing it again. This time, it’s cutting back on a different cash ...

Read More »

Daimler plans overhaul as new tech upends auto business

Bloomberg Daimler AG will carve itself into three separate units in its biggest overhaul in a decade as the Mercedes-Benz car and truck maker seeks to adapt to the unprecedented shift to self-driving and electric vehicles. The need for change was evident in the German manufacturer’s second-quarter figures that showed another slump in earnings following on from the first three ...

Read More »

Inspections reveal more flaws in jet engines linked to fatality

Bloomberg Flaws in jet engine fan blades like one that cracked and broke loose in April, killing a Southwest Airlines Co. passenger, have been discovered on planes operated by several carriers, and the manufacturer is moving to further tighten inspections. General Electric Co., part of a venture that makes the engines, found a cracked blade during post-accident inspections of another ...

Read More »
Send this to a friend