Bloomberg Profit at Volkswagen AG’s namesake brand crumbled 86 percent in the first quarter, highlighting the challenge the carmaker faces in emerging from the nearly nine-month-old emissions cheating scandal. Operating profit at the VW nameplate dropped to 73 million euros ($81 million) from 514 million euros last year, Europe’s biggest carmaker said in a statement. That gave the marque …

  Bloomberg Italy’s unemployment rate rose more than estimated in April amid weakening business and household expectations for recovery in the euro region’s third-biggest economy. Consumer prices on an annual basis fell for a fourth month in a row in May. The jobless rate rose to 11.7 percent from a revised 11.5 percent in March, national statistics agency Istat said …

Frankfurt / AFP Unemployment in Germany fell to its lowest level since East and West Germany reunited after the fall of the Berlin Wall, as Europe’s top economy continues to recover, data showed on Tuesday. The unemployment rate — which measures the jobless total against the working population as a whole — fell to 6.1 percent in May from 6.2 …

  Bloomberg As OPEC ministers gather in Vienna, they may notice more sport utility vehicles on the streets of the Austrian capital than on previous visits. Last year, SUVs outsold any other type of passenger vehicle in Europe for the first time, according to auto industry consultants JATO Dynamics. The trend has continued in 2016, with demand for SUVs such …

  Bloomberg Treasuries have lost their edge over stocks as the U.S. economy expands enough to push the Federal Reserve toward raising interest rates. U.S. government securities stagnated for a second month in May, leaving them little changed for the second quarter. The S&P 500 Index of shares has returned 2.3 percent since the end of March, based on data …

  Bloomberg Chilean retail sales rose at the fastest pace in two-and-a-half years in April as early rains and cold weather encouraged consumers to shop for winter clothes earlier than last year. Sales leaped 7.9 percent from the year earlier, the national statistics agency said on its website, compared with the 4.5 percent median forecast of 13 analysts surveyed by …

  Bloomberg Brazil’s central government posted a higher-than-expected primary fiscal surplus in April due to a seasonal windfall, a week after the government of Acting President Michel Temer obtained permission to close the year with the widest budget gap on record. The surplus before interest payments, which excludes results of states, municipalities and state-owned companies, reached 9.8 billion reais ($2.7 …

  Santiago, Chile / AFP Latin America’s biggest airline LATAM said it will suspend its flights to crisis-hit Venezuela for an indefinite period, following a similar move by German carrier Lufthansa. Chile-based LATAM Airlines group and its Peruvian and Brazilian subsidiaries decided to cut the flights “due to the complex macroeconomic situation that the region is currently going through,” it said …

  Bloomberg Brazil economists raised their forecast for the benchmark interest rate at year-end following inflation surprises that reinforced the challenge facing Brazil’s prospective central bank chief to rein in prices. Economists’ median forecast for the Selic at year-end rose to 12.88 percent from 12.75 percent the prior week, marking the first increase in the weekly Focus survey conducted May …

  Donald Trump gave a well-timed speech on Thursday, laying out his policies on energy. That day, for the first time in six months, oil hit $50 a barrel, and he was in North Dakota, which produces more oil than any other state but Texas. The audience there welcomed his calls for greater production of fossil fuels, an end to …