Bloomberg Shares of German shipping line Hapag-Lloyd AG plunged as much as 22 percent after the company cut its profit forecast for the year, as overcapacity in the industry combined with rising fuel costs to put a squeeze on profit. Danish rival A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S also fell on Hapag-Lloyd’s surprise profit warning. Container-shipping capacity has been growing faster than trade ...

Bloomberg The UK construction industry fared far better than previously thought during a snow-blighted first quarter, giving an unexpected boost to the economy. Building output fell 0.8 percent from the fourth quarter instead of the 2.7 percent drop estimated last month, the Office for National Statistics said. Overall economic growth was revised to 0.2 percent from 0.1 percent. Separate figures ...

Bloomberg German unemployment fell for the 12th consecutive month in June, suggesting that companies in Europe’s largest economy are relatively optimistic that the current slowdown won’t worsen. The number of people out of work declined by a seasonally adjusted 15,000 to 2.342 million, the Federal Labor Agency in Nuremberg said. Economists in a Bloomberg survey had predicted a drop of ...

Bloomberg In imposing sweeping tariffs, President Donald Trump is betting he can give domestic companies a boost while beating back foreign competitors. The problem is figuring out which one is which. About 40 percent of the cars and trucks that General Motors Co. sells in the US this year, for example, will be imported, according to researcher LMC Automotive. The ...

Bloomberg Mexicans head to ballot stations on Sunday to elect a president and they’re set to hand power to a left-wing leader for the first time in decades, in a revolt against entrenched corruption, crime and poverty. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador appears headed for a landslide win that could also give him majorities in both houses of Congress — a ...

Bloomberg The party of ousted Malaysian PM Najib Razak has chosen his ex-deputy, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, as its new president to lead reform after a shock election loss in May ended its six-decade rule. Zahid won with at least 78 votes in the first open contest for the presidency of United Malays National Organisation, Secretary-General Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor told ...

Bloomberg German Chancellor Angela Merkel is about to find out whether party rebels against her migration policy are ready to back off or will push ahead with a political crisis that could deprive her of a parliamentary majority. After weeks of tension stoked by a Bavarian regional party that’s threatening to send back more asylum seekers at the border, its ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump spent June 30 engaged in a deep dive into the backgrounds of the top prospects to fill an opening on the US Supreme Court but hasn’t begun interviews with the finalists. Trump is at his Bedminster, New Jersey, private golf club. He’s been studying the rulings, judicial philosophies and temperaments of his short list, said an ...

Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Theresa May is under mounting pressure as she prepares for a crunch meeting this week aimed at ending the war inside her cabinet over Brexit. May, facing criticism from both the pro- and anti-Brexit wings of her ruling Conservative party, is planning talks with ministers at her countryside retreat on July 6 to thrash out an ...

Virtually all economists favour free trade. But we differ as to what the costs of trade restrictions might be. The decision of Harley-Davidson Inc. to shift more production overseas to Europe to avoid the impact of new tariffs presents a good opportunity to assess those costs – and the good news is that, so far, the economic costs of a ...