Now that US politicians know that Facebook is unable to stop malicious actors from using it to influence public opinion, the social network is doing its best to avoid tougher regulatory treatment. It shouldn’t be able to get off so easily, though: It must admit it’s really a media company and accept legal liability for the material it publishes. As ...

Bloomberg The dollar strengthened and Treasury yields rose after traders added to bets on higher US interest rates, while the S&P 500 Index climbed towards a fresh record. US equities were bolstered by IBM’s forecast for its first sales growth in five years and better-than-estimated earnings at Abbott Laboratories. Oil gained amid signs of declining US stockpiles. The Stoxx Europe ...

Reuters Petrochemical shares dragged down Saudi Arabia’s stock market on Wednesday while Dubai real estate developers were actively traded after two of them reported third-quarter earnings. The Saudi index fell 0.7 percent as 12 of 14 listed petrochemical producers dropped, with Yanbu Petrochemical down 1.9 percent. Most have yet to report third-quarter earnings and will do so in the next ...

Bloomberg Canada’s banking regulator released final rules that will make it tougher for borrowers to take on uninsured mortgages, adding to a growing list of measures to rein in the nation’s housing markets. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions announced measures targeting borrowers in the uninsured mortgage market. A mortgage doesn’t need to be insured if the borrower ...

Bloomberg India’s bonds are poised to rally after a three-month slide as the central bank is set to resume cutting interest rates, according to Canara Robeco Asset Management Co. A 25-basis-point rate cut is a ‘high probability’ for the December policy meeting, says Avnish Jain, head of fixed income at the Indian joint venture of Dutch asset manager Robeco Groep ...

Bloomberg Lloyds Banking Group Plc will be forced to relive a turbulent period in its 252-year history as former executives line up to testify at a London investor trial over its decision to take over the ailing HBOS Plc in 2009 at the height of the global financial crisis. Around 6,000 retail and institutional investors sued the bank for $800 ...

Bloomberg If you’re the chief executive of a Wall Street firm whose fortunes have been tied to fickle trading markets, it helps to have a Plan B. For James Gorman, that’s Morgan Stanley’s wealth-management division, which produced nearly half of the firm’s revenue in the third quarter, the most in six reporting periods. For Lloyd Blankfein at rival Goldman Sachs ...

Bloomberg Axis Bank Ltd., India’s third-largest private-sector bank, slumped the most in two years after profit missed estimates and it forecast higher credit costs. The stock fell as much as 9.4 percent in Mumbai trading, the biggest intraday drop since August 2015, and traded 8.3 percent lower at 470.35 rupees as of 11:46 a.m. local time. The lender reported second-quarter ...

Bloomberg Lendify AB’s name may echo that of music streaming behemoth Spotify but the peer-to-peer lender’s real inspiration is vacation-rental giant Airbnb Inc. With lofty role models such as those, the unprofitable Stockholm-based company is planning a third financing round and has sold more bonds as it targets growing its loan book 40-fold over the next five years. Lendify is ...

Bloomberg Kenya’s central bank is communicating a sense of normalcy and continuity to investors amid uncertainty about the country’s protracted elections, Governor Patrick Njoroge said. Institutions including the nation’s courts show Kenya is a ‘mature’ democracy, Njoroge said. While liquidity in the country’s money markets is tight at the moment, it has “nothing to do with the political circumstances,” he ...