December, 2019

• 21 December

  Oil pares weekly gain as ‘traders’ eye $60 threshold

  

  Bloomberg Oil erased almost an entire week of advances as chart-watching traders tested a key price barrier. Futures in New York fell 1.2%, a day after closing at a three-month high. Selling accelerated after a foray above $61 a barrel petered out, a bearish technical signal. The next key threshold is at the $60 level, traders said. On the fundamental …

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• 21 December

  267m Facebook users’ IDs, names, phone numbers exposed online

  

  Bloomberg Information on 267 million Facebook users, including user names, phone numbers and Facebook IDs, was exposed online, according to a cybersecurity researcher. The data, mostly from US Facebook users, was posted on a searchable database by a group that appeared to be based in Vietnam, said Bob Diachenko, the cyber threat intelligence director at Security Discovery, a Ukrainian cybersecurity …

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• 21 December

  Ex-HSBC North America executive sued for fraud

  

  Bloomberg The former head of HSBC Holdings Plc’s North American interest rates business was sued for fraud by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Christophe Rivoire helped manipulate the price of an interest rate swap between the bank and a bond issuer, the CFTC said in a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court. The agency claimed the issuer had …

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• 21 December

  Leveraged-loan stress could ripple through economy: BofA CEO

  

  Bloomberg Bank of America Corp, which tops the league table for US leveraged-loan issuance, is watching that market closely for signs of stress. “The real concern is: Is there too much leverage in the system in certain companies, and if they have trouble, will that impact the economy?” Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “We …

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• 21 December

  China adds $280b in open market operations

  

  Bloomberg China’s central bank injected the most liquidity via open-market operations since January, in a push to ensure ample cash supply ahead of seasonal tightness at year-end. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) added 280 billion yuan ($40 billion) into the financial system with 7 and 14-day reverse repurchase agreements , while keeping the interest rates unchanged. That came after …

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• 21 December

  BOE keeps powder dry as Brexit moves to next stage

  

  Bloomberg The Bank of England (BOE) signalled it will focus on the next phase of Brexit negotiations as two policy makers continued to push for an immediate interest-rate cut. Officials said it was too early to tell whether the clearer path for the UK’s departure from European Union (EU) on the back of Boris Johnson’s election win will improve sentiment. …

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• 21 December

  Germany to debut $233b green bonds next year

  Bloomberg Germany will join European peers like France and Poland next year in selling green bonds, tapping rising demand and favourable issuance costs for such debt as it boosts investments to cut carbon pollution. Europe’s benchmark issuer will sell about 10 billion euros of the bonds from mid-year via auctions, “twinning” emissions with regular bonds of the same maturity and …

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• 21 December

  Euro banking union dream rekindles leaders’ animal spirits

  

  Bloomberg With European banking mergers at their lowest on record — and profits slumping — politicians are finally getting more serious about the need for consolidation. German finance minister Olaf Scholz is seeking to persuade European colleagues of the need for a banking union. He called publicly last month for a deposit insurance system that works across the region, a …

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• 21 December

  Facebook pursues music video rights in challenge to YouTube

  

  Bloomberg Facebook Inc is pursuing rights to music videos from major record labels, programming that could boost interest in its Watch video service, according to people familiar with the matter. The company is in the midst of negotiating new licensing deals with the three largest music companies, Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music Group, and has asked for …

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• 21 December

  AirPods, TikTok defined 2019 tech

  

  Bloomberg It’s mid-December, which means it’s time for the staff prognosticators at Bloomberg Technology to sheepishly revisit last year’s predictions while peering ahead with a brash certainty that we haven’t earned. On its surface, 2019 was the difficult year that most of us anticipated. The simmering trade tensions (perhaps diffused by the new phase-one trade agreement) raised the prospect of …

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