April, 2020

• 22 April

  Coronavirus exposes dangers of age segregation

  

  For most of the nation’s history, the idea that people over the age of 65 would voluntarily herd themselves into special communities built around their needs would have seemed absurd, even dystopian. Yet a largely voluntary movement towards segregating people by age has reached extreme levels in recent years — and without receiving much attention at all. The coronavirus outbreak ...

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• 22 April

  Stocks surge with US equity futures; oil deepens decline

  

  Bloomberg Stocks rose on Wednesday with US equity futures as investors monitored continued volatility in energy markets and earnings reports that haven’t been uniformly negative. Oil prices renewed their slide. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index opened higher, with gains in tech and telecom shares countering declines in energy companies. Stocks slipped in Japan but climbed in most other major Asia ...

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• 22 April

  Top private bank asks wealthy clients to stop binging on India stocks

  

  Bloomberg The top investment adviser to rich Indians is asking its wealthy clients to desist from loading up on equities even as the nation’s stock indexes get back into bull territory. “We are maintaining the view that this is a very uncertain environment, and hence, investors must not make impulsive decisions,” Shobhit Mathur, a director at Kotak Investment Advisors Ltd., ...

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• 22 April

  Banks in China hit by bad loans despite $212b relief

  

  Bloomberg Bad debt at Chinese banks climbed in the first quarter even as lenders deferred payments on and rolled over a combined 1.5 trillion yuan ($212 billion) in loans after the coronavirus outbreak brought the world’s second-largest economy to a standstill. After allowing banks to take a more lenient approach on how they classify bad debt, regulators in Beijing on ...

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• 22 April

  Kotak Bank to sell 65m shares to raise capital

  

  Bloomberg Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. plans to issue as many as 65 million shares in a move that will strengthen its capital buffers and reduce the stake held by its wealthy founder. The Mumbai-based lender didn’t provide details of the pricing of the new shares in its filing on Wednesday. However, under a regulatory formula, they should be priced around ...

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• 22 April

  Land Bank distress adds to pressure on government

  

  Bloomberg The Land and Agricultural Development Bank of South Africa is in talks with lenders after missing a loan payment and triggering an event of default, leaving its government owner liable for about $302 million of guaranteed debt. The state-owned provider of finance to the farming sector is seeking a waiver after failing to pay what it owed under the ...

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• 22 April

  India’s central bank eases up on currency intervention

  

  Bloomberg India’s central bank may be reducing its intervention in the currency markets as volumes improve and volatility eases. The Reserve Bank of India likely sold a net $1.8 billion in the two weeks ended April 10, according to estimates by Bloomberg Economics. That follows likely sales of $7.7 billion in the spot forex market last month, which made the ...

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• 22 April

  UniCredit takes $980m provisions for virus hit

  

  Bloomberg UniCredit SpA became the first big European bank to try to quantify the impact of the coronavirus, setting aside 900 million euros ($977 million) to cover potential loan losses stemming from the outbreak. Italy’s biggest bank said it will book the provisions for possible soured loans after estimating that the pandemic will cause a 13% contraction in the eurozone’s ...

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• 22 April

  European banks brace for storm as Covid-19 hits earnings

  

  Bloomberg European bank stocks are trading close their steepest-ever discount to US rivals and early signals show that first-quarter earnings may only reinforce the gap. The continent’s lenders, already in a tough spot before the coronavirus outbreak hit, are likely to detail more worrying news for their embattled investors. In Germany, Deutsche Bank AG may have seen credit trading weigh ...

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• 22 April

  Cash-strapped airlines ignore India’s order to not sell tickets

  

  Bloomberg India ordered airlines this week to stop selling tickets. Hardly any listened. Four of the country’s top six airlines, which together control 80% of the local market, are selling domestic flight tickets for as soon as the third week of May, searches on their websites showed. That’s despite the government saying no decision has been made on allowing flights ...

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