February, 2020

• 24 February

  Togo president wins 4th term in landslide

  

  Bloomberg Togolese president Faure Gnassingbe easily secured a fourth term in a February 22 vote, extending his family’s half century-long rule of the West African nation. Gnassingbe won 72% of the vote, the president of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Tchambakou Ayassor, said on Monday. Opposition candidate Agbeyome Kodjo, a former prime minister, received 18%. Voter turnout was 76% of ...

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• 24 February

  Merkel’s party accelerates leadership race

  

  Bloomberg Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) will accelerate the process of appointing a new leader as the party struggles to emerge from political turmoil. A special party conference will be held to choose a successor to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer on April 25, according to a CDU official. The party chairwoman who shocked Germany’s political establishment this month by abandoning ...

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• 24 February

  Who’s afraid of Bernie Sanders in US elections?

  

  The latest Post-ABC News poll, which shows Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., with a 16-percentage-point lead over his nearest Democratic rival, former vice president Joe Biden, should settle at least one important question. It refutes the notion that most Democrats are focused single-mindedly on defeating President Trump — and that everything else is secondary. It turns out that everything else isn’t ...

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• 24 February

  Resumes, a terrible way to hire people

  

  Employers spend billions annually screening and assessing potential new hires, but they aren’t getting much for their money. As many as 95% of employers admit to hiring the wrong people each year. Worse, more than a third of employers report being unaware of the true costs of bad hires, which can reach as high as five times annual salary costs. ...

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• 24 February

  Markets expect a rate cut the Fed may not deliver

  The minutes of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy meeting show central bankers continue to move closer to explicitly allowing the economy to run hot enough to push the inflation rate above its 2% target for a period of time. The big undecided question is, will the Fed lower interest rates to meet this new objective? While a rate cut looks ...

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• 24 February

  Watch Europe’s weakest lenders get left behind

  The rise of social media has turned the fear of missing out — or FOMO — into a widespread anxiety. Those jitters may now strike parts of Europe’s banking sector with renewed anticipation for a wave of much-needed consolidation. An unsolicited bid by Intesa Sanpaolo SpA for Unione di Banche Italiane SpA triggered hopes of a process that would help ...

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• 24 February

  The City of London can’t be bullied by Brussels

  

  There hasn’t been much balance in the overheated debate around the post-Brexit trade settlement between Britain and the European Union (EU). So it was a welcome surprise to see former Morgan Stanley President Colm Kelleher describe Europe’s capital markets as “not fit for purpose” recently. It’s good to see an acknowledgement that maybe the EU doesn’t hold all the cards ...

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• 24 February

  UBS bankers have a reason to look busy

  

  If you’re a banker sitting somewhat idle at UBS Group AG, you may be feeling vulnerable today. The Swiss giant has picked Ralph Hamers — an outsider credited with making ING Groep NV one of Europe’s most digitally savvy and cost-efficient banks — as its new chief executive officer. That sets a clear strategic direction for UBS. The lender is ...

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• 24 February

  Poverty is all about personal stress, not laziness

  

  The nature of poverty in rich countries has changed. The sort of material deprivation common in developing nations is effectively a thing of the past. But millions of Americans lead precarious lives — always on the verge of getting evicted, not knowing where their next meal will come from, or unsure how they’ll be able to generate an income. This ...

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• 24 February

  US stocks tumble amid China virus concerns; gold rises

  

  Bloomberg US equity futures tumbled alongside stocks in Europe and Asia on Monday as concerns mounted about the ability of authorities to keep the coronavirus from spreading further beyond China. Havens including Treasuries and gold jumped. Contracts on the three main US stock benchmarks were all down more than 2%, with those on the S&P 500 Index pointing to the ...

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