February, 2020

• 10 February

  Are there virtues to a stagnant economy?

  

  Grant President Trump some bragging rights. After all, most economic news has recently favoured Trump, including the 225,000 payroll jobs created in January. Naturally, he’s going to take credit if he can. Similarly blessed, a Democratic president would surely do the same. In his State of the Union address last week, Trump gushed self-congratulation. “Incomes are soaring, poverty is plummeting,” ...

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• 10 February

  Coronavirus could be ‘good’ for stocks

  

  It seems inconceivable that the coronavirus outbreak, which killed more than 811 people and shut down two-thirds of China’s economy, could be bullish for stocks. Yet Shenzhen’s private sector-heavy ChiNext Index not only brushed away a selloff, but also hit a three-year high on February 6. The most obvious explanation? This epidemic is giving policymakers the opportunity to correct past ...

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• 10 February

  France’s richest man gets a free lunch from the ECB

  Bernard Arnault, the boss of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, exceeded even his own incredibly low yield expectations in his company’s giant bond sale— which included the biggest corporate issue in euros since 2016. The luxury giant raised 7.5 billion euros ($8.3 billion) and 1.55 billion pounds ($2 billion), over a range of maturities from two to 11 years, ...

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• 10 February

  No, Boeing is not ruining Trump’s 3% growth target

  Boeing deserves blame for many things, but dragging US economic growth below 3% isn’t one of them. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Fox Business that Boeing Co. is a big reason the US won’t see the 3% expansion in gross domestic product that the Trump administration had been predicting for 2020. The Max crisis will shave 50 basis points ...

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• 10 February

  Mumbai shows why India’s cities need more tax revenue

  

  Acute fiscal stress is building in India’s states and municipalities, including the urban authority that manages the richest city, Mumbai. This matters. Local bodies hold the key to lasting solutions for a broader crisis of financial resources. The federal government’s chronic deficits dominate discussions about India’s precarious public finances. It’s time to flip this New Delhi-centric approach. State government accounts ...

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• 10 February

  Half of Twitter’s users are worthless, and that’s good

  

  Allow me to let you in on a little secret: Twitter Inc. isn’t a big user of its own product. That’s right, while the company’s main account @twitter has 57.1 million followers, it follows just one other, which doesn’t make it a very engaged account holder. And its tweet frequency is relatively low — even I have sent more tweets ...

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• 10 February

  Credit Suisse’s giant repair job is only just beginning

  

  In ousting Chief Executive Officer Tidjane Thiam, Credit Suisse Group AG is taking only a first step in rehabilitating its battered reputation. A spying scandal, embarrassing revelations on how the bank is run and a public spat at the top of the company have seriously tarnished a 163-year-old Swiss banking franchise whose clients depend on its discretion. The exit of ...

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• 10 February

  US futures fluctuate, stocks slip on coronavirus worry

  

  Bloomberg US equity futures fluctuated and stocks in Europe and Asia declined on Monday as investors struggled to gauge the economic hit from the spreading coronavirus while preparing for more corporate earnings. Treasuries and European bonds turned higher. Contracts on the three main American equity indexes swung between modest gains and losses. Travel and oil stocks helped pull the Stoxx ...

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• 10 February

  India’s Sensex falls to one-week low

  

  Bloomberg India stocks fell, tracking peers across Asia, as appetite for risk remained subdued in the region. The S&P BSE Sensex declined 0.4% to 40,979.62 in Mumbai, its lowest level since February 4, while the NSE Nifty 50 Index slipped 0.6%. Markets across Asia traded in the red as investors weighed the impact from coronavirus on economic activity. Of the ...

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• 10 February

  Crypto sphere begins to feel ill effects of virus outbreak

  Bloomberg The coronavirus outbreak in Asia is starting to ripple through the cryptocurrency world in some unanticipated ways — the cancellation of conferences and even the shuttering of facilities that process transactions. From the informal MeetUps held during the initial days of Bitcoin to the extravaganzas at the height of the crypto bubble, gatherings have been a key for wooing ...

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