January, 2020

• 20 January

  Thai tycoons may find Tesco is closed

  

  Bangkok’s billionaires don’t usually have to contend with much resistance as they expand. Tesco Plc’s sale of its Southeast Asian supermarkets may be about to change that. The $32 billion British retailer said in December it was considering selling the group’s stores in Thailand and Malaysia, becoming the latest international grocery giant to bow out of Asia. First-round bids for ...

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• 20 January

  Gold’s rally is helping miners delay inevitable

  Peak gold production is looking a little more distant. Global supply of the yellow metal has been inexorably approaching its high-water mark, as ore is extracted faster than new discoveries are made. Mines have been aging fast. A sustained price rally can change that picture, as investors rekindle their enthusiasm for large-scale exploration and technological innovation. Bullion miners’ margins will ...

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• 20 January

  Should Amazon’s Bezos worry about India?

  Jeff Bezos was in India at an awkward moment. Just before his visit, the country’s antitrust authority ordered a probe into the business practices of its two main American-owned shopping websites. One of them is his. How worried should the Amazon.com Inc. boss be? If the Competition Commission’s released study on e-commerce is any guide, Bezos shouldn’t lose any sleep ...

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• 20 January

  Taal volcano is a test of Philippines’ disaster plan

  

  Smoke and ash erupted from the Taal volcano in the Philippines, with the plume rising almost 9 miles into the atmosphere and threatening hundreds of thousands of people. The Philippine government mobilised quickly. By January 15, more than 38,000 people were staying in evacuation centers, and many thousands more had dispersed to family throughout the country. Meanwhile, the government began ...

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• 20 January

  Can quantitative easing work in India with 7% inflation?

  

  The anguish is palpable. First, it was the news that India’s nominal gross domestic product is growing at its slowest pace in more than four decades. Now comes the inflation data for December, showing the steepest rise in consumer prices since July 2014. If this is the onset of stagflation, then it will be very hard to beat back the ...

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• 20 January

  BlackRock muddies the social-investing waters

  

  If you need some clarity around social investing, don’t look to the world’s biggest money manager for help. Larry Fink, chief executive officer of BlackRock Inc., threw social investing into the spotlight in his annual letter to America’s CEOs. Climate change is an urgent problem, he said, and BlackRock will make it the center of its investment approach by “making ...

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• 20 January

  Europe stocks pare decline with US futures; oil climbs

  

  Bloomberg European stocks and US equity futures trimmed most of an earlier decline on Monday as investors awaited a fresh batch of corporate earnings and some key central bank meetings this week. Crude oil rose following supply disruptions in Libya and Iraq. Activity was muted across most major markets because of a US holiday. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index traded ...

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• 20 January

  Rupiah may take baht crown as Asia’s strongest currency

  

  Bloomberg The Thai baht was Asia’s best-performing currency by a country mile last year. This year’s winner looks to have been already decided: the Indonesian rupiah. The currency of Southeast Asia’s most populous nation has rallied for seven straight weeks as the bumper yields offered by the nation’s government bonds enticed carry traders and the central bank said it would ...

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• 20 January

  India bond yields are headed higher amid inflation worries

  

  Bloomberg Even as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) takes a page out of the Federal Reserve’s playbook to push down borrowing costs, yields are headed higher as inflation is unlikely to abate soon, according to Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC Ltd. Inflation will probably remain elevated over the next six to 12 months, according to Maneesh Dangi, who oversees ...

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• 20 January

  Deutsche Bank bids for another ailing India power project’s debt

  

  Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG is offering to buy the debt of an Indian power producer at a discount of about 70%, according to people familiar with the matter, the second such proposal from the German lender in recent weeks. It proposed to pay 11.50 billion rupees ($162 million) for 39 billion rupees of loans, excluding accrued interest, to a power ...

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