February, 2020

• 4 February

  Asian LNG plunges to record low

  

  Bloomberg Asia’s natural gas price plunged to a record low on concerns the spread of the deadly virus that has stricken China will hurt demand already weakened by an unusually mild winter. The Platts Japan/Korea marker, a benchmark for liquefied natural gas (LNG), tumbled to $3.512 per million British thermal units, half the spot market rate in October when the ...

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• 4 February

  Danish pension fund offers green product

  Bloomberg Denmark’s largest pension fund is offering a new product that gives customers the option of placing retirement savings in climate-focussed investments. PFA’s Climate Plus comprises asset classes from companies working on reducing CO2 emissions, combined with investments in projects such as offshore wind farms and sustainable properties, the fund said. The product, which will be made available to customers ...

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• 4 February

  Alphabet misses analysts’sales targets; YouTube disappoints

  

  Bloomberg Alphabet Inc reported quarterly revenue that missed analysts’ estimates, and new sales numbers on YouTube also disappointed Wall Street, sending the shares down more than 4% in extended trading. Overall revenue, excluding payments to partners, was $37.6 billion in the fourth quarter, less than analysts’ projections of $38.4 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Advertising revenue in the ...

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• 4 February

  Trump administration clears way for new currency tariffs

  

  Bloomberg The Trump administration is going ahead with controversial new rules that would clear the way for the US to start applying punitive tariffs on goods from countries accused of having undervalued currencies, the Commerce Department said. The move would give new muscle to US complaints about currency manipulation that have in the past targeted economies like China and Japan ...

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• 4 February

  Elon Musk starts decade with a $13.5 billion gain

  

  Bloomberg Jeff Bezos is still the world’s richest person by a comfortable margin, thanks to Amazon.com Inc’s January surge that added $9 billion to his net worth. But no one, not even Bezos, is having as good a start to the decade as Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk. On February 3, shares of the electric-vehicle maker surged 20% ...

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• 4 February

  Huawei, ZTE fight to stay off blacklist as US firms fear ban

  

  Bloomberg Huawei Technologies Co and ZTE Corp asked US regulators to keep them off a list of companies deemed national security threats, a label that would bar the Chinese telecommunications equipment makers from selling gear to subsidised US carriers. Mobile broadband providers separately told the Federal Communications Commission that it would be costly for them to replace gear made by ...

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• 4 February

  FB names Dropbox CEO to board

  Bloomberg Dropbox Inc Chief Executive Officer Drew Houston is joining Facebook Inc’s board. Houston, who co-founded file-sharing software company Dropbox in 2007, is a friend of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Houston has in the past turned to Zuckerberg for help running his own company. “He’s given me a lot of advice on company scaling,” Houston told Bloomberg’s Emily Chang in ...

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• 4 February

  Economic cost of EU climate ambition comes under scrutiny

  

  Bloomberg The world’s biggest trading bloc shouldn’t rush into more ambitious climate targets this decade without assessing how lower emissions could impact the economy, according to a top European Union (EU) lawmaker. With the EU preparing to forge its flagship Green Deal into law later this month, European People’s Party Parliamentarian Peter Liese said his party wants to see how ...

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• 4 February

  Pompeo would be smart to rein in his belligerence

  

  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent blowup at NPR host Mary Louise Kelly was not an isolated, out-of-character moment or a particular surprise for those who have worked with him — or been on the receiving end of one of his blasts. Kelly’s radio interview on January 24 was going fine until she pressed Pompeo on whether he owed an ...

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• 4 February

  Carney refuses to play an encore

  

  A UK rate cut was not to be — well not yet anyway. After an entirely sensible decision at his final meeting before bowing out, the Bank of England Governor Mark Carney will hand over the reins to his successor Andrew Bailey in mid-March without any radical change. With such a sharp recovery in a wide range of UK confidence ...

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