January, 2020

• 4 January

  India’s rightward lurch is actually self-defeating

  

  For decades, Indian foreign policy has been moving slowly but methodically in a single direction: towards a greater embrace of the West. The days of non-alignment, when India believed it led the developing world in standing apart from either Cold War bloc, are over. Although successive governments in New Delhi have worked hard to avoid antagonising Beijing, it has been ...

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• 4 January

  UK PM’s $2.6trn bond supremo

  

  Robert Stheeman has been at the helm of the UK Treasury’s Debt Management Office since 2003, overseeing sales of more than $2.6 trillion of Gilts, as Britain’s sovereign bonds are known. He’s the government’s agent in the debt marketplace, the link that smooths communication between the finance ministry and its 15 primary “market-makers”. His job is to keep the UK’s ...

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• 4 January

  How to build a better bank from the scratch

  

  How does an older bank unlock the value of a nimbler, faster-growing division? That was the challenge facing Bruce Van Saun, then CFO at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). He had joined the storied firm in 2009, after their £500 billion bailout of loans and guarantees from the UK government. Within RBS, the Citizens group in the US was ...

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• 4 January

  Why it’s so hard to forecast economy

  The US economy has experienced its slowest recovery from a recession in the post-World War II era, and the longer it lasts the more evidence there is that normal cyclical patterns are missing. And their absence means market participants shouldn’t rely on them to divine the economy’s future. Consider the myriad developments that are atypical, or even the reverse of ...

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• 4 January

  A decade of climate science confirmed what we knew

  

  Over the last decade, scientists learned a great deal about the climate, much of it concerning the connection between global warming and extreme events — heat waves, hurricanes, floods, droughts and wildfires. There has been, for many years, an understanding that a warmer world would be a more temperamental one, and measurements upon measurements show average temperature is rising in ...

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• 4 January

  Aston needs new passengers in 2020

  

  Aston Martin’s parent company hopes to take on some new passengers in 2020. They’ll be clambering aboard the luxury carmaker as it careens headlong towards a decisive fork in the road. The reputation of Chief Executive Officer Andy Palmer depends in large part on bringing the market value of Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings Plc back towards the 4.3 billion ...

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• 4 January

  Carlos Ghosn’s drama is much better than Netflix

  

  The shock arrest and defenestration in 2018 of Carlos Ghosn, a jet-setting polyglot who bestrode the car industry for decades as head of the Renault-Nissan alliance, always had a cinematic quality to it: There was his detention in Japan shortly after disembarking from a private aircraft; the allegations (strenuously denied by Ghosn) of undeclared income and misappropriated funds; the grim ...

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• 4 January

  Tesla deliveries set record

  

  Tesla Inc shares opened at new highs after the electric-car maker reported a new record for quarterly deliveries of 112,000 units in the final three months of 2019. The electric-vehicle maker handed over 92,550 Model 3 and 19,450 Model S and Model X electric vehicles in the fourth quarter, according to a statement, eclipsing its previous total best of 97,000 ...

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• 4 January

  Apple shares top $300 amid optimism about holiday sales

  

  Bloomberg Apple Inc shares surpassed $300 amid predictions for a robust holiday quarter, demand for wearables such as AirPods and planned services including streaming TV. Shares of the iPhone maker rose 2.3% to close at a record $300.35, topping the $300 mark for the first time on a split-adjusted basis. The latest gain was in stark contrast to the dismal ...

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• 4 January

  Amazon, Google to hit CES with digital assistants in tow

  

  Bloomberg The world’s biggest technology companies are heading to Las Vegas for the annual CES trade show next week, with even Apple Inc making a rare official appearance. But don’t expect any breakthrough new hardware. Amazon.com Inc and Google will promote existing digital-assistant technology through their own internet-connected gadgets and similar products made by other firms. There should also be ...

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