December, 2019

• 30 December

  Taiwan dollar erases gains, remains off-limits to traders

  

  Bloomberg The Taiwan dollar has erased gains with remarkable regularity in afternoon trading over the past weeks, but the predictable moves remain off-limits to traders. The local currency rose as much as 0.6% on Monday before ending the session up 0.2% at 30.135 versus the greenback. Recent late-session paring had spurred speculation that the central bank is taking a more ...

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• 30 December

  Italy’s Monte Paschi cuts bad-loan pile with $2b sale

  

  Bloomberg Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA sold about 1.8 billion euros ($2 billion) of troubled loans, reaching its goal for reducing risk two years early. About 1.6 billion euros of unsecured non-performing loans were sold to Illimity Bank SpA, Monte Paschi said in a statement on Monday. Separately, it sold 0.2 billion euros of unlikely to pay loans, ...

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• 30 December

  Probe sought over Korea’s hedge fund

  Bloomberg Lime Asset Management Co, the firm at the centre of a scandal that sparked unprecedented withdrawals from South Korean hedge funds, now faces an investigation into its investment in a troubled US fund. A senior official at the Financial Supervisory Service said South Korea’s top financial watchdog will ask prosecutors to probe Lime’s investment in funds run by International ...

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• 30 December

  The China bonds investors hate to love are top pick for 2020

  

  Bloomberg China’s local government financing vehicles are seen as the top investment among the nation’s corporate bonds next year as state backing limits the risk of default, a survey showed. Local governments’ financing vehicles, which now have 8.4 trillion yuan ($1.2 trillion) outstanding, have long had a shadow over them because many lack sustainable revenues to make debt payments, and ...

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• 30 December

  Tesla just delivered its first China-built cars in Shanghai

  

  Bloomberg Tesla Inc delivered its first China-built cars, a milestone for Elon Musk’s company as it accelerates a push in the world’s largest electric-vehicle market. The company handed over the first 15 Model 3 sedans assembled at Tesla’s new multibillion-dollar Shanghai plant — its first outside the US — to company employees at the facility on Monday. More workers will ...

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• 30 December

  Duterte renews attacks on TV network

  

  Bloomberg Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte continued his attacks on a local television network he’s accused in the past of bias, and urged owners of ABS-CBN Corp to sell before its franchise expires in March. In a televised speech delivered in the local language at Davao City on Monday, Duterte suggested the media firm’s franchise renewal is uncertain. He had earlier ...

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• 30 December

  Protests in India risk spooking investors away

  

  Bloomberg Protests against a new citizenship law in India risk making investors wary of doing business in Asia’s third-largest economy. At least 25 people have been killed in nationwide demonstrations against the new rules enacted into law earlier this month. The law bars undocumented Muslims from three neighboring nations seeking Indian citizenship, while allowing people of other faiths to do ...

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• 30 December

  ‘HNA to win ‘war’ against debt problems next year’

  

  Bloomberg HNA Group Co’s chairman predicted 2020 will be “the decisive year to win the war” against the Chinese conglomerate’s long-running liquidity challenges. HNA endured another year of difficulties with liquidity but it’s the group’s “political duty” to overcome the challenge, Chairman Chen Feng said on the company’s WeChat page. Still, the message didn’t specify how HNA would overcome its ...

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• 30 December

  Asia Inc’s debt is rising, but that’s a good thing

  

  Bloomberg The financial gearing of Asia Pacific’s largest companies has risen for a second year following a period of deleveraging, but market participants don’t see cause for alarm. The median total debt-to-total equity for non-financial companies in the MSCI Asia Pacific Index reached about 44% in the first nine months of 2019. That is slightly higher than the 41% seen ...

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• 30 December

  How Americans can break our bitter political impasse

  

  It was a cheering Christmas week to repeat the bromide, “love thy neighbour.” But the unfortunate truth about America these days is that many of us seem to hate our neighbours. We don’t understand how other people can oppose the values we cherish most. Their behaviour is infuriating and, it often seems, unforgivable. How do we escape this bitter impasse? ...

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