December, 2019

• 8 December

  Poland’s chaebol spooks investors

  Bloomberg Minority investors in Poland’s state-run companies fled on concerns that a surprise $753 million bid by the country’s top oil refiner to buy a power producer may herald more government efforts to build “cross-industry” national champions. The risk is that some of the biggest companies listed in Warsaw — the worst-performing primary equity index in the world — are ...

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• 8 December

  Rolls-Royce goes nuke way

  Bloomberg Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc is pitching nuclear reactors as the most effective way of powering the production of carbon-neutral synthetic aviation fuel without draining electricity grids. Drawing on technology developed for nuclear-powered submarines, the small modular reactors or SMRs could be located at individual plants.

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• 8 December

  Tehran is waging a global campaign of suppression

  

  As Iran guns down protesters at home, it’s also waging a global campaign of suppression against dissidents in the United States and other countries. Iran’s attacks on critics abroad have been brazen. In recent months, anti-regime activists have been kidnapped, murdered and harassed, according to news reports and interviews with activists. The FBI and security agencies in Europe are monitoring ...

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• 8 December

  Fed attempts to deflate credit bubble

  

  This time a year ago, the federal funds target rate was 2.25% and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was intent on raising it to 3% while continuing to shrink the size of the central bank’s balance sheet. The massive disruption in the credit markets that followed not only thwarted his aims and catalszed the “Powell Pivot,” but continues to dictate ...

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• 8 December

  Markets are putting a price on climate risks

  Climate specialists have warned for years about a “carbon bubble” in which markets ignore or massively undervalue the risks to companies from climate change. Two new studies suggest, however, that financial markets have started seriously pricing carbon risk, especially since the Paris Agreement of 2015. Whatever its other effects, that agreement may thus go down in history as the beginning ...

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• 8 December

  India’s central bank just did something crazy

  The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is ending the year as it began: with a shock. Policymakers held their benchmark interest rate at 5.15% on December 5. Not a single economist among the 43 surveyed by Bloomberg News predicted this outcome. Central banks generally hate giving surprises. It makes people wonder what officials know that they don’t, and tends to sap ...

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• 8 December

  Wait until Trump hears about carbon border tax

  

  Next week, the European Union’s leaders will commit to cutting net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. This historic pledge will require the continent to radically overhaul its entire economy, including a revolution in the production of steel, cement and chemicals — whose carbon emissions are particularly difficult to abate. None of this will happen, however, unless European companies ...

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• 8 December

  Making rides safer is going to cost you

  

  Your mother probably told you never to get in a car with a stranger. The multibillion-dollar global ride-hailing industry depends on your ignoring her. If they want to earn that trust, though, companies need to rethink the tradeoff they’ve long made between safety and cost. Around the world, passengers are now hailing more than 10.5 billion rides a year. Not ...

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• 8 December

  Immigrants are burning Canada short sellers

  

  Canada has been a primary target for short sellers since 2013. The principal reasons are the country’s very expensive housing, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver, and consumer debt levels that are among the highest in the world. Canada also has an expansive private mortgage market that supplies credit when banks won’t. It is hard to argue with the vulnerabilities. And ...

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• 8 December

  UK election outcome could impact the stock market

  

  Bloomberg Anything is still possible for next week’s UK election, but one outcome would suit many stock investors better than most. “For equities, the best result is a decent Conservative majority,” said Kim Catechis, head of investment strategy at Martin Currie, an affiliate of Legg Mason Inc., managing about $17 billion. A decisive victory for Boris Johnson would see domestic ...

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