December, 2019

• 8 December

  Banks may need political help to survive tech

  

  Bloomberg First there was the financial crisis of 2008. Then years of negative interest rates. Now, banks face what one financial regulator calls the “real game changer.” Jesper Berg, the head of the Financial Supervisory Authority in Denmark, says the next big threat for banks is the rapid spread of big tech into financial services. The competitive tool is personal ...

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• 8 December

  Goldman says case to diversify with gold ‘as strong as ever’

  

  Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc said investors should diversify their long-term bond holdings with gold, citing “fear-driven demand” for the precious metal. “Gold cannot fully replace government bonds in a portfolio, but the case to reallocate a portion of normal bond exposure to gold is as strong as ever,” Goldman analysts including Sabine Schels said. “We still see upside in ...

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• 8 December

  A prolonged rout looms for India’s bonds as RBI pulls support

  

  Bloomberg It’s starting to look like India’s sovereign bond market is on the brink of a prolonged rout. Traders have shied away from the long-end of the curve since July on concern the government will expand record bond sales. Sentiment towards the short-end, which closely tracks policy rates, turned negative after the central bank surprised by holding off on easing. ...

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• 8 December

  Eskom increases power cuts as more plants fail

  

  Bloomberg Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd expanded a schedule of rolling blackouts across South Africa after more of the state-owned utility’s generating units failed, spotlighting the fragility of the power supply system. The struggling state-owned company is cutting 4,000 megawatts from the grid, spokeswoman Dikatso Mothae said by phone. So-called stage-4 loadshedding, the highest degree that has been implemented thus far ...

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• 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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