August, 2019

• 26 August

  The European Union’s next bad idea

  

  If you are searching for the EU’s next bad idea, look no further than the “European Future Fund.” The 100 billion euro ($110 billion) pot, first reported in Politico, would be a way to boost strategic sectors which are seen as lagging behind China and the US. It’s not a formal policy plan, and the details are still scanty. But ...

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• 26 August

  Headed to recession? Keep an eye on business investment

  The growing consensus is that even with all the trade tensions wreaking havoc in markets and global supply chains, as long as consumers stay resilient, the US will probably avoid recession. But a big enough decline in business investment —prompted by trade tensions and global manufacturing weakness — could be enough to create layoffs and dent consumption. So that’s the ...

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• 26 August

  At G7, Donald Trump is one of the popular ones

  Donald Trump is an unpopular president. According to the Real Clear Politics polling average, only 43.3 percent of Americans approve of his performance. FiveThirtyEight, which weights polls by quality, sample size and partisan lean, puts the average at 41.6 percent. But as the president meets with leaders of the other G7 countries in the French resort city of Biarritz, he ...

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• 26 August

  Trump’s trade war could be fuelling Amazon fires

  

  The fires currently consuming Brazil’s Amazon rainforest seem a world away from the tense diplomacy in the US trade war with China. In truth, they’re more closely connected than you might suspect. One of Beijing’s main acts of retaliation in the fight has been to freeze purchases of the 30 million metric tons to 40 million tons of American soybeans ...

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• 26 August

  Things aren’t looking up at Nordstrom

  

  Who knew the work of disciplined inventory and expense management could get Wall Street this excited? Or, at least that’s what I think is driving a surge in shares of Nordstrom Inc., which reported second-quarter earnings. The retailer beat analysts’ earnings per share estimates, an outcome it chalked up to deft expense control. But, to my mind, practically everything else ...

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• 26 August

  Latin America reckons with a fish-farming boom

  

  When he failed to ignite a continental uprising against South America’s 19th-century colonial masters, Simon Bolivar was crestfallen. “He who serves the revolution plows the seas,” he despaired. Happily, Bolivar got it backward. From the Yucatan Peninsula to the Strait of Magellan, aquaculture is revolutionising food production. Plowing the oceans and inland waters, Latin America and the Caribbean expanded more ...

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• 26 August

  US equity futures advance amid twists in trade war

  

  Bloomberg US equity-index futures turned higher along with shares in Europe after a down session in Asia on Monday as investors assessed the latest developments in the Sino-American trade war. The dollar strengthened. Contracts on all three main US equity indexes rose after President Donald Trump said that prospects for a deal with China were better now than at any ...

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• 26 August

  Hong Kong stocks slump, yuan slides to 11-year low

  

  Bloomberg Hong Kong stocks slumped and the yuan weakened to an 11-year low as concern over the US-China trade war spurred risk-off sentiment. The Hang Seng Index closed down 1.9 percentin Hong Kong, after falling as much as 3.6 percent. Meat producer WH Group Ltd, AAC Technologies Holdings Inc and Cnooc Ltd were among the worst performers. The yuan slid ...

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• 26 August

  Germany in uproar as negative rates threaten saving obsession

  

  Bloomberg Most Germans live by the credo that saving is a virtue, but the European Central Bank’s (ECB) negative interest rates risk making a mockery of the national obsession, prompting politicians to seek ways to insulate thrifty citizens and keep the burden on the country’s beleaguered banks. Finance Minister Olaf Scholz says he’ll look into whether it’s possible to prevent ...

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• 26 August

  Pimco sticking with $500b Danish market as returns plunge

  

  Bloomberg Never before have interest rates in the world’s biggest covered-bond market been this low. And rarely has investor demand for the debt been so high. Pacific Investment Management Co. (Pimco) is among investors embracing Danish mortgage-backed covered bonds, even as negative interest rates mean investors face built-in losses on some bonds. Data provided by Danske Bank show issuers are ...

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