September, 2019

• 4 September

  China’s auto stimulus won’t delight gridlocked cities

  Is China’s 14-month car crash at an end? After more than a year of declining sales, the country’s auto industry has relief in sight. Beijing’s ruling State Council told city governments to loosen or cancel restrictions on new car sales designed to limit congestion, as part of a package of measures to get sputtering economic growth back on track. The ...

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• 4 September

  Germany’s obsession with fiscal prudence

  You can have too much of a good thing — even, as Germany proves, financial self-discipline. With the economy on the verge of recession and growth in the wider euro area sputtering out, a strong fiscal stimulus is needed from Berlin. Under conditions like these, fear of public borrowing is the opposite of prudent. The government is running a budget ...

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• 4 September

  Bank mergers are no silver bullet for India

  

  With every passing day, India’s economic indicators are turning a little bleaker. The situation is bad enough to warrant using the word “crisis,” arriving just as the government’s fiscal ammunition is spent. The announcement of 5% GDP growth in the June quarter showed the economy growing at its weakest pace in six years. On Sunday, the top six carmakers reported ...

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• 4 September

  Blackstone Tallgrass bid reminds us why pipelines are unloved

  

  One could almost feel sorry for that decidedly unloved crowd known as pipeline operators. Except they keep finding ways to make it really hard. Tallgrass Energy has received a buyout offer from an investor group led by Blackstone Group. This follows a deal in March in which the group took a controlling stake in Tallgrass. Things haven’t gone well since ...

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• 4 September

  Jack Ma saves us from Elon Musk’s AI dystopia

  

  Tech billionaires Jack Ma and Elon Musk can’t agree whether artificial intelligence (AI) is going to take over the world. Only one of them is what we might think of as a tech guy, and it’s that difference that means the other is likely to be right. Musk, a physicist by training, is a well-known AI radical who sees the ...

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• 4 September

  Stocks rise as risks recede from Hong Kong to Britain

  

  Bloomberg US equity-index futures rallied alongside European and Asian stocks as traders cheered a reduction in political tension from Italy and Britain to Hong Kong. Treasuries and gold retreated, while the dollar slipped. Contracts on the three major American share gauges jumped, signalling stocks will rebound from declines. All industry groups in the Stoxx Europe 600 index advanced, almost erasing ...

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• 4 September

  Pound advances after Johnson’s ‘defeat’ dims no-deal Brexit risk

  

  Bloomberg The pound rallied 1 percent and gilts slid as investors saw a lower risk of a no-deal Brexit following a defeat for the government in parliament. Sterling led gains among Group-of-10 peers and UK stocks also gained as lawmakers were expected to vote on Wednesday to force Prime Minister Boris Johnson to delay Brexit by three months. Johnson retaliated ...

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• 4 September

  Deutsche Bank and UBS CEOs criticise negative rates impact

  

  Bloomberg Europe’s top banking executives ratcheted up criticism of negative interest rates ahead of a key European Central Bank (ECB) meeting, warning of severe consequences to asset prices and the broader economy. Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing warned that more monetary easing by the European Central Bank, as widely expected next week, will have “grave side effects” ...

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• 4 September

  RBS plans to set aside $1.1bn for PPI claims

  

  Bloomberg Two major UK lenders warned that a last-minute rush by compensation-seeking customers will make the most expensive scandal in British banking even costlier. Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc said it plans to set aside as much as 900 million pounds ($1.1 billion) more for claims related to payment protection insurance (PPI) that customers didn’t want or need. The ...

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• 4 September

  Goldman Sachs names Nachmann trading head as Chavez to depart

  

  Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc enlisted another investment banker in the effort to revive its trading unit. Marc Nachmann was named co-head of the firm’s trading division, replacing Marty Chavez, who will leave the firm at the end of this year. Nachmann, a 25-year veteran of the firm, has been co-head of the investment banking business since 2017. David Solomon, ...

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