July, 2019

• 30 July

  $1.6tn Amundi fund warns of ticking liquidity bomb

  Bank of England Governor Mark Carney says investment funds that promise to allow customers to withdraw their money on a daily basis are ”built on a lie.” The chief investment officer of Europe’s biggest independent asset manager agrees with him. “There is no point denying we are faced with a looming liquidity mismatch problem,” says Pascal Blanque, who oversees more ...

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• 30 July

  Debt ceiling deal shows both parties love debt

  As you’ve probably heard, House Democrats have cut a two-year budget deal with Senate Republicans and President Donald Trump to suspend the federal debt ceiling and increase federal spending by $320 billion. The debt ceiling is an arbitrary and possibly counterproductive construct, while the spending increases aren’t all that big if you assume that inflation will continue at about 2 ...

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• 30 July

  China to conquer global used-car export market

  

  A Chinese company in Guangzhou recently exported 300 used cars to buyers in Cambodia, Nigeria, Myanmar and Russia. The shipment was a first for China, which till now had restricted large-scale exports of used cars in deference to manufacturers, who feared that poor vehicle quality could damage their reputations. There will be more such shipments — and their impact will ...

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• 30 July

  Protest data breaches threaten Hong Kong’s data-centre hub goal

  

  Hong Kong’s ambitions to be an international data-center hub are a potential casualty of the city’s mass protests. Privacy brea-ches stemming from a summer of clashes between demonstrators and police threaten to erode confidence in the city as a base for foreign companies to set up storage facilities. To alleviate concerns, the government needs to improve security and regulation in ...

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• 30 July

  India’s dollar bond has made too many enemies

  

  An abrupt reshuffle at the top of India’s finance bureaucracy makes it unlikely that country’s inaugural issue of a controversial sovereign bond overseas will happen now. It’s just as well. Borrowing in a foreign currency, possibly dollars, would have set back New Delhi’s attempt to drum up more global interest in rupee debt. An unexpected meeting of minds for-med between ...

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• 30 July

  Citi plans to cut hundreds of trading jobs

  

  Bloomberg Citigroup Inc is preparing to cut hundreds of jobs in its trading division — stark new evidence that an industrywide slump in revenue this year may be more permanent than the tweets and policy moves rattling clients. The New York-based bank plans to slash jobs across its fixed-income and stock-trading operations over the course of 2019, according to people ...

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• 30 July

  Swedish economy shrinks in Q2 in blow to Riksbank

  

  Bloomberg Sweden’s economy unexpectedly shrank in the second quarter, casting further doubts on the Riksbank’s plans to continue to raise rates. Gross domestic product contracted 0.1 percent in the second quarter from the first, according to preliminary numbers from Statistics Sweden. Economists had predicted an expansion of 0.3 percent. Annual growth was 1.4 percent while economists and the Riksbank had ...

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• 30 July

  RBS approaches Whitbread chief for CEO role

  

  Bloomberg Whitbread Plc Chief Executive Officer Alison Brittain has been approached as a candidate to succeed Ross McEwan as boss of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Group Plc, adding to signs the lender is broadening its search as it seeks a new leader. Brittain, who has run the British hotel and restaurant operator for nearly four years, is one of ...

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• 30 July

  Kuroda: ‘More positive’ towards easing as global peers shift

  

  Bloomberg The Bank of Japan said it’s “more positive” about adding monetary stimulus as it eyes a global shift in which the Federal Reserve is set to cut interest rates on Wednesday for the first time since 2008. While Governor Haruhiko Kuroda kept policy unchanged despite trimming inflation forecasts, he added a phrase to the policy statement saying the BOJ ...

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• 30 July

  Lufthansa’s earnings deepen aviation gloom amid fare war

  

  Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG said threats to its financial outlook are mounting after a fare war and stuttering global economy dented second quarter-earnings, adding to the gloom surrounding Europe’s airline industry. Lufthansa warned that the fight for market share means business trends could deteriorate further in the second half, sending the stock down 7.4 percent even as the group stood ...

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