July, 2019

• 28 July

  HK police fire tear gas at protesters in residential area

  

  Bloomberg Hong Kong demonstrators and police clashed for a second straight day as the city’s China-backed government struggles to quell growing discontent and amid violent clashes that have marred the historic movement in recent weeks. Police fired volleys of tear gas at hundreds of black-shirted protesters on Sunday in Sai Ying Pun, a residential and business area where the Chinese ...

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• 28 July

  Johnson’s no-deal Brexit threat won’t sway EU

  

  “They call him Britain Trump!” Such was the US president’s ungrammatical reaction to Boris Johnson’s nomination as the UK’s new prime minister. “They like me over there…He’ll get it done.” If “it” means channelling the fire and the fury of Trump’s hostile rhetoric, without really guaranteeing much in the way of concrete results, this analysis is eerily accurate. What it ...

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• 28 July

  Citi’s $715b moat dares Wall Street

  

  Supply-chain finance is the secret sauce behind Citigroup Inc.’s mid-20percent return on equity from transaction banking. That might sound counterintuitive, especially in Asia. The export-led region is facing the brunt of supply dislocations as the US-China trade war intensifies. But the skirmish isn’t a showstopper for financing. As production moves from one country to another, transactions that need to be ...

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• 28 July

  Why these chipmakers need their own Opec

  You’ve got to feel for the world’s biggest suppliers of DRAM (dynamic random-access memory).Makers of these chips, which temporarily store information in PCs, smartphones and services, endured years of boom-bust profit swings and bruising competition long before the trade war began. The sector finally consolidated into just three companies holding 95percent of global supply of DRAM. And yet earnings stability ...

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• 28 July

  The Fed is becoming more global than ever

  For all the anxiety about America’s retreat from the world, a vital US institution is becoming more global than ever. While the Federal Reserve’s impulse to juice the economy is laudable, it’s worth asking whether this mission creep is sustainable. Or even desirable, over a long horizon. The Fed, whose policymakers meet this week to set interest rates, lacks a ...

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• 28 July

  US firms are not going to bring Asian factories back

  

  President Donald Trump likes to brag that he’s bringing manufacturing back to the US. And indeed, with global trade slowing, the planet-spanning supply chains that have symbolised modern economic globalisation do appear to be contracting. But don’t be too quick to dismiss the idea of “borderless” production as a 1990s fluke. Even if their reach is more limited than before, ...

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• 28 July

  Nissan is ignoring the rot at home

  

  If you’re looking for a metaphor for how politics has swamped decision-making at Nissan Motor Co., look no further than reported plans to restructure its cratering global business. Nissan doubled its planned job losses to 12,500 and unveiled new production cuts after reporting a 99 percent plunge in fiscal first-quarter operating profit. The Japanese carmaker is considering reducing production in ...

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• 28 July

  Tesla breaks records but does not break even

  

  Tesla Inc.’s earnings calls have lately taken on the trappings of office going-away parties. Just before the Q&A portion of the second-quarter call, CEO Elon Musk announced that JB Straubel, the company’s veteran chief technology officer, would step down to become a senior advisor. This was at least said up front, as opposed to the by-the-way announcement of the CFO’s ...

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• 28 July

  Southwest CEO vexed at 737 Max delays

  

  Bloomberg Southwest Airlines Co is frustrated with the financial beating it’s taking from the grounding of Boeing Co’s 737 Max. But the carrier is ready to grab more of the single-aisle planes that eventually will make up the majority of its fleet. Parking its 34 Max jets since mid-March and missing out on new deliveries has shaved $225 million from ...

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• 28 July

  Tan’s Philippine Air to name new president amid revamp

  

  Bloomberg Philippine Airlines Inc is expected to name a new president on Monday, replacing Jaime Bautista, who abruptly quit the post last month. Gilbert Santa Maria, who was chief operating officer of IBEX Global Solutions Plc, tops the list of nominees, according to two people familiar with the matter, who declined to be identified because the decision has yet to ...

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