August, 2019

• 5 August

  US stocks stumble, Treasuries gain as yuan breaches ‘7 level’

  

  Bloomberg US equity futures slumped with European stocks on Monday, tracking a sell-off across Asia after China struck back in its trade dispute with America and let its currency weaken through a milestone level. Treasuries led a global bond rally as investors dashed to safer assets. S&P 500 Index futures slumped as much as 1.5 percent, while declines in mining, ...

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• 5 August

  HK stocks match longest losing streak since 1997

  

  Bloomberg Hong Kong equities are rapidly turning into a losing bet as economic woes and escalating street protests hammer sentiment. The MSCI Hong Kong Index closed down 3.2 percent on Monday in a ninth day of declines, matching the longest streak since the 1997 handover. Landlords and retail stocks once again bore the brunt of the selling as protesters sought ...

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• 5 August

  RBA keeps rate-cut on cards to shield Aussie from global easing

  

  Bloomberg Australia’s central bank (RBA) chief Philip Lowe is leaving open the door to further interest-rate cuts in order to prevent a wave of global easing from neutralizing his back-to-back reductions and boosting the currency. The Reserve Bank is set to keep the cash rate at a record-low 1% on Tuesday, traders and economists predict, following June and July’s cuts. ...

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• 5 August

  HSBC ousts Flint, announces new round of job cuts

  

  Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc abruptly ousted its chief executive officer after just 18 months, citing an “increasingly complex” environment, and announced a new round of job cuts. The exit of John Flint, a 51-year-old who started at HSBC as a trainee, highlights tension with Chairman Mark Tucker, known to be a hard-charging executive who was the first outsider to fill ...

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• 5 August

  Romania extends rate pause after EU’s fastest inflation dips

  

  Bloomberg Romania prolonged more than a year of steady interest rates, looking past the European Union’s fastest inflation as the world’s major economies pivot towards looser monetary policy. Following the first cut in US borrowing costs since the financial crisis, the National Bank of Romania left its benchmark rate unchanged at 2.5% on Monday, as predicted by economists in a ...

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• 5 August

  Philippine central bank sees 50bps rate cuts ahead

  

  Bloomberg Philippine central bank Governor Benjamin Diokno said he expects to cut interest rates by another 50 basis points this year, with the timing dependent on economic data. “Until the end of the year, it’s around 50 basis points,” Diokno said on Monday, when asked if he was open to lowering borrowing costs further. “If we do 50 basis points, ...

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• 5 August

  Apple drops Barclays card rewards plan

  Bloomberg Apple Inc. and Barclays Plc have dropped the rewards program from their longtime credit-card partnership in advance of the debut this month of a new Apple Card with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The Apple-branded Barclays card is no longer offering $50 worth of Apple gift cards and providing three points per dollar spent on Apple products to new customers, ...

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• 5 August

  World’s biggest banks hit record low as China pain spreads

  

  Bloomberg Stock investors have never been so downbeat on the world’s biggest banks. China’s “big four” state-owned lenders, which together control more than $14 trillion of assets, tumbled to record-low valuations on Monday amid mounting concern that Beijing will encourage them to bail out smaller peers. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the world’s largest lender by assets, lost ...

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• 5 August

  Amazon presses sellers over ‘pricing’ on Walmart

  

  Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc’s determination to offer shoppers the best deals is prompting merchants selling products on its marketplace to raise their prices on competing websites, a testament to the company’s growing influence over the e-commerce market. Amazon constantly scans rivals’ prices to see if they’re lower. When it discovers a product is cheaper on, say, Walmart.com, Amazon alerts the company ...

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• 5 August

  Dozens of flights cancelled despite Heathrow strike delay

  

  Bloomberg The first part of a two-day strike at London’s Heathrow airport was averted and some flights were reinstated as talks with ground staff continue, while British Airways is also set to hold a new round of negotiations with pilots in a separate pay dispute. The Unite union, which had balloted 4,000 Heathrow ground workers on a strike, suspended its ...

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