July, 2019

• 23 July

  ‘Could win Afghan war in a week but for deaths’

  

  Bloomberg President Donald Trump said he could end America’s longest-running war “in a week,” except that it would cost too many lives. Trump complained that the nearly 18-year US campaign in Afghanistan is “ridiculous” in a White House meeting with Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan. He said he could “win” the conflict, in which the US is trying to help ...

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• 23 July

  Boris Johnson wins British PM race

  

  Bloomberg Boris Johnson, the public face of the Brexit campaign, won the contest to succeed Theresa May as British prime minister, taking over a country in crisis and a government on the brink of breaking apart. After a six-week leadership race, which he led from the start, Johnson defeated his rival Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt by a landslide in a ...

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• 23 July

  Romanian premier to run for president

  

  Bloomberg Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila plans to run for president in a move that may cause friction within the ruling coalition as her main ally is also considering his candidacy. The ruling Social Democrats leaders pressed Dancila to join the presidential race as no other candidates were seen standing a chance against incumbent Klaus Iohannis, who’s seeking re-election with ...

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• 23 July

  Kim touts North Korean submarine’s looming deployment

  

  Bloomberg North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspected a new submarine that would soon be deployed to waters between the peninsula and Japan, state media said, a move that comes as his regime tries to step up its ability to launch missiles from subs. There was no indication in the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) report whether the submarine was capable ...

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• 23 July

  US stocks rise on earnings optimism; dollar advances

  

  Bloomberg US stocks rose as investors assessed a batch of strong earnings and signs of progress in trade talks with China. Treasuries fell and the dollar rose. The S&P 500 climbed for a second day, though gains faltered as the index pushed back toward 3,000. Coca-Cola climbed to a record, while Lockheed Martin and United Technologies jumped after the trio ...

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• 23 July

  Pound slips over Johnson’s victory

  

  Bloomberg The pound slipped on concern the UK may leave the European Union without a divorce deal after members of the Conservative party voted for Boris Johnson to be the next prime minister. Sterling fell for a third day after Johnson, who has vowed to march the UK out of the EU with or without a deal by October 31, ...

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• 23 July

  Let’s choose the best person to lead the IMF

  

  Now that Christine Lagarde has announ-ced her resignation as managing director of the International Monetary Fu-nd, German chancellor Angela Merkel says Europeans “again” have a “claim” to fill what is arguably the world’s most important economic job. Merkel is invoking a decades-old political deal, which gives Europe the IMF leadership in return for allowing Americans to run the World Bank. ...

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• 23 July

  Get ready for more Chinese defaults

  

  China’s bond market has been eerily quiet lately. Over the past year, investors in China’s US dollar bonds had gotten used to the idea of defaults. As early as 2015, the government started allowing some state-owned enterprises to renege on their commitments, a painful but welcome step that helps differentiate healthy firms and troubled ones. But there hadn’t been a ...

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• 23 July

  Novartis’s ‘pure pharma’ play works, at least for now

  Slimming down appears to be paying off for Novartis AG. CEO Vas Narasimhan has refocussed the Swiss pharma giant around drugs by selling off eye-care business Alcon and its remaining consumer-health inte- rests. Second-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street expectations and a big guidance boost showed the benefits of the strategy. Shares hit an all-time high in early trading even ...

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• 23 July

  Why the Fed should not deliver a big rate cut

  What’s wrong with a 50 basis-point interest-rate cut? I’m all for central banks doing their utmost to support high, durable and inclusive growth. But this doesn’t mean throwing everything at the wall when the economy is doing relatively well, financial markets are buoyant, and policy ammunition is limited. Growing pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates by 50 ...

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