July, 2019

• 13 July

  Bonds suggest a ceiling for the stock market

  Corporate credit markets have bad news for stock investors. Low yields imply that it’s going to be tough for stocks to rally much further from here. Since equities made what was then an all-time high in January 2018, performance of the stock market has largely tracked the movement of investment-grade corporate bond yields. The rise in yields in 2018 acted ...

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• 13 July

  Donald Trump throws a tax bomb at Macron

  President Donald Trump has been hunting for reasons to extract trade concessions from the European Union with the eagerness of a dog scrabbling around for a bone buried in the back yard. First came Germany’s $24 billion car trade surplus with the US, with Trump coming close to labelling the import of cars made by BMW AG, Mercedes and Volkswagen ...

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• 13 July

  Donald Trump washes his hands of climate change

  

  President Donald Trump has a real thing for cleanliness. As he made clear at an event staged at the White House, this extends far beyond copious use of hand-sanitizer – from sea to sanitary sea, no less. Kicking off his remarks on “America’s Environmental Leadership,” the president spelled out his concerns: From day one, my administration has made it a ...

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• 13 July

  IndiGo can’t fly high with fights in cockpit

  

  The co-founders of India’s No. 1 airline are engaged in a bitter feud. Their quarrel couldn’t have come at a worse time for minority shareholders of InterGlobe Aviation Ltd., the company that owns IndiGo. Investors were just starting to enjoy the fruits of a frenetic expansion that saw the no-frills carrier, Asia’s largest, double its capacity in the three years ...

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• 13 July

  Jerome Powell locked in a July interest-rate cut

  

  Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had a chance to push back against both over-aggressive bond traders and Trump administration officials who were pounding the table for interest-rate cuts. He had the cover of not just a strong rebound in the US labour market but also the backing of regional Fed presidents like Patrick Harker and Loretta Mester, who had already ...

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• 13 July

  Volkswagen, Ford team up on electric, self-driving cars

  

  Bloomberg Volkswagen AG and Ford Motor Co will cooperate on electric and self-driving car technology, sharing costs on a global scale to take a major step forward in the industry’s disruptive transformation. VW will invest $2.6 billion in Ford’s autonomous-car partner Argo AI in a deal that values the operation at more than $7 billion, the two manufacturers said in ...

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• 13 July

  Spotify unveils new app for ‘slow handsets’ in emerging markets

  

  Bloomberg Spotify Technology SA released a new version of its music streaming app for customers in emerging markets, an effort to grow outside of its strongholds in the US and Europe. The Spotify Lite app, which runs on Android phones, will appeal to users who are limited by data plans and slower networks, the company said in a statement. The ...

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• 13 July

  Two UK utilities pledge to adopt all-electric fleets

  Bloomberg Two of Britain’s six biggest utilities pledged to switch their entire vehicle fleet to run on electricity by 2030, adding momentum to the shift away from traditional engine technology. Centrica Plc operates the third-biggest company owned fleet in the UK, with 12,500 cars and vans. SSE Plc has 3,500 vehicles and also said it will install charging points for ...

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• 13 July

  New, more agile robots speed takeover of ‘human jobs’

  

  Bloomberg At a vast greenhouse in the central Danish city of Odense, a squad of robots move thin plastic pots of herbs for shipping without even putting a dent in them. For moviegoers used to seeing humanoid machines in action, that might not seem special — but in truth, it’s a remarkable feat. Robots until recently have been limited to ...

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• 13 July

  Wells Fargo in talks with BofA exec for CEO job

  

  Bloomberg More than 100 days into Wells Fargo & Co’s hunt for a chief executive officer, the field of potential candidates has winnowed  — but there’s little sign that an appointment is imminent. After twists and turns in the search, Bank of America Corp’s Cathy Bessant is among executives who remain in talks with Wells Fargo, while JPMorgan Chase & ...

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