June, 2019

• 12 June

  Britain: The club Trump resents but wants to join

  

  President Trump’s love-hate relationship with Britain has been on display in London. This ambivalence takes an especially bizarre turn in comments by the president and his supporters about British intelligence, historically America’s most important secret partner. After bashing prominent British figures on his way to London, Trump was on good behaviour, after a glittering state dinner the night before with ...

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• 12 June

  Italy’s scary parallel currency threat

  

  It’s hard to think of a more important question for the future of the euro than how committed Rome really is to the single currency. Italy is the third-biggest economy in the monetary union, and had the bloc’s largest public debt in absolute terms last year. The League and the Five Star Movement, which have run the country in coalition ...

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• 12 June

  The best way to boost electric cars in China

  In China, the most talked-about and coveted feature associated with Tesla Inc.’s new China-made Model 3 electric vehicle isn’t the car’s high performance, sleek design or semi-autonomous capability. It’s the license plate — which should tell advocates hoping to move the world’s drivers off fossil fuels something. The recent buzz is the result of a misunderstanding. A social media post ...

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• 12 June

  Don’t ask the Fed to manipulate dollar

  An old debate looks poised to make one of its frequent comebacks: How much, if at all, should the Federal Reserve concern itself with the value of the dollar? Oddly enough, it’s a question on which President Donald Trump and Senator Elizabeth Warren seem to agree. Warren proposed “aggressive intervention on behalf of American workers” and, in particular, “more actively ...

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• 12 June

  Boris Johnson is underpriced by world’s financial markets

  

  Sterling is in the dumps as the interminable delay to resolving Brexit is clearly holding back the UK economy. Perhaps the contest to choose a new leader for the ruling Conservative party, which started in earnest on Monday, can provide a change in direction for the currency. After all, the winner will take over as prime minister from the hapless ...

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• 12 June

  Global finance chiefs rang the alarm, but nobody really cares

  

  Finance chiefs from the biggest economies rang the alarm over global growth and said they’re prepared to do something about it. Too bad they’ve never been less relevant. Gone are the days when investors used to quake over ministers moving a comma or adding a period in key sentences. If their weekend statement was intended to shore up confidence or ...

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• 12 June

  Naspers is 100 times more outrageous than Facebook

  

  Europe wanted a consumer technology giant to rival Silicon Valley. It’s getting one – along with California-style disregard for public investors. When Naspers Ltd. lists its technology investing unit in Amsterdam next month, the new company will have a market capitalisation that’s likely to top $100 billion, a valuation derived entirely from its 31 percent stake in Tencent Holdings Ltd. ...

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• 12 June

  Trump renews Fed attack, says euro is devalued against dollar

  

  Bloomberg US President Donald Trump slammed the Federal Reserve for high interest rates in a tweet, complaining the euro and other currencies were “devalued” against the dollar. “The Fed interest rate way too high, added to ridiculous quantitative tightening! They don’t have a clue!” Trump said on Twitter, renewing his complaints about the US central bank a week before it ...

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• 12 June

  Central banks boost holdings of equities beyond $1 trillion

  

  Bloomberg The central banks have increased their holdings of equities beyond $1 trillion last year as they sought to diversify their reserves away from low-yielding bonds, according to a survey to be published. Monetary authorities boosted their allocation of equities to 10 percent of their reserves despite recent market volatility and a quarter of them said they plan to purchase ...

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• 12 June

  ‘Joining euro improved quality of institutions’

  Bloomberg Mario Draghi said joining the euro has improved the quality of institutions in eastern European members, as opposed to “more mixed” results in countries that have kept their own currencies. The ECB President, hosting a conference on central and eastern Europe in Frankfurt, said the main challenge in region is achieving more balanced gro-wth. That “will only be possible ...

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