May, 2019

• 7 May

  Trump’s trade threats hurt US more than China

  

  Trade wars are good, and easy to win. So President Donald Trump said last year as he embarked on his first round of tariffs on foreign imports. It seems that things have proven so good and easy that he’s readying for another bout. Trump is prepared to increase a 10 percent levy on $200 billion of imports from China to ...

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• 7 May

  HSBC, sink your jaws into the flab

  

  Too big, too bloated, and too unwieldy. HSBC Holdings Plc’s achievement in bringing costs under control in the first quarter shouldn’t be an excuse to stand still. The bank posted a higher-than-estimated pretax profit of $6.35 billion last week as revenue growth outpaced the increase in expenses, a phenomenon known in industry jargon as “positive jaws.” Revenue climbed 9 percent ...

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• 7 May

  Bankers are getting big raises under Trump

  Bankers appear to be doing very well under President Donald Trump. Judging from government data, they’re reaping some of the biggest wage gains they’ve had in a long time. The Labor Department’s jobs report for April offered further confirmation that demand for workers is translating into better pay overall. The average hourly wage was up 3.2 percent from a year ...

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• 7 May

  Power thieves draining India’s electric-car hopes

  Dirty air has finally become an issue in Indian election manifestos, along with perennial subjects such as temple-building and farmers’ incomes. That shouldn’t be a surprise: Even politicians can’t escape air pollution, which has reduced life expectancy in areas near the capital New Delhi by more than 12 years. To address the issue, the government earlier this year laid out ...

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• 7 May

  Big agriculture breeds a worldwide health crisis

  

  On the surface, our modern system of food production looks efficient: It produces plenty of food and seems highly innovative. But it also encourages people to eat unhealthy sugars and fats, while fully one-third of all food produced is lost or goes to waste. Industrial agriculture is defiling lakes and rivers with chemical runoff and depleting irreplaceable fertile topsoils. The ...

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• 7 May

  Uber’s UK taxi rival costs you peanuts

  

  Uber Technologies Inc.’s initial public offering will be a bittersweet moment for private equity giant Carlyle Group and its London minicab firm Addison Lee Holdings Ltd. Uber will almost certainly join its fellow ride-hailing company Lyft Inc. in securing a nosebleed market value, despite making heavy losses. The investor buzz could benefit Carlyle as it looks to exit from its ...

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• 7 May

  India is in need of an investment czar to get rich

  

  India needs a minister for investment. Whoever wins the May 23 election count, the next government must find somebody who will boldly open the doors to American and Japanese capital. Another statist intervention in a country that labors under an excess of bureaucracy might not look like much of a solution to anything. But for India to break free from ...

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• 7 May

  Stocks decline as trade concerns linger; oil dips

  

  Bloomberg US equity-index futures extended declines on Tuesday alongside stocks in Europe as the gloom surrounding the outlook for global trade refused to dissipate. The dollar gained and Treasury yields were steady. Contracts on the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq 100 all retreated as China’s top trade negotiator prepares to visit Washington this week to salvage a ...

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• 7 May

  Pound traders upbeat on outlook for Brexit

  

  Bloomberg Pound traders are more upbeat on the outlook for Brexit as the government and opposition Labour party hold a crunch meeting to try and reach a deal. One-week risk reversals on the pound-dollar pair, a measure of market positioning, signal investors are the most optimistic on the pound in almost five months. There is only around a one-in-three chance ...

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• 7 May

  Bitcoin bounds towards $6,000

  Bloomberg Bitcoin climbed to a fresh 2019 high, approaching the $6,000 level for the first time since November. The largest digital coin advanced as much as 4.7 percent to $5,961, before paring its gain to 3.4 percent in New York, according to Bloomberg composite pricing. Most of the other highly traded tokens were mixed, lagging Bitcoin. The world’s most-followed cryptocurrency ...

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