May, 2019

• 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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• 7 May

  Fed escalates warnings on perils of risky company debt

  

  Bloomberg The Federal Reserve escalated its warnings about the perils of risky borrowing by businesses, saying firms with the worst credit profiles are the ones taking on more and more debt. The Fed also left a question unanswered: Is it going to do anything about it? The US central bank’s latest financial stability report said leveraged-lending issuance grew 20 percent ...

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• 7 May

  US banks hold on to riskier credit-card loans despite losses

  

  Bloomberg More US consumers are defaulting on their credit cards, but banks may be holding onto the riskiest loans instead of passing them off to investors, according to a report from Barclays Plc. The credit card loans that banks bundle into bonds and sell to investors are outperforming the loans that lenders have held onto, Barclays analyst Alin Florea wrote ...

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• 7 May

  Singapore studying possibility of providing licenses to virtual banks

  

  Bloomberg Singapore is discussing the possibility of allowing virtual banks to operate in the city state, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said on Tuesday. “MAS is studying whether to admit such digital-only banks with non-bank parentage,” the financial regulator said in an emailed reply to questions from Bloomberg News. “We have been engaging relevant stakeholders to ascertain the unique value ...

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• 7 May

  UBS bulks up China unit with senior hires

  

  Bloomberg UBS Group AG is beefing up the ranks of senior executives at its securities joint venture in China after taking majority control late last year, hiring five managing directors for the investment banking business, said a person with knowledge of the matter. Shen Dehua, most recently investment banking head of HSBC Holdings Plc’s Qianhai securities venture, joined UBS Securities ...

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• 7 May

  Australia holds interest rates as Lowe says unemployment key to outlook

  

  Bloomberg Australian central bank chief Philip Lowe kept his head below the parapet by keeping interest rates unchanged less than two weeks out from an election, saying lower unemployment is needed to drive faster inflation. Lowe left the cash rate at 1.5 percent — where it has stood since he took the helm in September 2016 — after economists and ...

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• 7 May

  ECB’s Praet urges caution on next monetary planning

  Bloomberg The European Central Bank’s (ECB) outgoing chief economist has some parting words for his colleagues on the Governing Council: be careful when planning your future strategy. Peter Praet, whose term ends this month, dived into the debate over whether the ECB needs to revisit its interpretation of price stability, which it sees as keeping inflation just under 2 percent. ...

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• 7 May

  India’s IndiGo prepares for another ‘large’ Airbus order

  

  Bloomberg IndiGo is in talks with Airbus SE for another large plane order in a sign Asia’s biggest budget carrier has no intention of letting up on a blistering pace of expansion. The Indian airline, which adds an aircraft to its fleet every week, is in discussions to buy a longer-range version of the European planemaker’s newest narrow-body jet, according ...

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• 7 May

  Lufthansa bids for Thomas Cook’s German airline arm

  

  Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG is bidding for the German airline of tour operator Thomas Cook Group Plc and may expand the offer to include the group’s entire portfolio of aircraft. The deadline for non-binding offers for Condor, which is based near Frankfurt, expires Tuesday, CEO Carsten Spohr said at Lufthansa’s annual shareholder meeting in Bonn, in remarks confirmed by a ...

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