April, 2019

• 22 April

  T-Mobile’s Sprint merger may be a no-go, again

  

  I hope T-mobile didn’t already order a bunch of magenta T-shirts to hand out to the Sprint team. Their merger may be a no-go. The Justice Department told T-Mobile US Inc. and Sprint Corp. earlier this month that it’s unlikely to approve their deal as it’s currently structured, according to a Wall Street Journal report. It’s especially bad news for ...

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• 22 April

  Italy is an accident waiting to happen

  We all know Italy’s next crisis is coming, it’s merely a question of when. The country’s budget deficit is slipping out of control and Brussels will at some point have to address the increasingly likely breach of its fiscal rules (even if the EU is turning a blind eye while this month’s European parliamentary elections are taking place). The bond ...

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• 22 April

  What data is saying about China, global economy

  

  The slowing of the Chinese economy, along with growing evidence of European growth under pressure, cast a big cloud of uncertainty over the global economy coming into 2019. Data released last week provided further support for the notion of short-term stabilization in China, but there isn’t yet a convincing longer-term case for higher growth, or for a less uncertain road ...

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• 22 April

  Why Gucci, Dior want to rebuild Notre Dame

  

  If the fire at Notre Dame cathedral had happened 20 or 50 years ago, France’s luxury fashion houses would surely have rushed to support its reconstruction as quickly as they did in 2019. There is no doubting the sincerity of LVMH, Kering SA and their founding families, who led the way with donations after the devastation. The city of Paris, ...

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• 22 April

  US Supreme Court mulls citizenship question for census

  

  The oral arguments the Supreme Court will hear will be more decorous than the gusts of judicial testiness that blew the case up to the nation’s highest tribunal. The case, which raises arcane questions of administrative law but could have widely radiating political and policy consequences, comes from the Enlightenment mentality of the nation’s Founders, and involves this question: Does ...

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• 22 April

  US stocks mixed as crude rallies to six-month high

  

  Bloomberg Most US equities fell in light volume as investors prepared for a deluge of earnings news. Oil jumped after the White House said it will scrap waivers that allow the purchase of some Iranian crude. The S&P 500 Index fluctuated between small gains and losses, hovering about 1 percent below its all-time high. Tesla Inc fell after an analyst ...

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• 22 April

  India stocks drop most in four months as oil jump dents optimism

  

  Bloomberg India’s benchmark stock index posted its biggest drop in four months on concern that the spike in the price of oil, the nation’s biggest import, may dampen the outlook for Asia’s third-biggest economy. The rupee and sovereign bonds also weakened. The S&P BSE Sensex declined 1.3 percent to 38,645.18 at the close in Mumbai, while the NSE Nifty 50 ...

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• 22 April

  Indian central bank has $43b in excess capital, says panel

  

  Bloomberg A panel named by India’s central bank to study its capital structure is likely to identify excess reserves of up to 3 trillion rupees ($43 billion), or 1.5 percent of gross domestic product, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The view from BofAML lends itself to a debate over Reserve Bank of India’s reserves, with one school of ...

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• 22 April

  ‘Risky assets reacting strongly as Fed loses forecasting edge’

  

  Bloomberg Risky assets are reacting more strongly to hawkish monetary shocks from the Federal Reserve in recent years, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The reason, ironically, is that the Fed is losing its forecasting edge. The Fed’s relative predictive advantage versus private economists has declined in recent years as the higher quality and quantity of forecasters makes it harder ...

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• 22 April

  BOJ expected to ease monetary policy

  

  Bloomberg About half of economists now expect the Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) next policy move to be monetary easing, including three who see it coming this week, according to a Bloomberg survey. The other 45 of 48 economists surveyed said they expected the BOJ to leave its policy settings unchanged at a two-day meeting ending April 25. The number of ...

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