March, 2019

• 27 March

  Thai anti-Junta parties claim majority

  

  Bloomberg Seven political parties opposed to Thailand’s ruling junta said they had the numbers to form a majority coalition following the general election, intensifying a tussle for power with a pro-military bloc. Sudarat Keyuraphan, a leader of the Pheu Thai party linked to exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, said the coalition would unofficially have 255 seats in the 500-seat lower ...

  Read More »
• 27 March

  Communist Party expels China ex-Interpol chief

  

  Bloomberg China’s Communist Party expelled former Interpol President Meng Hongwei, months after he went missing during a trip to the country. Meng was also removed from his government post as vice public security minister over violations that included the taking of bribes and abuse of power, according to a statement from the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI). The ...

  Read More »
• 27 March

  Renegade general shows perils in South Sudan’s peace plans

  

  Bloomberg As South Sudan’s main combatants prepare to join forces to end a brutal five-year civil war, recent fighting involving a renegade military officer suggests the conflict may be far from over. Thousands of civilians have fled their homes in Yei state in the southwest of the country this year, witnesses to alleged murders and looting as government troops battle ...

  Read More »
• 27 March

  Low interest rates might be what is hurting growth

  

  Economists tend to think of central-bank interest rates purely in terms of their effect on macroeconomic benchmarks such as inflation, output and unemployment. The Federal Reserve’s dual mandate, for instance, directs it to seek stable prices and maximum employment. Mainstream macroeconomic models, such as the dominant New Keynesian models used by most central banks, support this view. Occasionally, economists or ...

  Read More »
• 27 March

  The pound might survive Brexit

  

  Once British lawmakers finally decide what kind of Brexit they want, the pound surely ought to break out of the tight range in which it has traded against the euro since Britain voted to leave the European Union (EU). Just don’t expect too sharp a collapse if it really comes to a messy, no-deal Brexit. It helps that the pound ...

  Read More »
• 27 March

  The future of energy is looking pretty sunny

  The newly published 2019 US Energy & Employment Report reveals that the fuels and electric-power-generation sectors employ nearly 2 million people. It’s a wealth of data not just on what people do in energy, but also on where employers foresee growth and hiring tightness. A few trends jump out — including that, even in the oil patch, services jobs are ...

  Read More »
• 27 March

  EU needs a plan to fight Putin’s trolls

  Europe is bracing for a Russian propaganda onslaught in the run-up to this May’s parliamentary elections. The European Commission predicts the Kremlin’s disinformation operations will be “systematic, well-resourced and on a different scale to other countries.” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s goal is to expand the Euroskeptic bloc in the next European Parliament in order to weaken EU cohesion and accommodate ...

  Read More »
• 27 March

  PetroChina’s $45b can’t actually feed a dry well

  

  It’s remarkable what a little money can do. Faced with a declining reserve base and a government mandate to increase domestic production, PetroChina went on a spending splurge last year. Its 256 billion yuan ($38 billion) in capital expenditures in 2018 was more than was spent by BP Plc, Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips put together. It was also about 10 ...

  Read More »
• 27 March

  Samsung’s profit warning is infact tech’s inverted yield curve

  

  Tougher times are ahead for the technology industry. A downturn sparked by excess inventories and weakened demand, signs of which were evident back in August, could drag on longer than expected. Samsung Electronics Co. said that first-quarter results will fall short of estimates. The rare profit warning came about a fortnight before the company was scheduled to give preliminary sales ...

  Read More »
• 27 March

  Searching for meaning in Tesla’s stock price

  

  Tesla Inc.’s stock price has sunk below $260 for the first time since late October. What does that mean? Trying to discern meaning in the particular set of numbers next to the TSLA ticker on any given day is often futile. With a little context, however, that $260 level takes on some interesting dimensions. Most notably, it takes the stock ...

  Read More »