March, 2019

• 12 March

  Chinese money to revive Thai baht at ringgit’s expense

  

  Bloomberg A tide of money from China is likely to lift the Thai baht back up after it went from first to one of the worst among Asia’s currencies. While the baht dropped last month versus the ringgit by the most in almost two years, flows from China are likely to favour Thailand in the coming months. Bangkok is looking ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  Singapore water debacle risks 90% losses for investors

  

  Bloomberg The catastrophic slump of Singapore’s much-vaunted water and power company, Hyflux Ltd., has stunned 34,000 retail investors who were lured by the promise of a 6 percent annual return forever from a company that seemed to have a gold seal of government approval. At the heart of the debacle is Tuaspring, a desalination and power plant that cost S$1.1 ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  Europe debt market lures corporate America again

  

  Bloomberg European debt markets have suddenly become more appealing to some big American corporations again, spurred in part by monetary policy changes. Several American household names have recently crossed the pond to issue debt in Europe. Companies such as Altria Group Inc., Coca-Cola Co., Ford Motor Credit Co. and International Business Machines Corp., among others, together have sold almost 18 ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  American companies file record-high patent applications in Europe

  

  Bloomberg US companies submitted a record number of patent applications to the European Patent Office in 2018, retaining the country’s status as the most prolific filer. The 43,612 patent applications US companies filed was 25 percent of the total, the agency said on Tuesday, and far more than the 26,734 filed by Germany, the closest competitor. It was up 2.7 ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  London realty market stutters as Brexit woes hit dealmaking

  

  Bloomberg Property investors cut or stopped purchases of commercial property in London this year as Brexit negotiations lurched from crisis to crisis. Spending on UK offices, malls and warehouses plunged more than 40 percent in the first two months of the year to 4.3 billion pounds ($5.6 billion), according to research firm Property Data. With less than three weeks left ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  VW ups EV push to 22 million cars as Porsche, Audi slip

  

  Bloomberg Volkswagen AG aims to produce almost 50 percent more electric cars than it previously targeted, boosting a bet that has already strained profit margins. The world’s largest automaker now plans to build 22 million vehicles over the next 10 years, compared with an earlier goal of 15 million. Return on sales fell last year at the company’s three core ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  Slashing tariffs won’t redeem a no-deal Brexit

  

  Fast-forward past next week’s critical Brexit votes in the UK parliament. If Britain ends up leaving the European Union (EU) without a deal, it will have to set its own independent trade policy for the first time in a generation. How would it mitigate the trade frictions it will face outside the bloc? Brexit supporters have a beguiling answer: eliminate ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  China may outrun US next year…

  

  Remember when Japan was going to become the world’s biggest economy? Don’t laugh. Herman Kahn, the Rand Corp. futurist who partly inspired the character of Dr. Strangelove, predicted as far back as 1970 that Japan’s gross domestic product (GDP) would overtake the US around the year 2000. Decades later, his prediction still seemed on track. Thanks in part to strength ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  NSA program fizzles out, yet world keeps turning

  Do you remember the National Security Agency (NSA’s) phone-records program? It was perhaps the most contentious of Edward Snowden’s revelations, and became the subject of a vicious multiyear imbroglio in Congress. Now the operation has been halted entirely — with barely a whimper. Section 215 of the Patriot Act authorised the government to collect a broad range of business records ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  Modi should keep the peace in South Asia

  Yet again, a catastrophic war between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan appears to have been narrowly averted. As India looks ahead to its approaching election, the world’s biggest democracy should take care to draw the right lessons from the crisis. The great temptation for Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be to exploit and even inflame the country’s mood of militant ...

  Read More »