April, 2019

• 6 April

  Fastest electric car chargers waiting for batteries to catch up

  

  Bloomberg The viability of electric vehicles depends in part on a manufacturing plant in eastern Australia, where gleaming white cabinets the size of large refrigerators are loaded onto shipping crates. They’re among the most advanced car chargers available, promising to deliver a full tank of juice in minutes. Automakers and energy companies are spearheading the global rollout of these ultra-fast ...

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• 6 April

  Trump urges Fed to slash rates to boost economy

  

  Bloomberg President Donald Trump called on the Federal Reserve to open the monetary floodgates to turn the world’s largest economy into a “rocket ship.” “I personally think the Fed should drop rates. I think they really slowed us down. There’s no inflation. I would say in terms of quantitative tightening, it should actually now be quantitative easing,” he told reporters ...

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• 6 April

  SocGen plans 700 Paris job cuts after tough first quarter

  

  Bloomberg Societe Generale SA plans to cut as many as 700 jobs in Paris and eliminate hundreds more positions in London and New York after experiencing a difficult first-quarter in investment banking, people with knowledge of the matter said. The French bank is speeding up staff reductions at its headquarters after tough trading conditions persisted into the new year and ...

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• 6 April

  Swedbank chairman quits as scandal rips through top ranks

  

  Bloomberg A week after Swedbank AB fired its chief executive officer, the lender is parting ways with its chairman as a multibillion dollar money-laundering scandal forces top-level changes. Lars Idermark has decided to leave Sweden’s oldest bank and biggest mortgage lender with immediate effect, Swedbank said in a statement. That follows a March 28 announcement that CEO Birgitte Bonnesen had ...

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• 6 April

  Commerzbank chief Zielke lobbies for merger deal amid mounting opposition

  

  Bloomberg Commerzbank AG Chief Executive Officer Martin Zielke, almost three weeks into formal discussions about a combination with Deutsche Bank AG, is lobbying hard to overcome internal opposition to the idea. The lender doesn’t have the market share needed for costly investments to pay off, Zielke told employees in a memo. Low interest rates are squeezing profits, regulatory expenses have ...

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• 6 April

  Iceland sees space for rate cut after wage pact

  

  Bloomberg Iceland’s central bank now has more scope to cut interest rates as a result of this week’s agreement between workers and employers, despite an “unfortunate” clause in the deal that ties planned pay hikes to monetary policy, Governor Mar Gudmundsson said. “The break-even inflation rate in the market has now slumped, the exchange rate has been strengthening and our ...

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• 6 April

  Boeing cuts 737 jet output 19% as global groundings drain cash

  

  Bloomberg Boeing Co is cutting production of its 737 jetliner for the first time since the September 11 attacks as the planemaker works to limit financial damage from the global grounding of its newest and best-selling aircraft model. By slashing output 19 percent — to 42 airplanes a month by mid-April — Boeing will be able to reduce its spending ...

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• 6 April

  Chinese airlines soar on Beijing’s plan to cut levies

  

  Bloomberg Chinese airline shares surged after the government announced plans to slash infrastructure levies charged to the companies, a welcome relief for carriers battling oil-price volatility and currency fluctuations in one of the world’s biggest aviation markets. Beijing-based Air China Ltd rose as much as 12 percent in Hong Kong, while Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines Corp jumped 20 percent and ...

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• 6 April

  ‘Walmart’s bench should ease worry on tech exits’

  

  Bloomberg Investors shouldn’t fret over the growing list of departing Walmart Inc executives who were involved in tech and innovation, according to Bernstein. Recent departures do not imperil Walmart’s future because “the people Walmart needs to be innovators were never the ones coming from outside,” analyst Brandon Fletcher wrote in a note. Outsiders with their “worldview” aren’t helpful to Walmart ...

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• 6 April

  United Air tweaks its ‘travel award’ policy

  Bloomberg United Continental Holdings Inc will stop publishing charts showing the miles needed to obtain tickets through its frequent flyer program, allowing for a wider — and more expensive — range of prices. The move follows a similar decision by rival Delta Air Lines Inc in 2014 to scrap fixed tables in favour of dynamically pricing award tickets. The change ...

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