March, 2019

• 24 March

  Bad year for S Korean won might get worse

  

  Bloomberg South Korea’s won has been the worst-performing Asian currency this year. Data this week may add to its woes. Industrial production and consumer confidence numbers will be in focus as traders seek to gauge whether the recent weakness in exports and inflation is spreading. Signs of slower growth may fuel bets the Bank of Korea will follow the Federal ...

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• 24 March

  China’s Sinopec sims to raise spending to 2014 high

  

  Bloomberg Sinopec Corp. aims to raise spending to the highest since 2014, joining state-owned peers in their mission to churn out more domestic oil and gas to ease China’s reliance on imports. Refining profit tumbled in the fourth quarter. Capital expenditure is budgeted at 136.3 billion yuan ($20.3 billion) this year, the world’s largest refiner said in a statement to ...

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• 24 March

  Trump’s metals tariffs have more losers than winners

  

  Bloomberg So far, trade wars don’t seem to be as “good, and easy to win” as US President Donald Trump promised a year ago when he imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The scorecard shows a split decision. US steelmakers Nucor Corp. and United States Steel Corp. saw significant profit gains in 2018. But manufacturers that buy the metal ...

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• 24 March

  Now, EU’s antitrust sights may turn to Amazon, Apple

  

  Bloomberg US tech giants might have a respite after two decades of European Union antitrust investigations. But not for long. While Google just got a third, and possibly final, EU fine, regulators still have their eyes on Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc. EU antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager, told reporters earlier this month that an early-stage probe into Amazon’s ...

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• 24 March

  Brexit housing fears stay in London as regions catch up

  

  Bloomberg The Brexit-inspired decline in London’s property values has yet to cause any serious ripples in other areas of the UK. While price-growth and activity may be slowing amid the uncertainty, almost every other major urban area in the country is still experiencing a rising market, according to Acadata. It’s a national divide that’s all too apparent to real estate ...

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• 24 March

  US records biggest monthly budget deficit in February

  

  Bloomberg The US posted its biggest monthly budget deficit on record last month, amid a 20 percent drop in corporate tax revenue and a boost in spending so far this fiscal year. The budget gap widened to $234 billion in February, compared with a fiscal gap of $215.2 billion a year earlier. That gap surpassed the previous monthly record of ...

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• 24 March

  Has US gone socialist?

  

  We Americans are all socialists now. That’s news. Since at least 1906, scholars have contended just the opposite. What happened in 1906 was that Werner Sombart, a now-obscure German sociologist, published a book titled “Why Is There No Socialism in the United States?” Unlike Europe, America was hostile to socialism, Sombart argued. Prosperity was one cause; it weakened revolutionary consciousness. ...

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• 24 March

  Relax, things aren’t so bad at Tencent

  

  Oh, come on, it’s not that bad. Okay, so maybe Tencent Holdings Ltd. did post its biggest net-income miss in, like, forever. And operating profit fell off a cliff. And revenue at its largest division (value-added services) climbed an anemic 9 percent. But still, the situation at China’s games and social-networking powerhouse really isn’t so terrible. Even if things are ...

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• 24 March

  Lyft fills in some blanks, but not the big one

  Lyft Inc. filled in a few blanks about its closely watched initial public offering. The company can’t answer the essential question of whether its business is viable or what price investors should put on the company’s potential and its pitfalls. First, the new hard numbers. Lyft disclosed in an amended investor document that it plans to sell about 30.8 million ...

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• 24 March

  India’s stocks rally clouded by fog of war

  It’s amazing what a bit of chest-beating and military posturing can do. India’s war of words with and air strikes on Pakistan have reinvigorated the re-election campaign of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Opinion polls (if you believe them) are predicting a bigger margin of victory for Modi’s National Democratic Alliance than they were two months ago. A creeping skepticism that ...

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