March, 2019

• 26 March

  Thai polls mess pits ex-PM against generals

  

  Bloomberg Thailand’s first election since the 2014 coup was always going to be messy. But it’s turning out to be even more chaotic than many observers expected, setting the stage for renewed tumult after five years of military rule. Election authorities have faced calls to resign for repeatedly delaying the full results and failing to account for mounting irregularities, including ...

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• 26 March

  Former Pakistan PM gets bail for six weeks

  

  Bloomberg Former PM Nawaz Sharif, who is serving a seven-year jail term in a corruption case, got bail for six weeks to enable him to seek medical treatment for a heart condition. Pakistan’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa in his verdict in Islamabad on Tuesday barred the ex-premier from seeking his treatment overseas, Khawaja Harris, Sharif’s lawyer ...

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• 26 March

  Mueller makes a normal election possible in 2020

  

  Robert Mueller’s report is a gift to the nation, which now knows what was already a reasonable surmise: that its chief executive’s unlovely admiration for a repulsive foreign regime, Vladimir Putin’s, is more a dereliction of taste and judgment than evidence that he is under that regime’s sway. The report is an even larger gift to the nation because it ...

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• 26 March

  China’s hydrogen economy is coming

  

  There was little excitement in the air when China’s State Council convened a press conference to announce and explain 83 revisions to the annual Government Work Report. A few equity investors paid attention anyway. Among the revisions was a proposal to promote the development and construction of fueling stations for hydrogen fuel-cell cars. Chinese punters were ready: In the first ...

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• 26 March

  Driving while tweeting could hurt US carmakers

  For carmakers in the US, the price of honesty is high. President Donald Trump’s preoccupation with the auto industry was on show again over the past week, when he tweeted that he had asked General Motors Co. Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra to sell or “do something quickly” with one of the plants it is idling under a wide-ranging cost-cutting ...

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• 26 March

  Boeing, FAA owe the world some answers

  What began as a tragedy is starting to look like something worse. In the span of just four months, two Boeing Co. 737 Max jets have crashed, killing a total of 346 people. Both planes — Lion Air Flight 610 on October 29 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10 — experienced serious trouble shortly after takeoff. In a ...

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• 26 March

  Will UK revoke Brexit? Don’t hold your breath

  

  The UK Parliament seized control of the Brexit process from Prime Minister Theresa May and will now seek to decide how Britain exits the European Union (EU). What will follow is anyone’s guess, but it is likely to include voting on the largest range of options for leaving the EU that lawmakers have formally considered. One of those options is ...

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• 26 March

  Market rewind could twist investors around

  

  So far this year, the market has looked like late 2018, but in reverse. The stocks that did poorly late last year, like video streaming service Netflix Inc. and energy company Hess Corp., have done well in early 2019, and vice versa. Overall, the S&P 500 Index has climbed nearly 13 percent this year. Dan Suzuki, a portfolio strategist at ...

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• 26 March

  The world’s wealth rests on a paper-thin illusion

  

  The world is wealthier now than it’s ever been — but only on paper. Much of this prosperity may prove illusory as a global shift towards less liquid investments undermines the basis of valuation. Private equity, infrastructure and private credit have become a bigger share of investment portfolios, making mark-to-market values increasingly uncertain. The standard method of valuing assets assumes ...

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• 26 March

  Swedish money laundering case spins widening web of intrigue

  

  Bloomberg As Sweden gets to grips with the money laundering scandal battering its oldest bank, questions are being asked about the impartiality of those overseeing the case. Swedbank AB reportedly handled more than $10 billion in suspicious flows tied to the Danske Bank A/S Estonian laundering scandal. The case became public knowledge only this year, but according to Swedish media ...

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