February, 2019

• 26 February

  Finance industry wins a two-year break on EU benchmarks law

  

  Bloomberg European Union policy makers agreed to give an extra two years to the financial industry to complete an overhaul of key regional and foreign financial benchmarks to protect them from potential manipulation. The deal reached by EU diplomats and members of the European Parliament will allow Eonia and Euribor to be used by firms based in the bloc until ...

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• 26 February

  US farmers fear Trump’s WTO assault puts them in crosshairs

  

  Bloomberg Donald Trump’s attack on the World Trade Organization has US farmers worried that the president’s ‘America first’ foreign policy approach will hamstring efforts to defend their interests. The US is strangling the ability of the WTO, which oversees the rules for nearly $23 trillion in commerce every year, to resolve disputes among its 164 members. But when the WTO’s ...

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• 26 February

  Musk faces US contempt claim for violating accord with SEC

  

  Bloomberg Elon Musk is facing a new round of regulatory trouble for tweets about Tesla Inc., raising fresh concerns about the billionaire CEO’s ability to keep his impulses in check and responsibly run a public company. The US Securities and Exchange Commission asked a judge to hold Musk in contempt for violating a settlement that required him to get Tesla ...

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• 26 February

  Are these US economic policies or pipedreams?

  

  As Democrats swing left, it becomes increasingly difficult to imagine what their triumph in the next election would mean for America. The presidential candidates endorse a variety of far-reaching proposals that, if adopted, would represent the largest expansion of government since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. The added spending, taxes or deficits could total hundreds of billions. Are these sound economic ...

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• 26 February

  ECB doesn’t have superheroes!

  

  Spare a thought for the European Central Bank (ECB). The minutes of the last Governing Council show the central bank is in a bind over the state of the euro zone recovery and the next steps to take. Still, it is hard to see why they shouldn’t be. The economic picture is objectively confusing. The problem is that we have ...

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• 26 February

  Wayfair can’t relax on easy chair of sales growth

  No one should be surprised that Wayfair Inc.’s earnings report showed that it had a gangbusters holiday season, with retail sales growing 41 percent from a year earlier. After all, the digital home-goods seller had already said its sales were up 58 percent from a year earlier during the five-day stretch, suggesting it had started the season with a bang. ...

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• 26 February

  Trade truce between US, China is promising

  President Donald Trump’s decision to delay new tariffs on Chinese imports is good news. There’s no guarantee he’s about to strike a sensible agreement on trade with Beijing, but the suspension of hostilities is welcome. Trump’s approach up to now has become all too familiar. Ratchet up tensions with incendiary rhetoric; impose unilateral sanctions; engage in talks ending in incremental ...

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• 26 February

  In 2019, Russian economy’s growth will be sharply lower

  

  Whether or not you believe the Russian economy grew 2.3 percent last year, beating the most optimistic expectations, the Russian Economy Ministry doesn’t want anyone to expect a repeat in 2019. That doesn’t mean there will be no baffling statistical anomalies this year, only that, realistically, there’s no reason for a rapid economic expansion. Russia’s official statistical agency, Rosstat, where ...

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• 26 February

  Gold ‘lovers’ need to go cool off

  

  The world’s gold miners have spent years avoiding each others’ gazes like nervous teenagers. Now all of a sudden they’re acting like the thrill has gone. It hasn’t even been two months since Barrick Gold Corp. and Randgold Resources Ltd. announced that their merger was “consummated,” and already Executive Chairman John Thornton appears to be checking out an old flame. ...

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• 26 February

  This is how the world’s high-tax countries do it

  

  There are nations on this earth that tax their citizens far more heavily than the US does. The top spots on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) rankings of tax revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product in 2017 were held by France (46.2 percent), Denmark (46 percent), Belgium (44.6 percent), Sweden (44 percent) and Finland (43.3 ...

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