February, 2019

• 20 February

  Huawei controversy opens rift between US and global carriers

  

  Bloomberg A group representing top US mobile service providers disagreed with European and Asian counterparts over alleged security threats from Chinese equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co. ahead of a conference that will highlight a US-Europe divide on the issue. A February 14 release from GSMA, a London-based wireless industry group, urged European lawmakers not to ban Huawei as a supplier. ...

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• 20 February

  Brexit jobs boom may be derailing investment

  

  Bloomberg Booming employment, a rare bright spot for the British economy, also has a dark side. The country’s record-breaking job creation shown in the data may be coming at the cost of investment, which will hurt in the longer term. The idea is that firms are hiring people rather than buying new machinery or software because it will be easy ...

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• 20 February

  Glencore bends to pressure on climate change

  

  Bloomberg One of the world’s biggest sellers of coal is yielding to investor pressure on climate change, the clearest sign yet that movement is sweeping the natural resources industry. Glencore Plc has promised to limit coal production and align the business with Paris climate targets. It’s a surprising about-face from a company that’s spoken glowingly of coal in the past ...

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• 20 February

  Allianz boosts venture fund to $1.1b for tech, insurance deals

  

  Bloomberg European insurer Allianz SE is increasing the size of its tech investment fund to 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion), making it one of the largest corporate-backed venture funds in Europe. Allianz X was launched in 2016 with a 430 million-euro checkbook and has done about 15 deals, including an investment in Indonesian ride-hailing firm Go-Jek, German mobile bank N26, ...

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• 20 February

  Ford deals a blow to Bolsonaro with plan to shutter Brazil plant

  

  Bloomberg Ford Motor Co. is shutting a factory in Brazil in an attempt to turn around its money-losing South American business, dealing a blow to Jair Bolsonaro less than two months into his presidency. The automaker expects to record $460 million in charges related to exiting the heavy-truck business in all of South America, according to a statement. It’s halting ...

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• 20 February

  Socialism, a classification that no longer classifies

  

  “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” —Karl Marx Norman Thomas was not easily discouraged. Running for president in 1932, three years into the shattering, terrifying Depression, which seemed to many to be a systemic crisis of capitalism, Thomas, who had been the Socialist Party’s candidate in 1928 and would be in 1936, 1940, 1944 ...

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• 20 February

  ECB is awake, asleep at same time

  

  The European Central Bank (ECB) has become the Schroedinger’s cat of global monetary policy. It has managed to be both awake and asleep at the same time. Three senior policy makers signaled concerns over euro-area growth in recent days. At last, officials are finally alive to the risks that the bloc’s situation has become serious. Terrible industrial sales and orders ...

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• 20 February

  Walmart’s Christmas turned out to be fine

  

  Never mind the mixed signals about the state of global consumers, and never mind Amazon.com Inc.’s growing might. Walmart Inc.’s run of booming comparable sales growth continues unabated. The big-box giant reported that its US comparable sales rose 4.2 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, better than analysts had expected. It was its biggest growth on this ...

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• 20 February

  Here comes DBS’s muddle-through year

  Singapore’s largest bank had only the briefest of honeymoons with an improving global economy. Rising global interest rates, amplified by US president Donald Trump’s late-cycle fiscal expansion, boosted DBS Group Holdings Ltd.’s loan profitability. But only up to a point. In the past three months, the two to four rate increases CEO Piyush Gupta expected from the Federal Reserve in ...

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• 20 February

  Trump shouldn’t take the easy way out over China

  

  When it comes to the trade talks with China, US President Donald Trump and his negotiators have more leverage than any US administration has ever had. Chinese policymakers are desperate for a trade deal with the US in order to avoid more damage to China’s economy by further pressuring its trade surplus and export industries. There is speculation that Trump ...

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