February, 2019

• 25 February

  Galaxy Fold, Samsung’s $2,000 bid to be king of cool

  

  The smartphone with a foldable screen, which Samsung will start shipping at the end of April, is far more than an expensive gimmick. With the release of the $1,980 Galaxy Fold, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd challenges Apple’s claim to premium pricing and unleashes, in what looked like a mature market, the same kind of race that Apple Inc. started with ...

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• 25 February

  Stocks climb as China soars on optimism over trade

  

  Bloomberg US equity futures advanced alongside stocks in Europe and Asia after President Donald Trump postponed the date for boosting tariffs on Chinese imports, taken as a sign of progress in the trade talks. Bonds fell and the dollar retreated. Contracts on the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P all climbed, while the trade headlines boosted carmakers in Europe, fueling an advance ...

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• 25 February

  China’s stock surge puts world-beating bond rally in shade

  

  Bloomberg A surge in equities is blunting the attraction of China’s world-leading bond rally, prompting analysts to recommend clients pile into stocks rather than debt. News that the US will extend a tariff truce is likely to fuel that momentum. The rally since January 3 has added more than $1 trillion to the value of the country’s equities, while China’s ...

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• 25 February

  Key Fed officials support new approach to meet inflation goal

  

  Bloomberg Two Federal Reserve officials highlighted the benefits of an approach to monetary policy called average inflation targeting, which would entail accepting overshoots of the central bank’s 2 percent price goal to make up for times when inflation was too low. San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly and John Williams, who preceded her in that role before shifting to run ...

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• 25 February

  Barclays CEO vows buyback as trading outperforms rivals

  

  Bloomberg Barclays Plc’s Jes Staley promised more buybacks and dividends to shareholders as the bank’s traders outperformed most of their Wall Street and European peers. Fourth-quarter income at the London-based firm’s markets unit fell 2.5 percent from a year earlier to 945 million pounds ($1.2 billion), a performance that beat many of the bank’s rivals. While the last quarter of ...

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• 25 February

  StanChart to take $900 million charge over US, UK regulatory investigations

  

  Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc is booking a $900 million charge tied to regulatory probes in its fourth-quarter results, a move that will erode earnings as its top executive prepares to unveil a turnaround plan. The provision will cover the UK bank’s estimates for potential penalties from investigations over US sanctions violations, currency trading issues and financial-crime controls, the company said. ...

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• 25 February

  Philippine central bank stays hawkish on policy

  Bloomberg The Philippines central bank remains guarded on monetary policy and is keeping a hawkish bias, Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo said, indicating it’s not ready to cut interest rates just yet. “We are more on the hawkish side in the sense that we recognize the risks on the market,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV’s Nejra Cehic from ...

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• 25 February

  EY probed as Swedbank hires firm in laundering review

  

  Bloomberg EY, the accounting firm engaged by Swedbank AB following a report that the lender was involved in money laundering, is being probed in Denmark over the Estonian dirty-money scandal surrounding Danske Bank A/S. The investigation of EY has been running since October, after Danske admitted that much of the $230 billion that flowed through a tiny Estonian branch between ...

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• 25 February

  Vietnam Airlines weighs buying up to 100 Boeing 737 Max jets

  

  Bloomberg Vietnam Airlines is considering an order of 50 to 100 Boeing Co. 737 Max planes this year to replace its aging fleet of Airbus SE single-aisle aircraft and may also buy long-range jets in preparation for flights to California. The new aircraft will be for delivery between 2020 and 2030, Duong Tri Thanh, chief executive officer of the state-owned ...

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• 25 February

  Canada retail sales fall for 2nd month on gasoline prices

  

  Bloomberg Falling gasoline prices pushed down Canadian retail sales for a second straight month in December, ending what was a weak fourth quarter and lackluster year for the industry. Retailers posted a 0.1 percent drop in receipts in December, extending a 0.9 percent drop in November — the most sluggish back-to-back monthly performance last year. For all of 2018, sales ...

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