February, 2019

• 23 February

  Australia denies coal ban from China in bid to ease investor fears

  

  Bloomberg Australia denied that a major port in northern China has banned its coal imports and sought to calm investor nerves that strained political ties are undermining its most important trading relationship. Key government ministers took to the airwaves to dismiss a report that Dalian Port Group has imposed an indefinite ban on Australian coal. While quotas and testing has ...

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• 23 February

  Malaysia hits deflation for first time since 2009 global crisis

  

  Bloomberg Malaysia’s economy swung into deflation in January for the first time since the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2009 as fuel prices dropped. Consumer prices declined 0.7 percent from a year ago after hovering below 1 percent in the previous seven months, according to the statistics department. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 21 economists ...

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• 23 February

  ‘Singapore has a better Bali on its doorstep’

  

  Bloomberg Singapore’s second-largest developer has a suggestion for the government: re-position the billionaire enclave of Sentosa as a tourism hot-spot like Bali. Property values at Sentosa Cove, a residential area nestled on a tiny island off the south coast, have been hit particularly hard, with home prices down about 30 percent from the highs seen in 2010. Even as the ...

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• 23 February

  Sony to back entrepreneurs with money, support

  

  Bloomberg Sony Corporation, once known for innovations like the Walkman, will begin to back entrepreneurs outside the company with money, marketing support and more as it seeks more breakthroughs. The Tokyo-based company said it would open up an internal accelerator program to external entrepreneurs, including a partnership with Tokyo University under which students can turn ideas into businesses. Depending on ...

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• 23 February

  EU to target Caterpillar, Xerox if US imposes automotive duties

  

  Bloomberg Caterpillar Inc. trucks, Xerox Corp. machines and Samsonite International SA luggage are among US goods that would face retaliatory European Union tariffs should President Donald Trump follow through on a threat to impose automotive duties against the bloc, according to a senior EU official. The person commented on the condition of anonymity because the tit-for-tat list drawn up by ...

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• 23 February

  Amazon agrees to disclose carbon footprint this year

  

  Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc. announced it will disclose its carbon footprint later this year, giving consumers and investors new insight into the environmental cost of its popular two-day shipping. The company also pledged in a blog post that half of its shipments would be “net zero” carbon—also known as carbon-neutral—by 2030. The world’s biggest e-commerce company has for years resisted pressure ...

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• 23 February

  Kraft Heinz faces existential crisis after $16bn rout

  

  Bloomberg Kraft Heinz Co. might need a new recipe. The packaged food giant reported a troika of bad news — profit that missed estimates, a $15.4 billion writedown on assets and an SEC subpoena — that sent its shares plummeting 27 percent to a record low, a plunge that wiped out more than $16 billion in market value. It seems ...

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• 23 February

  Maersk forecast misses estimates as trade tensions roil shipping

  

  Bloomberg A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, the world’s biggest shipping line, forecast 2019 profit below analysts’ estimates and said trade disputes are dimming the outlook for world economic growth. Shares plunged. Maersk said that Ebitda, a measure of operating profit, will be around $4 billion for the year, compared with an average estimate of $4.77 billion in a Bloomberg survey of analysts. ...

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• 23 February

  How US might stay in Syria, and leave at the same time

  

  Is there a way for the United States and its allies to remain in northeastern Syria, even after President Trump’s pledged withdrawal of US military forces there? Officials are struggling to devise such a “workaround” strategy, but it could carry more risks than keeping the existing advisory force. The loudest public call for an alternative to withdrawal from Syria is ...

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• 23 February

  Bad banks do hurt your economy

  

  Since taking over as the main supervisor of the euro zone’s largest lenders, the European Central Bank (ECB) has waged a war against sickly lenders. The regulator has forced banks to be more open about value of exposures sitting on their books, and urged them to write down bad loans faster. All this should not only bolster financial stability, it ...

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