January, 2019

• 8 January

  flyby is a victory for unmanned missions

  Some likened it to a snowman. Others to a peanut. Still others to an embryonic dinosaur. Ultima Thule, a mottled and malformed space rock at the farthest edge of the solar system, got its first close-up photos this week thanks to Nasa’s New Horizons mission. They offered a glimpse of the most distant object ever visited by man-made machinery — ...

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• 8 January

  US trade negotiators can help China get to yes

  The damage caused by President Trump’s trade fight with China has spread farther and faster than many expected. Factories in China and the US have seen orders slump. American farmers are hurting. A collapse in Chinese demand for iPhones knocked nearly $75 billion off Apple Inc.’s market cap in a single day. Slower growth just prompted China’s central bank to ...

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• 8 January

  There’s good reason to give up on World Bank

  

  For the head of the World Bank Group to quit unexpectedly would have been big news under any circumstances. But, the reason outgoing president Jim Yong Kim gave for his resignation on Monday is even more revealing. Kim said he was leaving the world’s most influential development and infrastructure-building agency to join a private-sector infrastructure investment fund because he believed ...

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• 8 January

  China’s old debt playbook problem

  

  Build it and they will come. Or will they? A flurry of construction may be about to take off in China, and investors have pinned their hopes on it. Stocks of Japanese machinery makers Komatsu Ltd. and Hitachi Construction Machinery Co. perked up on Monday. Over the past week, Chinese engineering and construction companies’ shares have surfaced from multi-month lows. ...

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• 8 January

  Health-care costs are still eating the US economy

  

  Health-care costs are not as much in the news nowadays as they used to be. A big reason might be that cost growth has slowed in recent years. Between 1967 and 2007, per-capita health care costs rose at an average of 2.36 percent a year. Since then, it’s only been about 1.31 percent. That’s actually not such great news. Health-care ...

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• 8 January

  US stocks surge after Donald Trump sees China progress

  

  Bloomberg Stocks surged on Tuesday after the Trump administration said there was progress coming out of its two-day mid-level trade talks with China. The dollar rose with Treasury yields, and crude climbed towards $50 a barrel on expectations the market will be tightened by OPEC’s output cuts. All major US equity benchmarks were higher. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq gauges ...

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• 8 January

  India stocks rise ahead of quarterly earnings

  

  Bloomberg India stocks rose as investors positioned for the corporate earnings’ season that begins this week amid estimates that economic growth may be slower than forecast. The S&P BSE Sensex climbed 0.4 percent to close at 35,980.93 in Mumbai after swinging between gains and losses. The broader NSE Nifty 50 Index rose 0.3 percent. India’s largest companies this week begin ...

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• 8 January

  Fed may get less bang for buck if it repeats 2016 rate pause

  

  Bloomberg For the Federal Reserve, 2019 has started out looking a lot like 2016: the last time uncertainty over global growth roiled financial markets for months on end. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell pointed to the 2016 episode to underscore the US central bank’s ability to be flexible when necessary, recalling the Fed held interest rates steady almost all year. But ...

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• 8 January

  World Bank president Kim steps down early

  

  Bloomberg Jim Yong Kim abruptly resigned as president of the World Bank more than three years ahead of schedule, potentially sparking an international tussle over who replaces him as the Trump administration questions the development lender’s purpose. Kristalina Georgieva, the bank’s second in command, will take over as interim president on February 1, the Washington-based bank said in a statement. ...

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• 8 January

  New Indian bank plans $11.7bn merger

  

  Bloomberg Bandhan Bank Ltd, India’s newest lender, will combine with mortgage financier Gruh Finance Ltd in a $11.7 billion deal, bringing the bank closer to meeting shareholding rules and helping it accelerate expansion. Investors in Gruh Finance, controlled by Housing Development Finance Corp, India’s biggest mortgage lender, will get 568 shares of Bandhan Bank for every 1,000 they own, according ...

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