January, 2019

• 7 January

  Taste or Tat? Britain’s holiday shopping divide

  High low dressing – mixing designer pieces with bargain finds – has become a fashion staple. The trend is also playing out across the British high street. On Monday, luxury department store Selfridges, and value retailers Aldi UK and Dunelm Group Plc all posted strong Christmas performances. Aldi said it generated sales of almost 1 billion pounds ($1.3 billion) for ...

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• 7 January

  UBS’s woes run deeper than just one leader

  

  A year ago, all was set fair for Switzerland’s largest bank. The wealthy were getting richer and assets were appreciating, while many of UBS Group AG’s European competitors were still figuring out what they wanted to be. The firm’s decision after the financial crisis to pivot away from the rapidly shrinking securities-trading business to focus on managing money for the ...

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• 7 January

  Tesla’s numbers come with ‘reservations’

  

  Only in Tesla-land could a figure provoke a 10 percent slump in the stock at the open: Tesla Inc. kicked off 2019 with a sales report boasting it had delivered almost as many vehicles in 2018 — 245,240 — than in all prior years combined. Roughly 91,000 found a home in the fourth quarter, triple what was sold in the ...

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• 7 January

  Apple’s iPhone warning comes years too late

  

  The optimistic narrative about Apple Inc.’s iPhone business is falling apart in front of our eyes. The company has stunningly slashed its own revenue forecast for its first fiscal quarter that ended in December. Apple led by blaming a slowing economy in China and the trade skirmish with the US for worse-than-expected consumer transactions in the region that includes China, ...

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• 7 January

  Stocks gain as technology strength helps to lift shares

  

  Bloomberg US stocks rose slightly as investors weighed their risk tolerance amid the resumption of trade talks with China. The dollar fell to its lowest level since October as traders assessed seemingly dovish remarks from Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell on Friday. The S&P 500 Index gained led by consumer discretionary stocks and energy as oil surged higher. The Nasdaq ...

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• 7 January

  Japan’s FSA considers allowing crypto ETFs

  

  Bloomberg Japan’s financial watchdog has abandoned plans to allow listed derivatives based on cryptocurrencies but may yet approve exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that track the asset class, according to a person familiar with the matter. The decision to bar instruments like Bitcoin futures or Ethereum options in one of the largest markets for cryptocurrencies marks another setback for investors betting on ...

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• 7 January

  Morgan Stanley’s bankers tap cash spigot for IPO dominance

  

  Bloomberg Morgan Stanley just beat JPMorgan Chase & Co and Goldman Sachs Group Inc for a second straight year in one of Wall Street’s most competitive businesses — and it’s poised to win again in 2019. Its secret: Quirky dealmakers wielding a spigot of private money. The bank is the world’s top stock underwriter, a title that in recent years ...

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• 7 January

  UBS at an early stage of CEO succession planning: Chairman

  

  Bloomberg UBS Group AG is in the early stages of planning the succession of Sergio Ermotti, one of European banking’s longest-serving chief executive officers, according to Chairman Axel Weber. Ermotti, almost eight years on the job, and Weber himself are at “a point in time where you need to start thinking about what is it that you’re going to do ...

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• 7 January

  Kenya’s biggest mortgage lender plans to double loans in two years

  

  Bloomberg Kenya’s biggest mortgage lender plans to double its home-loan business over the next two years by offering longer repayment periods, its chief executive officer said. KCB Group Ltd, which has 70 billion shillings ($685 million) in home loans and is also the country’s biggest bank by assets, wants to have 20,000 mortgages on its books by the end of ...

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• 7 January

  It’s time to buy risky assets, says BofA

  Bloomberg It may finally be time to load up on risky assets, Bank of America (BofA) says. The bank’s proprietary Bull & Bear Indicator, which measures investor sentiment by weighing factors like equity and bond fund flows, gave its first “buy” signal since Britain voted to leave the EU in 2016, strategists led by Michael Hartnett wrote in a note. ...

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