January, 2019

• 2 January

  Trump’s trade strategy on China isn’t working

  

  The Trump administration’s willingness to push the Chinese harder on trade has struck a bilateral chord. Beijing is listening. So far, so good. Now the question is what the US wants to achieve. Answer: the total destruction of China as a competitor. That isn’t a trade goal, and the demands being made contradict one another. This aim also unnecessarily awakens ...

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• 2 January

  Bond giant has $15bn to play with

  

  This year heralds a brave new world for euro credit spreads. The continent’s biggest buyer of corporate debt is calling a halt after amassing a 180 billion euro portfolio in just two and a half years. The European Central Bank’s Corporate Sector Purchasing Program (CSPP for short) is ending net new buys after gorging on investment grade euro corporate bonds. ...

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• 2 January

  A warming world will require more N- power

  In light of the recent stark warning from the United Nations that the world is on course to reach the limit of tolerable warming in a scant 21 years, nuclear power is getting some overdue attention and enthusiasm. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is coming around to the view that nuclear power has a crucial role in climate ...

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• 2 January

  Britain isn’t prepared for a no-deal Brexit

  With Brexit negotiations paralysed, and fewer than 100 days till the clock runs out, it’s worth remembering that the UK government — despite its assurances — remains entirely unready for a no-deal exit from the European Union. Pretending otherwise helps no one. In recent weeks, the government has started making some frantic preparations. It has directed 2 billion pounds to ...

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• 2 January

  A bad loan farce gets another rerun in India

  

  A new year, a new central bank governor. Yet the first salvo to come out of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) policy arsenal in 2019 is encouragement of good old “extend and pretend” lending. Banks and shadow banks are being allowed a one-time restructuring of loans of up to 250 million rupees ($3.6 million) to micro, small and medium ...

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• 2 January

  Hyundai’s ambition is detached from reality

  

  Investors like targets – even ambitious ones – as long as they’re grounded in reality. South Korea’s flailing automakers, Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp., are targeting combined sales of 7.6 million vehicles in 2019, slightly more than their 2018 target, the companies said in regulatory filings. That’s bold considering the global auto market is forecast to shrink at ...

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• 2 January

  GE’s CEO turns the page on a horrible 2018

  

  In the annals of General Electric Co.’s storied 126-year-history, 2018 will go down as a year almost everyone with ties to the company would like to forget. GE lost nearly $90 billion of its market value, its A-level credit rating, its place in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and any pretensions it still had of being a breeding ground for ...

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• 2 January

  RBI surprises by reversing its debt revamp stance

  

  Bloomberg India’s central bank will permit lenders to restructure stressed loans to small companies, breaking from a five-year-old policy of eschewing sweeping corporate debt overhauls. The Reserve Bank of India will allow one-time restructuring of loans to micro, small and medium-sized companies that are in default, the regulator said in a statement. To be eligible for the program, the loan ...

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• 2 January

  Fed gauge points to interest rate cuts for first time since 2008

  

  Bloomberg A market indicator watched by the Fed as one of the most accurate gauges of economic health is pricing in lower rates for the first time in more than a decade. The little-known near-term forward spread, which reflects the difference between the forward rate implied by Treasury bills six quarters from now and the current three-month yield, fell to ...

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• 2 January

  RBC’s McGregor eyes private-equity deals

  

  Bloomberg Call it a New Year’s resolution for Royal Bank of Canada’s top investment banker: Doug McGregor wants to spend more time with private equity in 2019. As head of RBC Capital Markets, McGregor spent a decade expanding a Canadian bank-owned firm once focussed on its home turf into a global operation with more bankers, resources and revenue in the ...

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