December, 2018

• 4 December

  Not even Tencent can make up for Line’s lost friends

  Line Corp. investors are so desperate for any shred of good news that reports of a tie-up with Tencent Holdings Ltd. drove the stock’s biggest gain in two years. Users of Tencent’s WeChat Pay will be able to buy goods through Line’s platform at local retail outlets, the Japanese company said at a briefing in Tokyo. Nikkei had reported on ...

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• 4 December

  EU must boost process for evaluating banks

  The departing head of the European Banking Authority has issued a warning over the state of the EU’s so-called stress tests, which are meant to show whether banks have sufficient capital to weather bad news. Andrea Enria, who’ll shortly become head of the supervisory arm of the European Central Bank (ECB), is right that the system needs reforming, but his ...

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• 4 December

  The pound doesn’t show the full Brexit picture

  

  Markets hate uncertainty, and Brexit has it in spades. Leaving the European Union (EU) seems to present the UK with an unappealing choice of either a lot of economic harm via crashing out without a deal, or slightly less damage via Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement. But there are reasons why investors might start thinking about more blue-sky scenarios: Either a ...

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• 4 December

  China despairs of its ‘financial underbelly’

  

  Dismantling the opaque underbelly of China’s financial system is proving far tougher than Beijing could have imagined. After rolling out a stream of reactive regulatory measures over the past year, authorities are now preparing to effectively phase out the $176 billion peer-to-peer lending market, Bloomberg News reports. Small and medium-size P2P platforms will be wound down, while large ones will ...

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• 4 December

  Why Indian airlines keep struggling to take off

  

  Anyone puzzled by how the Indian economy manages to grow swiftly while somehow failing to be prosperous could do worse than look at the state of India’s airlines. Over the past four years, passenger growth in India has been rapid: The number of flights taken has increased between 15 and 20 percent per year. Demand growth this year is likely ...

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• 4 December

  Stocks decline as trade hopes fade; curve flattens

  

  Bloomberg The rally in risk assets sparked by the trade truce faded as investors grew skeptical that the US and China made any meaningful breakthrough. The Treasury yield curve continued to flatten and the dollar retreated. The S&P 500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq indexes all gave up a chunk of Monday’s gains at the New York open, while the Stoxx ...

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• 4 December

  Pound rallies as market grabs sign Brexit is reversible

  Bloomberg The pound rallied after an adviser to the European Union’s top court suggested that the UK should be allowed to reverse its notice to leave the bloc. Sterling snapped three days of losses following the non-binding opinion from Advocate General Manuel Campos Sanchez-Bordona of the EU Court of Justice, who said “the possibility continues to exist” to revoke the ...

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• 4 December

  Yuan poised for biggest two-day gain in a decade

  Bloomberg The real winner from the trade thaw between the US and China is proving to be the yuan. The currency rose 0.66 percent to 6.8403 per dollar, taking its two-day gain to 1.7 percent, the biggest since at least 2007. Bonds rallied, with the yield on 10-year government debt falling to its lowest level since April 2017, amid speculation ...

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• 4 December

  Powell: Strong economy has not reached all Americans

  

  Bloomberg Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that while the central bank has made progresstowards a “strong economy” with rising wages, many lower-income workers have been left behind. “The Federal Reserve’s mission is to promote a strong economy and sound financial system,” Powell said in remarks prepared for delivery in Washington. “I am glad to say we have made a ...

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• 4 December

  Pakistan plans to curb central bank’s power to manage currency

  

  Bloomberg Pakistan’s government plans to make the central bank report any planned currency adjustments to a committee, a move seen to curb the regulator’s independence as the nation negotiates an International Monetary Fund bailout. The State Bank of Pakistan has weakened the rupee for the fifth time this year and raised the key interest rate — roiling the stock market. ...

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