November, 2018

• 20 November

  Retailers are heading into holidays

  

  When the forecasts landed earlier this fall for the holiday shopping blitz, all signs pointed towards a merry Christmas for retailers. But last week, major chains such as Macy’s Inc., Walmart Inc., Nordstrom Inc. and Williams-Sonoma Inc. saw their shares whacked after publishing third-quarter earnings results. Was that a signal that something has gone off course? I don’t think so. ...

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• 20 November

  Hedge fund quant sale is a marriage of convenience

  The appetite for low-cost passive funds is driving evolution at both ends of the scale in the asset management business. The biggest firms need to add more exotic products which can still command higher fees than their vanilla funds. And that means there’s an opportunity for smaller specialist managers to sell themselves to their larger brethren. Sushil Wadhwani is selling ...

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• 20 November

  The Brexit deal is just too good for Europe

  If the British parliament throws out the deal that Prime Minister Theresa May’s government has negotiated with the European Union (EU), it will be most regretted in Brussels, because the deal in its existing form essentially insulates Europe from most of the Brexit fallout. There’s a reason Donald Tusk, the European Council president, hurried to call a meeting of EU ...

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• 20 November

  China stimulus efforts are falling for good reason

  

  China’s vaunted economic managers aren’t infallible — and they’re currently making a familiar mistake. They are trying to accomplish too many objectives simultaneously, many of which conflict with each other. Instead of engineering a recovery, the resulting confused policy mix is only feeding a growing feeling of uncertainty among Chinese markets, businesses and households. That will continue to depress growth ...

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• 20 November

  Trump isn’t the global economy’s only challenge

  

  The world’s policy makers need to disentangle their feelings about Donald Trump from their efforts to address the challenges facing the global economy and US-Asia relations. It’s a tall order, but there are signs that they might be making progress. Over the past year, I’ve been to a lot of conferences where everyone was focused on Trump and the disruptions ...

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• 20 November

  Facebook’s leaders didn’t get it and still don’t

  

  Not long ago, an explanation developed about Facebook Inc.’s two-plus years of crises. The theory went that Facebook’s failures to spot foreign propaganda on the social network, to weed out viral misinformation, and to protect people’s digital information all had a common cause: Facebook’s leaders were too trusting and too optimistic to predict how the social network could be twisted ...

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• 20 November

  Tech sell-off hits global stocks; Treasuries gain

  

  Bloomberg Stocks fell from London to Shanghai and US equity futures signaled the global rout led by technology shares would deepen on Tuesday, adding pessimism to markets already anxious over trade. Treasuries advanced and the dollar edged higher. Contracts on all major US equity indexes pointed to declines at the open, with megacap tech shares leading the drop. The Stoxx ...

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• 20 November

  Cryptocurrencies plummet, Bitcoin breaks below $5,000

  

  Bloomberg The slide in cryptocurrencies accelerated this week, with Bitcoin piercing the $5,000 mark for the first time since October 2017, amid speculation that increased regulatory scrutiny will prompt issuers of initial coin offerings to liquidate holdings. Bitcoin declined as much as 14 percent during US trading hours, falling just below $4,700 before bouncing back slightly. The largest digital currency ...

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• 20 November

  SocGen to pay $1.3bn in US sanctions case settlement

  

  Bloomberg Societe Generale SA settled its longstanding sanctions violations case with US authorities, entering a deferred prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors and paying $1.34 billion to regulators in New York and Washington. As part of the settlement, France’s third-largest bank acknowledged violations of US sanctions laws against Cuba, Iran and Sudan starting as far back as 2003 and extending to ...

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• 20 November

  BOE’s Carney backs May’s Brexit plan

  

  Bloomberg Mark Carney gave his seal of approval to the transition deal agreed by Prime Minister Theresa May’s with the European Union, and signalled that he would welcome even longer for the UK to adjust. In his first public comments on the government’s draft agreement, the Bank of England (BOE) governor united with other central bank officials to warn of ...

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