October, 2018

• 28 October

  US capital-equipment orders fall for second straight month

  

  Bloomberg Orders placed with US factories for business equipment declined in September for a second month, a sign momentum in capital investment has paused as global trade concerns persist, Commerce Department figures showed. The report showed declines in bookings for electrical equipment, appliances and components, while orders for computers and electronic products were unchanged. Categories with gains included motor vehicles ...

  Read More »
• 28 October

  Daimler expects an earnings bounce in Q4

  

  Bloomberg Daimler AG has its work cut out to get a fourth-quarter earnings bounce. After two consecutive profit warnings, the German manufacturer of Mercedes-Benz cars sees improvements by clearing out vehicle stock in Europe and maintaining sales momentum in China, the Stuttgart-based company said in a statement. Neither will be easy. “Daimler is certainly not alone when hoping for a ...

  Read More »
• 28 October

  Comcast rises as focus on improving service pays off

  

  Bloomberg Comcast Corp. climbed in early trading after its focus on improving its internet service paid off in the third quarter, with the largest US cable provider posting a big increase in broadband subscribers. The company added 363,000 internet subscribers in the period, a 70 percent increase from a year earlier. Comcast has had only one previous quarter in the ...

  Read More »
• 28 October

  Trump economy needs California’s global outlook

  

  Wherever he is, President Donald Trump exults in the US economic boom, calling it, falsely, the strongest in history. (He’s just recently stopped making the same inaccurate claim for the US stock market.) He even bragged about having a “magic wand” he could wave to conjure jobs and growth. Never mind that almost 13 million of the 17 million jobs ...

  Read More »
• 28 October

  Macron should go for nuclear option

  

  So daunting is the challenge of overhauling the global energy system to prevent further catastrophic climate change, that just thinking about it feels paralysing. It’s been done before though, at least on a national level. During the 1970s and 1980s France built scores of nuclear power plants that now provide almost three-quarters of the country’s electricity. At the time, French ...

  Read More »
• 28 October

  Hyundai earnings shock shows need for direction

  

  We knew the global auto industry was struggling, but is it this bad? Hyundai Motor Co. announced an almost 67 percent drop in net income, saying one-time recall costs to address quality issues were chiefly to blame. There’s a deeper problem, though. Nobody was prepared for the result, and investors fled, pushing the stock down as much as 10.7 percent. ...

  Read More »
• 28 October

  It’s too late for central banks to hike rates

  If you haven’t started raising interest rates in earnest already, forget it. Central banks that have dawdled have missed the cycle. Growth seems to have peaked, and markets are signaling potential trouble. For those outside the US who tightened consistently, this is a prudent time to look around and reassess. Nations that could reasonably have been expected to raise borrowing ...

  Read More »
• 28 October

  China’s Tesla wannabe has a big brother problem

  

  Investors are throwing billions of dollars at connected cars. The technological advances that enable vehicles to be linked into wireless networks promise greater efficiency and, in theory, safety. They also open the possibility of being watched and monitored more closely — and that may be a problem for China’s self-proclaimed rival to Tesla Inc. Nio Inc., the electric-vehicle maker that ...

  Read More »
• 28 October

  UBS group is subject to madness of markets too

  

  Sergio Ermotti, the chief executive officer of UBS, will hope that the selloff battering global markets is merely a “healthy correction,” as some investors have described it, rather than something more serious. The past five years have seen the boss of UBS Group AG deliver on a promise of reliable returns and dividend payouts, largely by boosting his wealth management ...

  Read More »
• 28 October

  Italy’s new budget isn’t as crazy as it seems

  

  Europe’s leaders have come down hard on Italy for its plans to increase spending with the aim of boosting growth and helping the poor. What they fail to recognise is that a little stimulus might be just what the Italian economy needs. The outlook for the global economy is deteriorating more rapidly than forecasters realise. A slowdown in China has ...

  Read More »