October, 2018

• 27 October

  Banks might have started worrying about Brexit

  

  For a long time, bankers’ concerns about the UK’s exit from the European Union (EU) didn’t seem to have much effect on London’s role as a global financial hub. That might be changing. One measure of London’s prominence is the amount of international lending that originates in the UK. A German bank, for example, might provide financing to an Irish ...

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• 27 October

  A bridge alone can’t unify Hong Kong with China

  What’s the most important bit of infrastructure to connect an international metropolis like China’s Pearl River Delta? A demolished border post. For all the excitement around the opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge last week, that’s probably the best lesson to draw from Beijing’s plan to draw Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Dongguan, Foshan and other cities into a single megalopolis. ...

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• 27 October

  Best hope for Italian bonds may be coalition’s collapse

  

  As Italy digs in to resist European Union (EU) demands for budget moderation, some investors say only one thing can reverse the government’s spiraling borrowing costs: the collapse of the populist administration. The coalition’s determination to ramp up spending has pushed the yield on Italian bonds to highs not seen since the euro-area debt crisis. As long as the nation’s ...

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• 27 October

  Boeing is big exception to earnings gloom

  

  Boeing Co. is a bright spot in a rough week for industrial earnings. The planemaker reported better-than-expected third-quarter results, and raised its guidance for 2018 adjusted profit. Boeing also maintained its goal of delivering 810 to 815 commercial airplanes this year, easing pre-earnings jitters over a relatively weak shipping rate in the third quarter. That should provide confidence that bottlenecks ...

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• 27 October

  The electric-vehicle future will run on two wheels

  

  Given recent market turmoil, it would easy to overlook the upcoming IPO of Niu Technologies, a Chinese manufacturer of electric mopeds. The $95 million the company plans to raise is a pittance compared to the billions burnt by Tesla Inc. But, the technologies developed by Niu and other pioneers of electric two-wheel vehicles will transform transportation as much as anything ...

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• 27 October

  Is tech boom near peak?

  

  Bloomberg The staggering growth of cloud computing can’t go on forever. And reports from tech companies that make data-center hardware and sell the services suggest the industry’s expansion is cooling. Western Digital Corp., a maker of memory chips, neatly listed everything that is suddenly wrong with the technology industry when it gave a disappointing forecast. A boom in spending by ...

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• 27 October

  Robots replacing chefs at Haidilao

  

  Bloomberg In Haidilao International Holding Ltd.’s hotpot restaurants, robots are replacing chefs and waiters. Asia’s biggest listed restaurant chain by market value is partnering with Japan’s Panasonic Corp. to open what the two companies say is the world’s first eatery with a fully automated kitchen on October 28 in Beijing. At the new Haidilao restaurant, robots will take orders, prepare ...

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• 27 October

  Tech guru bets drones will be ‘gold rush in the air’ for Japan

  

  Bloomberg The only person in a kimono at a recent Japanese government meeting on flying cars was Kotaro Chiba, a former online-game executive turned fina- ncier of a very specific kind. For Chiba, 44, who wears the kimono on special occasions to show his pride in Japanese culture, is gathering money for what he calls the Drone Fund. It invests ...

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• 27 October

  Draghi defends independence of ECB

  

  Bloomberg Mario Draghi defended the independence of central banks hours after Italian populists blamed him for adding to market tensions that threaten the health of the nation’s banks. “Credibility hinges on independence,” the European Central Bank president said in a speech in Brussels. “The central bank should not be subject to fiscal or political dominance and should be free to ...

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• 27 October

  India’s RBI seeks more powers to clean up country’s banking system

  

  Bloomberg India’s central bank wants more independence to regulate state-run banks as it seeks to clean up the country’s banking system, which has one of the highest stressed loan ratios among major economies. In a speech in Mumbai, Viral Acharya, deputy governor in charge of monetary policy, said the central bank has limited powers to discipline errant government-owned banks as ...

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