October, 2018

• 17 October

  UK inflation slows more than forecast on food, transport

  Bloomberg UK inflation slowed more than expected in September, dragged lower by the cost of food and transport fares. Annual consumer-price growth dip-ped to 2.4 percent from 2.7 percent in August, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday. The rate was lower than the median 2.6 percent forecast in a Bloomberg survey. Downward pressure came mainly from food prices, ...

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• 17 October

  IBM misses Q3 sales estimates, casting doubt on growth engines

  

  Bloomberg International Business Machines Corp missed analysts’ quarterly revenue estimates, ending a short-lived streak of sales gains and casting doubt on its strategy to boost growth through new businesses like cloud and artificial intelligence. The shares slip-ped in extended trading. Revenue fell 2.1 percent to $18.8 billion in the third quarter, while analysts were expecting $19.1 billion. Cloud revenue, which ...

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• 17 October

  Netflix soars as blistering subscriber growth restores faith

  

  Bloomberg Netflix Inc is growing faster than even its most bullish fans on Wall Street predicted, soothing doubts about its global prospects and sending its already-stratospheric stock higher. After a stumble with its previous results, the world’s largest paid online TV network added far more subscribers than analysts expected in the third quarter. Netflix also issued an upbeat outlook for ...

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• 17 October

  Trump’s trolling vs. the ‘constitution of knowledge’

  

  On the road again, and full of indignation about, or perhaps admiration for, what he called ‘made-up’ and ‘fabricated’ Democratic accusations during the recent judicial confirmation turmoil, America’s feral president swerved into a denunciation of a nonexistent bill – “It’s called ‘the open borders bil’” — that, he thundered, “every single Democrat” in the Senate has “signed up for.” Now, ...

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• 17 October

  Lessons from Italy’s new budget

  

  The unveiled budget by the Italian government looks like a “Greatest Hits” album containing all the measures that have failed to spur growth in the past. The populist administration has largely neglected companies and younger workers, who will receive little benefit from the proposed policy changes. Instead, it is letting workers retire early and handing out a still undefined income ...

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• 17 October

  WeChat rivals can take social, but Tencent is moving on

  Two hip, young startups are set to become the latest challenge to Tencent Holdings Ltd. just as China’s dominant social-media company struggles with shrinking margins and slowing growth. Pop and Echo, social apps created by former Tencent executives, have already secured venture-capital funding, The Information reported. Echo is valued at $40 million, while Pop got backing from Bertelsmann Asia Investments, ...

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• 17 October

  Shrinking hasn’t stopped Abe’s Japan from growing

  Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s steps to increase immigration and raise the consumption tax are both signs that Japan’s shrinking population is as much opportunity as challenge. With an unemployment rate of 2.4 percent and a job market that by other measures is the tightest since the 1970s, something has to give. Robots will play a greater role, as will foreign-born ...

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• 17 October

  How Nigeria can escape the natural-resource curse

  

  Nigeria’s population is growing rapidly. It now stands at 182 million, and is projected to exceed 300 million by midcentury, surpassing the US to become the world’s third-largest country. And thanks to a high fertility rate — more than five children per women, higher than the average for sub-Saharan Africa and more than double the global rate — that growth ...

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• 17 October

  The gender-biased algorithm of Amazon

  

  Internet giant Amazon recently ran into a problem that eloquently illustrates the pitfalls of big data: It tried to automate hiring with a machine learning algorithm, but upon testing it realised that it merely perpetuated the tech industry’s bias against women. What’s most troubling isn’t the discovery itself. It’s that most companies using similar algorithms don’t even want to know. ...

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• 17 October

  Uncover your eyes. There’s no China car crash

  

  Calm down, the world’s biggest car market isn’t going to drive off a cliff. Sales to dealerships in China fell for a third month in September, dropping almost 12 percent from a year earlier, data showed. Retail sales declined 13 percent. Total vehicle sales could now be on track for their first annual drop in more than two decades. Scary ...

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