October, 2018

• 16 October

  Ethiopian PM hands half of cabinet to women in government overhaul

  

  Bloomberg Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed named Ahmed Shide his finance minister in sweeping changes to the Horn of Africa nation’s government that included appointing women to half of cabinet posts. Abiy appointed Aisha Mohammed as defense minister and created the Ministry of Peace that will be headed by Mufuriat Kami, making them two of 10 women in his cabinet. ...

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• 16 October

  Brazil’s Bolsonaro builds large lead over rival: Poll

  Bloomberg Brazil’s far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro stands 18 percentage-points clear of his rival in the latest opinion poll ahead of the final round of the presidential election. Bolsonaro won 59 percent of valid vote intentions versus 41 percent for the Workers’ Party candidate, Fernando Haddad, in an Ibope poll published Monday evening. The survey also showed Haddad’s rejection rating ...

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• 16 October

  Climate-change battle will be won or lost in China

  

  Climate change is a menace. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change just issued a report showing how serious the situation is. If warming continues on its current trajectory, the report warns, then by the end of this century average temperatures will be 4 degrees Celsius higher than at the start of the Industrial Revolution. That may not sound like a ...

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• 16 October

  Robots can save us from ‘scammers’

  

  These days it seems that virtually every phone call is either spam or a scam — someone is trying to sell you a cheap credit card, Lasik eye surgery or land someplace you can’t find on a map. And you don’t even get the pleasure of real human interaction — the call comes from a robot, who only puts a ...

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• 16 October

  Bank of America limits risk but also its reward

  

  Bank of America’s investors just got more evidence that taking the slow and steady road is paying off but that there is a trade-off as well. Profit for the nation’s second-biggest lender rose 32 percent in the third quarter to 66 cents a share. That’s 4 cents better than analysts were expecting. Revenue was also slightly higher than analysts’ expectations. ...

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• 16 October

  Trump gives investors good reason to be scared

  This week’s fall in stock prices was about as unsurprising as President Trump’s explanation for the setback — “The Fed has gone crazy,” he said. Expect more of the same over the coming weeks and months, as the US economy adjusts to the withdrawal of the Federal Reserve’s post-crash monetary stimulus, and a reckless administration persists in testing investors’ nerve. ...

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• 16 October

  Sears’s last gasp could breathe life into rivals

  

  There was only one plausible outcome in the long, tortured saga of Sears Holdings Corp., and it has finally arrived. The retailing giant, which includes its eponymous department store and the Kmart discount chain, said it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It is set to close 142 unprofitable stores near the end of the year and Eddie Lampert, the ...

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• 16 October

  IPO investors get kicked when they’re down

  

  Investors need a reason to invest in European initial public offerings (IPOs). All they are getting are reasons not to. Medical devices firm Convatec Group Plc – one of the star debuts of 2016 – issued a massive profit warning on Monday, just as Spain’s Cepsa pulled what would have been the biggest oil IPO in a decade. Europe’s new ...

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• 16 October

  China rental surge is a Gordian knot for government

  

  Prepare for a crackdown on China’s overheated rental market. President Xi Jinping’s push to develop housing for lease was supposed to take the edge off soaring home prices. It hasn’t worked out that way. Rents instead have rocketed as the government’s call triggered a stampede of investment into the sector, fueling discontent among a millennial population that had already been ...

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• 16 October

  Stocks rally as earnings roll in; greenback falls

  

  Bloomberg US stocks jumped as earnings from major banks and health-care firms bolstered confidence in the economy. The dollar fell as geopolitical tensions appeared to ease. The S&P 500 rallied after the index couldn’t make a clean break of the key 200-day moving average. A rebounding tech sector led gains. Strong third-quarter results from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan ...

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