August, 2018

• 18 August

  CLOs are new hedge funds. Plan accordingly

  A number of hedge fund firms have a hot product. It’s not their hedge funds. Och-Ziff Capital Management’s investors withdrew $418 million from its hedge funds in the second quarter. Total inflow of assets under management, however, were $1.2 billion, its largest increase in assets in four years. The firm’s hot product: Collateralised loan obligations — a derivative debt investment ...

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• 18 August

  A lovely trade war for China’s property firms

  The trade dispute with the US hangs like an ax over China’s economy, but for the country’s real estate developers, it’s a boon. Onshore funding is opening up and the government is once again smiling on higher prices. Property investors should be doubly relieved: Beijing’s measures to rein in financial risk and cut developers’ access to debt have so far ...

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• 18 August

  The Trump economy is strong. So why exaggerate?

  

  There’s no denying that, since Donald Trump was sworn in as president in January 2017, the US economy has been doing quite well. Growth in real gross domestic product has been steadily accelerating. Strong job growth has also continued, with gains in nonfarm payroll employment even accelerating a little this year, which is pretty remarkable this deep into an economic ...

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• 18 August

  China gives Tencent 1 billion tempting target on WeChat

  

  Pony Ma has been very patient. Unfortunately for him, investors haven’t, and earnings will give them little reason to hold their breath. Net income and revenue at his Tencent Holdings Ltd both missed estimates. Concerns that rising costs would squeeze margins have helped to wipe about $150 billion off the Chinese goliath’s market value since January. Now China’s halt in ...

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• 18 August

  The internet doesn’t really need to know your name

  

  In the 1981 sci-fi novel “True Names,” Vernor Vinge describes a dystopian future in which hackers go to great lengths to keep their real-world identities secret for fear that the US government might enslave or assassinate them. Almost four decades years later, it’s not lives that are at risk, but reputations and careers. In recent months, we’ve seen multiple media ...

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• 18 August

  Diabetes monitoring: Legal war over patent escalates

  

  Bloomberg Diabetes treatment has evolved since Mary Fortune was diagnosed in 1967 and hospitalised because there was no reliable way monitor her blood sugar. These days, a glucose skin patch transmits her levels day and night to her iPhone and shares the data with others. Fortune and other diabetics are benefiting from an explosion in technology and innovation, from under-the-skin ...

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• 18 August

  Best Buy to buy senior-focussed device maker in $800mn deal

  

  Bloomberg Best Buy Co. is going after Grandma. The electronics retailer agreed to pay $800 million to acquire GreatCall Inc., a provider of smartphones and emergency-response systems for seniors, broadening its push into the burgeoning market for connected-home products and services. The deal, which should close by the end of the third quarter, will boost adjusted earnings by 2020, Best ...

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• 18 August

  Walmart eyes VR shopping system, say patent filings

  

  Bloomberg Trekking through a crowded, cavernous Walmart supercenter isn’t much fun. But what if you could do it from the comfort of your own home through virtual reality? The world’s biggest retailer wants to find out, according to filings with the US Patent and Trademark Office. The company has applied for two patents that detail a “virtual show room” and ...

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• 18 August

  Rolls adds own battery-powered ship engines

  Bloomberg Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc has begun offering its own battery-powered ship engines in a move that signals the gathering momentum behind a push towards hybrid and ultimately all-electric vessels. While maritime demand for lithium-ion batteries is focused on providing top-up power for traditional diesel and gas-turbine ships, the technology could propel fully electric craft over a limited range, according to ...

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• 18 August

  Australian dollar’s tumble not enough to satisfy RBA

  

  Bloomberg Australian central bank chief Philip Lowe said he’d still like to see the nation’s currency weaken further and sees interest rates remaining at a record low “for a while yet.” “It is likely to be some time before we are at full employment and the inflation rate is comfortably within the target range on a sustained basis,” Lowe said ...

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