August, 2018

• 12 August

  Global banks are not as safe as they think

  In the decade since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, regulators around the world have taken steps which, they argue, have greatly strengthened the resilience of the financial system. Buoyant asset prices and rising bank shares suggest that investors largely believe them. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of these measures remains uncertain. That will only become clear in a real downturn, rather than ...

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• 12 August

  The long unravelling of Tesla’s master plan

  

  While this week’s episode of Tesla Inc has left us with several cliffhangers, it did show one thing: just how far the company has veered from Elon Musk’s secret “Master Plan” of 2006. Musk summarised it at the top of an updated version — ”Part Deux” — published in 2016: 1 Create a low volume car, which would necessarily be ...

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• 12 August

  The reason to worry when public firms disappear

  

  Public corporations are an odd hybrid institution. They’re not really public in the sense of the government having a stake in them — they’re privately owned companies that follow government standards for financial reporting. In theory, this transparency makes them suitable for the public to invest in. Again in theory, this confers at least two benefits on a company. Financial ...

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• 12 August

  Cheap tickets are killing India’s booming air market

  

  Go to any Indian airport, and it’ll appear that nearly all of the country’s billion-plus people have decided to fly. Yet talk to shareholders of India’s largest aviation businesses, and they’ll tell you how miserable they are. Oxygen masks have been down since last month’s 97 percent drop in quarterly profit for InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, which operates IndiGo, the budget ...

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• 12 August

  Barclays hires analyst team from rival SocGen

  

  Bloomberg Barclays Plc, one of Europe’s biggest investment banks, hired a team of equity analysts from rival Societe Generale SA as Chief Executive Officer Jes Staley seeks to make more money from trading stocks. Warren Ackerman has joined from the French bank as head of European consumer equity research along with Michael Sanderson, who will be Barclays’s co-head of diversified ...

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• 12 August

  Rupiah headwinds blow as policy makers prepare for rate decision

  

  Bloomberg The coming week may prove to be a crucial one for the Indonesian rupiah. As Wednesday’s policy decision approaches, Bank Indonesia finds itself under pressure to raise the benchmark rate again even after increasing it by a combined 100 basis points since mid-May to stem a slide in the currency. Rupiah headwinds have steadily increased in recent weeks and ...

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• 12 August

  Credit expansion faster in China banks

  

  Bloomberg The outsize growth of a country’s banks is a sign that credit expansion is faster there than in other nations. In 1988, 9 of the 10 largest banks in the world were Japanese. Three years later the country’s financial system, along with its lenders, collapsed, sending Japan into its infamous lost decade (or three, considering the country is still ...

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• 12 August

  Ruble dives the most since oil crash in 2015

  

  Bloomberg Some of Wall Street’s biggest banks are warning investors to steer clear of Russian assets after the ruble’s worst week since the 2015 oil crash amid mounting risks of crippling sanctions from the U.S. Morgan Stanley turned bearish and UBS Group AG closed its recommendation to buy the Russian currency, with analysts at both banks saying in notes that ...

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• 12 August

  Goldman Sachs starts childcare service for sick kids in Japan

  

  Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group has introduced a childcare programme in Japan that specialises in looking after employees’ sick children, stepping up efforts to retain more female workers and improve diversity. Under the programme, when a child falls ill the bank will dispatch a babysitter or nurse from a local provider on request within two to three hours. It’s the first ...

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• 12 August

  Suicidal ground worker crashes Alaska Air plane

  

  Bloomberg Step inside the cockpit of an empty commercial aircraft and the pilot controls are yours. You don’t need a key or any special passcode to power up the plane and fly it away, whether it’s a small regional jet or a giant twin-deck Airbus A380. The suicide-by-plane at Seattle’s Sea-Tac International Airport, which ended when a rogue airline employee ...

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