July, 2018

• 24 July

  China unveils new steps to aid growth

  

  Bloomberg China unveiled a package of policies to boost domestic demand as trade tensions threaten to worsen the nation’s economic slowdown, sending stocks higher. From a tax cut aimed at fostering research spending to special bonds for infrastructure investment, the measures announced following a meeting of the State Council in Beijing are intended to form a more flexible response to ...

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• 24 July

  Japan’s manufacturing sector sees slowdown

  Bloomberg Japan’s manufacturing sector lost steam in July as demand for exports weakened. The Nikkei Japan Purchasing Managers Index for manufacturers for July showed a preliminary reading of 51.6, the lowest since November 2016, and down from 53.0 in June. Output came in at 52.4, down from 53.6, and the index for stocks of finished goods fell. A reading above ...

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• 24 July

  Bowing Samsung chief heralds economy shift by S Korea’s Moon

  

  Bloomberg When South Korean President Moon Jae-in was greeted with four deep bows from de facto Samsung Group chief Lee Jae-yong earlier this month in India, the footage quickly went viral back home. The overseas encounter between two of South Korea’s most powerful men — their first since Moon’s election on an anti-establishment platform last year — struck a chord. ...

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• 24 July

  No-deal Brexit is crazy, but might just happen

  

  The prospect that the UK would leave the European Union without a deal setting out the terms of the withdrawal once seemed laughably remote. When it was mentioned at all, it was mainly as a negotiating tactic aimed at securing favorable trade and tariff agreements between the UK and the EU. Even when Prime Minister Theresa May uttered the mantra ...

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• 24 July

  UBS puts smile on faces of Europe’s banks

  

  UBS Group AG has kicked off the European banks’ earnings season after a quarter hit by fears of a global trade war, rising market volatility and slower economic growth. For all the jitters, expectations may be set too low. The Swiss bank didn’t do too badly amid the gloom: net income rose 9 percent to 1.28 billion Swiss francs ($1.29 ...

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• 24 July

  Peak robot? Japan says that’s far from automatic

  With a trade war intensifying, industrial machinery giants are making investors anxious. It’s not all bad. After what looked like an incipient downturn, orders for Japanese machine tools — a keenly watched da-taset — rose 11 percent in June from a year earlier, figures showed last week. Demand from home and overseas totaled close to 160 billion yen ($1.4 billion), ...

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• 24 July

  Google gives investors a reason for short memories

  That sound you heard was a sigh of relief from Google investors. Parent company Alphabet Inc. delivered a second-quarter financial report that showed both another impressive stretch of revenue growth and a moderation in the pace of spending that had been making stockholders panic. Google isn’t supernatural, but it has shown that recent investor pessimism about the company has been ...

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• 24 July

  Tapping oil reserves will not cure Trump’s gas pain

  

  Besides Twitter — especially of the ALL-CAPS variety — President Donald Trump has another way of influencing troublesome oil prices: Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The question is which is more influential. In theory, those 660 million barrels stashed at four sites along the Gulf Coast should count for more than 280 characters in the ether. But if the aim is ...

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• 24 July

  Tesla shows lithium market needs a chill

  

  Isn’t lithium meant to be a mood stabiliser? That’s certainly not what’s happening in the stocks of companies that produce the element used in rechargeable batteries and psychiatric medications. News this week that Tesla Inc sent a memo to some suppliers asking them for payment rebates to help it become profitable shook shares in lithium miners. The Solactive Global Lithium ...

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• 24 July

  Large Russian businesses are turning inward

  

  The planned delisting of Megafon PJSC, Russia’s second-biggest mobile operator, from the London Stock Exchange is no ordinary event. The company is one of the most liquid Russian stocks trading overseas, and its exit is further evidence that the country’s businesses are turning inward as exposure to the West becomes increasingly problematic. In 2011, almost 70 Russian companies’ depositary receipts ...

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