July, 2018

• 18 July

  Debenhams’ wriggle room ‘not enough’

  

  Loss of credit insurance has played a part in several UK retail horror stories over the past decade. Investors in Debenhams Plc will be hoping the chain doesn’t follow the familiar narrative. One leading insurer, Euler Hermes, has reduced cover for suppliers, while rivals Atradius and Coface have refused to cover new shipments, the Sunday Times reported. Credit insurance protects ...

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• 18 July

  Why merger arbitrage funds aren’t doing well

  Mergers and acquisitions are booming, with 2018 projected to be the first year that global deal volume breaks $5 trillion. But merger arbitrage funds, which attempt profit on perceived market inefficiencies before or after an M&A deal is announced, are not doing well. The last three months for which data are available represent the first time MAFs have lost money ...

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• 18 July

  If Brexit deadlock can’t be broken, vote again

  UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s new Brexit strategy is collapsing even before the European Union responds. Her plan offered an awkward compromise between a clean break from Europe, which would cause enormous economic disruption, and remaining in the EU, which voters rejected two years ago. Apparently, it’s an offer nobody wants to accept. May’s Conservative Party is bitterly divided between ...

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• 18 July

  Trump’s disdain for Europe risks American economy

  

  It’s hard to convey the full breadth of the shock felt from witnessing the president of the United States attack NATO allies, refer to the EU as a “foe,” criticise and insult the UK prime minister while on British soil, and call into question a post-Brexit US-UK trade deal. This is particularly true when contrasted with President Donald Trump’s press ...

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• 18 July

  Breaking up Facebook would do more harm than good to market

  

  Facebook Inc. bestrides the Earth. It attracts nearly 1.5 billion users a day, commands a fifth of global online advertising revenue, and has a market capitalisation that exceeds the GDP of many countries. An average user spends nearly an hour a day on its various platforms — about as much time as they spend eating and drinking. Any business of ...

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• 18 July

  New weapons against antibiotic-resistant bacteria

  

  It’s frustrating enough when progress in medicine plods along slowly, but downright alarming when it starts to backslide. Bacterial infections were considered essentially conque-red in the 20th century, and now resistant strains are projected to kill more people than cancer by 2050. While some people dispute the projected death rate, it’s agreed that bacteria are evolving resistance to antibiotics faster ...

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• 18 July

  Banks are facing a squeeze from Trump’s trade war

  

  Bloomberg For banks that finance trade in Asia, the tariff war between the US and China couldn’t come at a worse time. Lenders globally have faced declining revenue from the $9 trillion business of funding cross-border commerce for five years running, thanks to a drop in margins that is persisting in Asia. Now, as the trade dispute between the world’s ...

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• 18 July

  BOE to give view on Brexit deal: Carney

  

  Bloomberg Mark Carney thrust the Bank of England (BOE) into the Brexit debate again, saying he’ll give a thumbs up — or down — to any divorce deal that British Prime Minister Theresa May reaches with the European Union. “We will have to give our view on whether or not the arrangements are consistent with our ability to fulfill our ...

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• 18 July

  ‘Tariff war could spur broad market rout’

  

  Bloomberg BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said that intensifying global trade tensions may spur a broad market downturn and a slowdown in the US economy. Stocks could drop 10 percent to 15 percent and US gross domestic product would start slowing in 2019 if the Trump administration sees through its threat to levy tariffs on an additional $200 ...

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• 18 July

  UBS abandons call for yuan gain in 2018

  

  Bloomberg UBS Group AG abandoned its forecast for the yuan to appreciate this year, anticipating that the trade war will continue to put pressure on the currency, hurt China’s economic growth and spur the country’s policy makers to unleash more liquidity. “With underlying pressures on CNY set to intensify and China’s current-account surplus likely to decline notably, we see CNY ...

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