July, 2018

• 16 July

  Germany can’t fully rely on US, says top diplomat

  Bloomberg Germany’s foreign minister urged the EU to “readjust” its relationship with the US and said the bloc can no longer fully rely on the White House after President Donald Trump identified America’s long-term ally as a “ foe”. Trump, who met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on Monday, characterised the EU as an adversary, citing a trading ...

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• 16 July

  Trump is not getting the Brexit he wanted

  

  The UK’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union represented a moment of vindication and hope for Donald Trump. No wonder he sounded worried, as he arrived in the UK for his visit. It was not the protestors waiting at every stop, or even the giant orange Trump Baby balloon floating over London that was likely to irk the thin-skinned ...

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• 16 July

  IPO bargain basement ‘just the place to be’

  

  Swathes of shuttered stores. Customers slamming their wallets shut. Amazon.com Inc lurking in the background. It doesn’t look like the ideal time for a retailer to go public. But that’s what TheWorks.co.uk Plc is planning to do. It’s a brave decision given the crisis engulfing bricks-and-mortar retailers, but TheWorks is right to press ahead. That’s because the company, which was ...

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• 16 July

  Beijing loves Xiaomi, just in its own special way

  Xiaomi Corp has caught a lot of breaks from Hong Kong and its stock exchange. China isn’t playing ball. Yet. The Hong Kong-Xiaomi relationship is crucial, and symbiotic. For one, Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd ended a ban on dual-class listings that allowed founder Lei Jun to keep control of the smartphone maker and have his IPO too. It ...

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• 16 July

  Global growth peaked with a whimper, not a bang

  That was the high point? We’ve probably seen the best of global growth for this cycle, but the peak wasn’t marked by the traditional catalysts for a slowdown like higher interest rates or a financial blowup. Instead it’s a different scene in each of the biggest economies — with the US powering ahead, Europe and Japan drifting after a stellar ...

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• 16 July

  Google’s day of reckoning is about next billion users

  

  You have to give one thing to Facebook Inc: Confronted by a torrent of accusations of misbehaviour over the past 12 months, the world’s largest social network has at least made the effort to be conciliatory. The same cannot be said about Alphabet Inc’s Google. The European Commission will reveal the punishment for the search giant’s practice of forcing smartphone-makers ...

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• 16 July

  There’s no subprime bubble in Chinese auto industry loans

  

  Slowing car sales and tightening credit look like a toxic combination for China’s auto-financing industry, which has exploded in past few years. Concerns the sector is heading for a subprime-like meltdown may be overblown, though. Sales in the world’s largest car market rose 2.3 percent in June from a year earlier, data showed last week. While faster than several analysts ...

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• 16 July

  France’s tax cuts drive are not helping everyone

  

  The French state has, at times, been as close to a nanny state as it gets. But that doesn’t mean France lacks a thriving charity and non-governmental sector. On the contrary, France’s charity sector is massive, with some 1.3 million estimated non-profit groups. They spend close to 3.4 percent of French GDP, and employ close to 2 million people, with ...

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• 16 July

  Banks are building super-speed money highway in the Nordics

  

  Bloomberg The biggest Nordic banks expect to launch a new piece of financial infrastructure next year, promising to dramatically speed up international transfers in one of the world’s most technologically advanced regions. The aim is to make it possible to clear payments and settle accounts within seconds, regardless of currency. The P27 project — so-called for the 27 million people ...

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• 16 July

  Citi says Trump ‘brutal’ on trade policies but sees deals by midterms

  

  Bloomberg After US moves on global trade policy that have shredded decades of trust, watch out for deals to be struck before the midterm elections in November, Citigroup Inc. said, flagging a potential rebound in commodity prices towards the year-end that’s aided by still-robust fundamentals. “US trade actions have been brutal and unilateral and have punctured the trust built up ...

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