June, 2018

• 24 June

  Trade war sends jitters down hedge funds in China

  

  Bloomberg Donald Trump’s threats of a trade war with China are sending jitters through the hedge-fund community. Pinpoint Asset Management and SPQ Asia Capital have recently cut a measure of risk called net exposure — the difference between bullish and bearish bets — for hedge funds that invest in China. FengHe Asia Fund, which focuses on China, Taiwan and Vietnam, ...

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• 24 June

  Property market in China seen at risk

  

  Bloomberg A mad scramble by Chinese property developers to build up their land banks is taking its toll on the industry’s creditworthiness, with builders singled out as having the highest risk of default as channels of credit tighten. The Bloomberg Default risk model, which tracks metrics including share performance, liabilities and cash flow, shows a 0.87 percent average probability that ...

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• 24 June

  China handed the world a 111-mn-ton trash problem

  

  Bloomberg Few people consider used plastic to be a valuable global commodity. Yet China has imported 106 million tons of old bags, bottles, wrappers and containers worth $57.6 billion since 1992, the first year it disclosed data. So when the country announced last year that it finally had enough of everybody else’s junk, governments the world over knew they had ...

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• 24 June

  China’s ‘Thousand Talents’ plan key in seizing US expertise

  

  Bloomberg China’s “Thousand Talents” programme to tap into its citizens educated or employed in the US is a key part of multi-pronged efforts to transfer, replicate and eventually overtake US military and commercial technology, according to American intelligence officials. The programme, begun in 2008, is far from secret. But its unadvertised goal is “to facilitate the legal and illicit transfer ...

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• 24 June

  US risks being ‘overrun’ sans ‘strong’ borders, says Trump

  

  Bloomberg President Donald Trump defended his immigration policies at an event in Nevada aimed at boosting the prospects of a Republican senator facing a difficult re-election fight, saying that without a tough stance on the border the US would be “overrun.” Trump held a closed-door fundraiser in the Las Vegas area for Senator Dean Heller, and afterward addressed the Nevada ...

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• 24 June

  Zimbabwe president survives assassination attempt as vote looms

  

  Bloomberg The president of Zimbabwe Emmerson Mnangagwa escaped unscathed after an explosion at an election rally injured both his deputies, with the blast coming within hours of a separate grenade attack on Ethiopia’s prime minister. “’It exploded a few inches from me, but it is not my time,” Mnangagwa said in comments broadcast by state-owned media. Footage from the stadium ...

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• 24 June

  Erekat accuses US of trying to overthrow Palestinian authority

  

  Bloomberg A top Palestinian official accused the US of trying to overthrow Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in an attempt to discredit an American peace mission it is shunning. The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority broke off contact with the US in December over its Jerusalem policy, and has not been party to the meetings that negotiators Jared Kushner and Jason ...

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• 24 June

  EU seeks consensus on migration

  

  Bloomberg European leaders gathered in Brussels on Sunday for an informal meeting aimed at paving the way to a deal on the management of migration, amid an escalating crisis that threatens to unravel the bloc’s passport-free travel area and dissolve Germany’s governing coalition. “This is not about the survival of a chancellor,” Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said. “It’s about ...

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• 24 June

  EU nearing trade breakdown

  

  Bloomberg The global trade war is about to get worse, as the rules-based system of international commerce is poised to revert to an environment where the strong impose their will upon the weak, according to an internal memo circulated among European Union governments. The disputes between the US and its closest trading partners are set to escalate “in the coming ...

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• 24 June

  Trade is an afterthought in stock market still glued to earnings

  

  Bloomberg Of all the forces swaying equity prices, earnings expectations are the hardest to see. They don’t make headlines, are difficult to quantify and get lost in the din around trade wars and politics. Yet ignoring them is to miss the biggest part of what influences the market — the force that keeps the peace in a week like this. ...

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