June, 2018

• 17 June

  It’s mission accomplished for the ECB, for now

  

  The European Central Bank (ECB) has said it intends to end its bond-buying program at the end of this year. It was the right decision. The aim of the program was to stave off the threat of deflation, and that has been done. Nonetheless, risks remain, and the central bank can’t afford to ignore them. The euro-zone economy has come ...

  Read More »
• 17 June

  Crypto unicorns do battle while Bitcoin droops

  The Hong Kong market is low-hanging fruit for shy but hungry unicorns. Bitmain Technologies Ltd., the world’s dominant producer of cryptocurrency-mining equipment, is mulling a public listing, founder Jihan Wu told Blake Schmidt of Bloomberg News. Giving early backers such as Sequoia Capital and IDG Capital an exit is a fine gesture, sure, but the four-year-old Chinese company is rushing ...

  Read More »
• 17 June

  Donald Trump’s G-7 crackup boosts China’s sway in Asia

  

  If US President Donald Trump wanted to discredit the West, he could hardly be doing a more thorough job of it. The hostility he directed at ostensible allies in the G-7 was bad enough, especially when contrasted with the obsequious praise he lavished on North Korea’s murderous Kim Jong Un in Singapore. Worse perhaps was the visual contrast between the ...

  Read More »
• 17 June

  Citigroup outpaces its rivals in game of risk

  

  When it comes to risky trading, Citigroup Inc. may have a reason to protest too much. At an analysts’ conference, Citigroup CFO John Gerspach was asked about a recent proposed change to the Volcker Rule — the Dodd-Frank regulation that limits banks’ ability to make market bets with their own capital. Gerspach said the change wouldn’t matter much to Citi, ...

  Read More »
• 17 June

  Scarce liquidity will worsen the next financial crisis

  

  No one can predict how bad the next financial crisis will be. What’s certain, though, is that a lack of liquidity will make the fallout much worse. Holders of securities, currencies and commodities need trading liquidity so they can adjust positions, raise cash to meet redemptions, reduce their risk, or limit losses. Yet they seem to anticipate more liquidity than ...

  Read More »
• 17 June

  Norway wants to be pioneer in electric jets

  

  Bloomberg Home to some of the busiest flight routes in Europe, whisking passengers across a rugged and mountainous landscape, Norway’s aviation industry now readies to go electric. Norway is one of Tesla’s biggest markets, with about 8,500 cars sold last year. Now, the country whose tourism sales pitch is “Powered by Nature” wants to be a pioneer in the market ...

  Read More »
• 17 June

  Russian driverless buses debut during World Cup

  

  Bloomberg World Cup soccer spectators got a chance to ride driverless buses to see France’s clash with Australia in Russia’s eastern city of Kazan, part of a state-backed push into autonomous vehicles. Local truck maker Kamaz PJSC is laying on the electric vehicles to show off its technological skills while the world’s eyes are on the remote city on the ...

  Read More »
• 17 June

  Driverless cars may cut traffic jams, not insurance premiums

  

  Bloomberg It turns out robots need insurance too. As driverless vehicles reduce car ownership in coming years, insurers may not face the Armageddon that had been predicted, new research shows. “We do not expect revenues for auto insurance companies to experience a sudden decline as a result of autonomous vehicles,” Alejandro Zamorano, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said. ...

  Read More »
• 17 June

  Drone swarms are new fireworks lighting up China’s skies

  

  Bloomberg Since China banned fireworks across more than 400 cities to reduce pollution, a new entertainment has emerged to fill the skies: drone swarms. Shows featuring more than a thousand drones forming 3-D animated figures and other images are being booked for celebrations across the country. Among those cashing in on the technology is EHang Inc., which has been contracted ...

  Read More »
• 17 June

  Japan holds tight to stimulus as peers dial back from crisis mode

  

  Bloomberg The gap between the Bank of Japan and its global peers widened. The BOJ maintained its aggressive asset-purchase and yield-curve targets less than 24 hours after the European Central Bank mapped out an exit from its crisis-era policies, and just days after the US Federal Reserve again raised interest rates. Underscoring the divide, the BOJ downgraded its assessment of ...

  Read More »