May, 2018

• 19 May

  BMW bets on self-driving iNext halo in luxury sales race

  

  Bloomberg BMW AG offered another glimpse of its futuristic self-driving iNext car as the German manufacturer seeks to gain momentum in the race to overtake rival Mercedes-Benz in luxury car sales. The company, showing the iNext in a copper-colored version for the first time in 2016, will offer a more concrete concept of the vehicle this year, Chief Executive Officer ...

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• 19 May

  SoftBank-backed firm’s game released to public

  Bloomberg The first video-game built using technology developed by Improbable Worlds Ltd., the virtual reality startup backed by SoftBank Group Corp., has been released by British developer Bossa Studios. Worlds Adrift uses Improbable’s SpatialOS software, which lets programmers create realistic simulations of massive scale and complexity and run across a cloud-computing network. Softbank acquired a non-controlling stake in London-based Improbable ...

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• 19 May

  Emerging markets under pressure to hike rates

  

  Bloomberg Emerging-market central banks are going on the defensive. A surging dollar and the highest 10-year US Treasury yields since 2011 are fuelling bets that policy makers in key developing nations from India to Mexico will raise interest rates faster than economists previously anticipated. The turnaround is led by concern that a failure to tighten monetary policy risks the possibility ...

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• 19 May

  BOE seen raising rates at least once this year

  

  Bloomberg Slower-than-expected UK growth this year won’t stop the Bank of England from at least one interest-rate increase, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists. Output will stutter to 1.4 percent from 1.8 percent in 2017, the median forecast showed, slightly lower than the 1.5 percent previously forecast. Nearly 60 percent of economists see a hike at the August meeting. ...

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• 19 May

  Bank of Spain downgrades report on income inequality

  

  Bloomberg The Bank of Spain is debating how to handle an in-house study of wealth and income disparities which risks landing the institution in the middle of a political storm, according to two people familiar with the matter. Rather than publish the analysis in its signature annual report, which carries the stamp of the governor and sets out the official ...

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• 19 May

  JPMorgan brings alternative investments to masses

  Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans to offer sophisticated investments to a much broader clientele. The bank is slashing requirements to participate in certain alternative investments that its asset management arm once offered mainly to institutions or the ultra rich. That will allow it to accommodate more allocations made through registered investment advisers. The new minimum buy-in will be $100,000, ...

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• 19 May

  Deutsche Bank gets Fed scolding that burdens CEO Sewing

  

  Bloomberg A tense scene unfolded inside Deutsche Bank AG’s Manhattan tower just hours before news began leaking that the firm was looking for a new chief executive officer. US regulators on that day in late March gave senior executives a stern warning that remains in effect: Europe’s biggest investment bank, they said, must act more urgently to fix lapses described ...

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• 19 May

  Southwest sends its engine fan blades to GE for further inspection

  

  Bloomberg Southwest Airlines Co. said it has sent some aircraft-engine fan blades to the manufacturer for inspection, though the carrier’s own review found no faults like the one that caused a blade to crack in flight, leading to a passenger’s death last month. The carrier completed inspection on 35,500 blades, Chief Executive Officer Gary Kelly said at the airline’s annual ...

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• 19 May

  Ocado soars to record as it cracks US market with Kroger deal

  

  Bloomberg Ocado Group Plc soared to a record after Kroger Co. agreed to buy a stake in the UK online grocer, which is breaking into the US market with a landmark deal to license its home-delivery technology to the supermarket chain. Ocado’s first US licensing pact marks Kroger’s response to Amazon.com Inc.’s purchase of Whole Foods Market Inc., which extended ...

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• 19 May

  Tencent gains $18 billion as record profit eases margin fear

  

  Bloomberg Tencent Holdings Ltd. climbed after delivering record profit that topped analyst estimates, calming investors who’d braced for a big hit to margins. The stock jumped 3.7 percent in Hong Kong, conceding some of its earlier gains. China’s largest social media and gaming company posted a faster than expected 61 percent jump in net income last quarter as growth on ...

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