The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Bloomberg Judging by some big boosts to US tracking forecasts following April merchandise-trade data and revised first-quarter growth, economists have turned decidedly more bullish about a pickup from the slow patch in early 2018. Analysts at Morgan Stanley raised their projection for second-quarter gross domestic product growth to a 3.3 percent annualised rate from 2.5 percent, while Macroeconomic Advisers by ...
Read More »TimeLine Layout
June, 2018
-
2 June
Europe’s Intrum shrugs off Italy risks
Bloomberg Europe’s biggest debt collector, Intrum AB, says it doesn’t see the political turmoil in Italy hurting its business. “The way things look today, and†given “what we have on our books, we think that is very good debt,†said Louise Bergstrom, head of investor relations at the Stockholm-based company. Intrum, which operates in 24 countries, offers credit management services ...
Read More » -
2 June
Gene-therapy firm Crispr drops as trial put on hold
Bloomberg Crispr Therapeutics AG plunged after the gene-editing company said a planned trial of its treatment to help people with sickle-cell disease was being put on hold by US regulators. Crispr is developing the therapy with Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., and the trial had yet to begin. The companies said in a statement that the Food and Drug Administration placed a ...
Read More » -
2 June
The threat from Italy
If you’re nostalgic for the 2008-09 financial crisis, you can cheer up. Another debacle may be on its way. Its epicenter would be Italy, which may threaten the rest of the world economy. Under the worst-case assumptions, Italy could abandon the euro — the single currency now used by 19 countries — and experience a full-blown financial meltdown that would ...
Read More » -
2 June
Trump is making trade less fair
From the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, he has said he wants to make trade “fair.†For too long, he argued, American companies and workers suffered as trading partners used tactics that stole jobs, damaged US industry and widened deficits. The implication was that he’d work to strip away the remaining tariffs and other hurdles that tilted the playing ...
Read More » -
2 June
Samsonite is looking like a tempting target for shorts
However you regard the veracity of a short-seller’s allegations against Samsonite International SA, one thing is certain: Targeting a Massachusetts-based firm with a wide shareholder base seems to be a much a safer bet than going after the hordes of opaque Chinese companies in Hong Kong. The baggage company, whose hard-shell suitcases recall the glory days of flying, has become ...
Read More » -
2 June
Can US afford welfare?
About 42 million people received benefits in the 2017 fiscal year from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — still widely known as food stamps, although the paper coupons were replaced by debit cards more than a decade ago. That’s a lot of people! It’s almost 13 percent of the US population, which is down from a couple of years ago ...
Read More » -
2 June
Silicon Valley keeps giving founders too much power
No one has learned any lessons. That’s the discouraging takeaway from a Wall Street Journal article about the nearly unchecked power held by founders of many young technology companies. The people bankrolling those companies are responsible for providing oversight, too, but don’t seem to be doing much of it. The Journal reported that two-thirds of US startups with venture-capital investors ...
Read More » -
2 June
China’s battery ace can run on reduced power
China’s electric-car battery champion has had its wings clipped, or so it seems. Investors should breathe a sigh of relief. Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd., which has been gearing up for an initial public offering for the past year, is now expected to raise a net 5.46 billion yuan ($853 million), less than half its target as of March. The reduction ...
Read More » -
2 June
Big tech firms show contempt for EU privacy rules
The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation has been in effect for less than a week. It was always clear that a vast number of companies would comply in only the most perfunctory way, at least while the law was being tested. But the big tech companies, sure to face scrutiny, were expected to show a little more rigor. Instead, ...
Read More »