May, 2018

• 30 May

  Behind Trump’s zig-zag course to Singapore

  

  “Are you on the road or in the ditch?” That’s the question labor reporters used to ask about big contract negotiations back when I covered the United Steelworkers union 40 years ago in Pittsburgh — and it’s the right one to pose now as President Trump zigs and zags toward a summit meeting with Kim Jong Un. Trump and Kim ...

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• 30 May

  Investors take fright at UK retail’s warnings

  

  With Brexit looming, profit warnings have become the new black for the British High Street. In the first quarter, a fifth of the country’s biggest publicly traded retailers warned earnings would fall, according to accounting firm EY. Worries about the economy are present, obviously, but heavy selling from investors — Dixons Carphone Plc’s stock fell 20 percent on Tuesday after ...

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• 30 May

  When too much success risks the ire of regulators

  Hargreaves Lansdown Plc is on a roll. The UK’s biggest direct-to-consumer fund platform saw the assets it manages grow by 3 percent to $120 billion in the four months through April as it added 60,000 new clients. The firm’s market value is near a record 9 billion pounds. That picture of health, though, may prove a red rag to the ...

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• 30 May

  What Europe should do about crisis in Italy

  The crisis in Italy is also a crisis for the European Union. The populist parties that won the last Italian election, and that hope to do even better next time, are united in little except blaming the EU for Italy’s setbacks. They’re wrong about this, and now Europe must be careful not to play into their hands. The immediate political ...

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• 30 May

  Europe has tamed Russia’s Gazprom, not let it off easy

  

  The European Commission has settled a seven-year antitrust dispute with Gazprom, which was required to make concessions but avoided a fine. Although the Russian natural gas monopoly’s detractors in Eastern Europe are likely to say Europe caved, the settlement shows that the company has been defanged and is no longer a threat to Europe’s energy security. Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s ...

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• 30 May

  The race to autonomy may be won in China

  

  Everybody wants autonomous vehicles now: It’s the auto industry’s way forward and Silicon Valley’s latest preoccupation. China is no different. Alibaba Group Holding is testing self-driving cars in China, and Baidu Inc. started trials of autonomous technology last year. BMW earlier this month was the first foreign carmaker to get a license to test its offering in China. In mid-May, ...

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• 30 May

  Tesla’s well-paid board directors sound the retweet

  

  Elon Musk’s recent Twitter-lashing of the media has prompted comparisons to President Donald Trump’s “fake news” obsession. For me, though, its sheer variety — encompassing Soviet propaganda, a new Model Y launch date, the Theranos scandal, the lameness of car emoji, and much more — instead brought Steve Bannon to mind, particularly his media strategy: “flood the zone with shit.” ...

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• 30 May

  Stocks advance, bonds slide as Italy concerns fade; dollar falls

  

  Bloomberg Stocks rose along with Treasury yields as investors deemed the market reaction to Italy’s political turmoil overwrought. The dollar slipped and oil rose. The S&P 500 Index headed for the first gain in four days as US 10-year yields pushed above 2.84 percent, boosting financial shares that had sold off on Tuesday as worries about Italy leaving the euro ...

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• 30 May

  Tencent’s no longer a sure bet as China selling nears $1bn

  

  Bloomberg Traders in China are unwinding positions in Tencent Holdings Ltd. faster than ever, turning to other targets amid a lack of reasons to push Asia’s biggest stock any higher. Mainland investors sold a net $81 million worth of shares in the Chinese Internet giant through trading links with Hong Kong on Tuesday, according to exchange data. That’s the 12th ...

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• 30 May

  Crisis-weary global central banks brace for turmoil

  

  Bloomberg Just when central bankers thought they were about to get out of the business of emergency economic stimulus, jittery financial markets are threatening to pull some of them back in. For the European Central Bank, the latest threat requiring vigilance is political turmoil in Italy that’s reviving memories of the debt crisis that threatened to fracture the euro area. ...

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