May, 2018

• 26 May

  Target should block out Wall Street’s noise

  

  The reaction to Target Corp.’s first-quarter earnings report on Wednesday is a near-perfect illustration of the enormous challenge many traditional retailers are up against in trying to satisfy Wall Street right now. By many measures, Target had a quite good quarter. Its comparable sales rose 3 percent over the same period last year, beating analysts’ expectations. That lift was powered ...

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• 26 May

  Tax sugar-sweetened drinks to help fight obesity problems

  

  Eating too much added sugar has become one of the riskiest health behaviours in the modern world. None too soon, governments are waking up to the fact. Staggering under the burden of increasingly overweight populations, more than 30 countries have put new taxes on sugary beverages, most in just the past four years. This is good policy, and it needs ...

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• 26 May

  Zuckerberg needs a wizard to clean up Facebook’s mess

  Is Mark Zuckerberg “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”? The comparison with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 1797 lyrical ballad was invoked in the middle of a hearing in Brussels on Tuesday, where he faced questions from a handful of European lawmakers. In the poem, a wizard’s young apprentice is left alone by his master and enchants a broomstick. Before too long, he finds ...

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• 26 May

  Now, China is proving to be expensive date for Pakistan

  

  We’re about two months away from elections in Pakistan — elections that are almost certain to be shrouded in controversy, one way or another. And, worryingly for Pakistan, it appears that the economy is weakening, just in time for the instability that might follow from the country’s turbulent politics. Under the outgoing government — led till last April by Nawaz ...

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• 26 May

  Wells Fargo hasn’t gotten ahead of its problems

  

  Wells Fargo & Co. has launched a series of advertisements meant to rebuild trust with customers. But the ads, to pull an image from Wells Fargo’s long-ago campaigns, are putting the wagon before the horse. Evidence of that is piling up. The Wall Street Journal reported that Wells Fargo recently discovered that employees were improperly altering the documents of business ...

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• 26 May

  Barclays, join the list of jilted Standard Chartered suitors

  

  The long-awaited marriage of Standard Chartered Plc is a story of three decades of yearning that’s never found consummation. The latest potential suitor is Barclays Plc, which is reported by the Financial Times to be exploring a merger of StanChart. London-listed Barclays isn’t considering a possible deal, Reuters reported, citing two people close to the lender. In the event of ...

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• 26 May

  Boeing-backed startup to debut hybrid-electric jet

  

  Bloomberg Boeing Co.-backed startup Zunum Aero plans to deliver its first hybrid-electric plane in 2022 to JetSuite Inc., setting the stage for a new era in regional flying. JetSuite, a small charter airline with plans to expand a commercial operation nationally, eventually will receive as many as 100 aircraft that seat up to 12 passengers each, Zunum co-founder Matt Knapp ...

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• 26 May

  TSMC starts making chips for new iPhones

  

  Bloomberg Apple Inc. manufacturing partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has started mass production of next-generation processors for new iPhones launching later this year, according to people familiar with the matter. The processor, likely to be called the A12 chip, will use a 7-nanometer design that can be smaller, faster and more efficient than the 10-nanometer chips in current Apple devices ...

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• 26 May

  Uber planning first flying-car lab in Paris

  

  Bloomberg Uber Technologies Inc. will open its first research and development centre outside of the US, and has chosen Paris as its home. The ride-hailing company will invest $23.5 million over the next five years in the lab, which will focus on technologies to support the development of Uber’s flying-car initiative, dubbed Uber Elevate, it said. “With world-class engineers and ...

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• 26 May

  Apple to use VW self-driving vans for employees

  Bloomberg Apple Inc. and Volkswagen AG struck a deal late last year that let the technology giant equip VW vans with self-driving technology to transport Apple employees between offices within the next year, according to a person familiar with the matter. The agreement is part of an internal Apple programme called Project Titan that started in 2015 as an ambitious ...

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