April, 2018

• 23 April

  Euro-area stays in lower gear as order growth weakens

  Bloomberg Economic momentum in the euro area kept a steady pace in April after softening earlier in the year, in a sign that growth in the region is set to continue albeit at a slower pace. A composite Purchasing Managers’ Index remained unchanged at 55.2, IHS Markit said on Monday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicted a decline to 54.8. While ...

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• 23 April

  Space is the next emerging frontier of global warfare

  

  Sitting at the controls of a Boeing space-flight simulator, ‘docking’ the company’s planned ‘Starliner’ craft with an imaginary space station, you begin to understand why the Pentagon is so focused on such advanced systems. Space is the new frontier of warfare. That was the theme of a ‘Space Symposium’ in Colorado Springs that gathered thousands of military and corporate experts ...

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• 23 April

  Even in pharma, M&A shouldn’t be this easy

  

  M&A shouldn’t be this easy. London-listed drugmaker Shire Plc has nudged Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. to up its takeover proposal twice to 44 billion pounds ($62.5 billion). Allergan Plc said that it was considering a bid only to say it wouldn’t after its shares suffered a bad reaction. This auction may have a bit further to go. Takeda must have ...

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• 23 April

  UK’s unreliable boyfriend is ghosting the pound

  

  The pound’s slow but steady gains in the past year or so have seen it recover almost all of its post-Brexit referendum losses against the dollar. But in a welcome sign that monetary policy remains data-dependent rather than driven by what might be called fear of missing out, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney may have just halted its ascent. ...

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• 23 April

  What happens in Treasuries doesn’t stay in Treasuries

  President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion of tax cuts have to be funded somehow. Step forward ever more US Treasury bills and notes. As the bulk of the new supply is coming at five-year maturities or less, that’s having a pronounced effect on the US yield curve. And markets on the other side of the world are starting to feel it. ...

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• 23 April

  Actually, Berlin can do little to stop ‘rent madness’

  

  Last Sunday, 13,000 people took to the streets of Berlin carrying signs like ‘Renters Aren’t Lemons.’ Despite Germany’s tenant-friendly laws, a tide of gentrification is gradually turning Berlin from the ‘poor’ capital of cool into another generic hipsterville. The city calls it ‘rent madness.’ The smallest increase in rents between 2007 and 2016 was 34 percent in Marzahn-Hellersdorf, an area ...

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• 23 April

  Will US follow China or EU in regulating tech

  

  This seems to be the year when Americans hit the pause button on the advance of technology in their daily lives and grapple with how we got here and where we’re going. My Bloomberg colleague Tyler Cowen has written about a looming clash between the values of Washington, DC, and the values of the San Francisco Bay Area. They are ...

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• 23 April

  Don’t blame Amazon for the retail apocalypse in US

  

  The US president has repeatedly attacked one of the most successful American companies ever, Amazon.com Inc. Several times he has taken to Twitter to excoriate the giant online retailer, whose chief Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post, a newspaper that has published a steady stream of articles that have proven embarrassing to Donald Trump and his administration. I will leave ...

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• 23 April

  Indian banks’ bad run threatens economy

  

  Bloomberg Scandals, bad debts, ATM cash shortages — India’s banking system has experienced them all in recent months and the bad run is starting to have repercussions for both the broader economy and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India’s nearly $1.7 trillion formal banking sector is coping with $210 billion of soured or problem loans, and some regional banks have been ...

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• 23 April

  Saudi top bank to drain liquidity to counter Libor rise

  

  Bloomberg Saudi Arabia’s central bank plans to drain excess liquidity from the banking system to mitigate pressure on the riyal’s peg to the dollar as US interest rates rise, Governor Ahmed Abdulkarim Alkholifey said. The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, as the central bank is known, will allow some deposits placed with commercial banks in 2016 to mature without rolling them ...

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