May, 2018

• 6 May

  Apple’s corporate bond holdings drop for first time since 2013

  

  Bloomberg A whale in the corporate bond market is going on a diet. Apple Inc.’s holdings of company debt shrank in the latest quarter for the first time since 2013, as the maker of the iPhone adjusts to new tax laws. The tech company held about $136 billion of corporate bonds as of the end of March, representing about half ...

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• 6 May

  Loeb sees $20 billion potential in United Technologies split

  

  Bloomberg Dan Loeb’s Third Point is calling for United Technologies Corp. to break apart, saying that a split into aerospace, elevator and climate-controls companies would boost shareholders by $20 billion. Having such disparate businesses under one corporate roof has led to “poor management execution” and a lagging share price, Third Point said in a letter to investors. The activist firm ...

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• 6 May

  UK can’t bet its future on the financial industry

  

  The UK isn’t doing as badly as many predicted since it decided to exit the European Union in 2016. Employment rates remain high. Exports, which had surged to records in 2016, held up nicely in 2017. But it’s not doing particularly well either. Since the financial crisis a decade ago, output per hour in the UK has remained essentially unchanged. ...

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• 6 May

  Xiaomi is more like Facebook than Apple

  

  Services, services, services, services. That’s the mantra that you’ll surely hear most as Xiaomi Corp. tries to convince investors that a hardware company with razor-thin margins is worth $100 billion. “We pioneered an amazing, innovative business model underpinned by courage and trust,” founder Lei Jun said in an open letter accompanying its offer document in which he reiterated a pledge ...

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• 6 May

  France’s banking champions need the Macron touch

  

  Emmanuel Macron’s youthful energy stands in sharp contrast with France’s biggest banks, whose shares have, in the main, languished since his election as president. Societe Generale SA, once the poster child for French expertise in derivatives, has the most work to do to restore investor confidence. A more energetic approach to succession planning and to pruning underperforming businesses — with ...

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• 6 May

  The Federal Reserve is on quickly shifting ground

  The biggest short-term threat to the US economy comes from President Donald Trump’s dangerous maneuvers on trade, not the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy. But knowing this doesn’t much help the Fed do its job, which is getting more complicated for reasons closer to home: The outlook for inflation is shifting, and Fed officials are wondering how to respond. At their ...

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• 6 May

  EU wants members to respect its values or take a pay cut

  

  European Union bureaucrats have come up with an ingenious mechanism for getting maverick governments, mostly in Eastern Europe, into line. The EU wants the power to cut off funding to countries it sees as weakening the rule of law. At the same time, if the bureaucrats get their way, the affected governments would be forced to provide financing for the ...

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• 6 May

  India can relax. There’s a bigger China bet than Pak

  

  After a two-day ‘informal summit’ between Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi, China and India agreed to avoid military disputes on their contested Himalayan border. Left unresolved was a much bigger issue: what China is doing in Pakistan. Fifty years ago, Pakistan’s foreign minister gave a box of mangoes to Mao Zedong, little realizing that this gesture would secure a special ...

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• 6 May

  Microsoft’s turnaround could have started sooner

  

  The Microsoft antitrust trial, which will have its 20th anniversary this fall, began with the legal equivalent of shock and awe. To the surprise of everyone in the courtroom, the government’s trial lawyer, David Boies, decided to use video clips of Bill Gates’s deposition as part of his opening statement. A Justice Department lawyer would touch a laptop button, and ...

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• 6 May

  HSBC costs, conduct charge overshadow $2bn buyback

  

  Bloomberg John Flint is off to a bumpy start at HSBC Holdings Plc. Costs at Europe’s largest bank rose at a quicker pace than revenue in the first quarter and it took a surprise charge for past misconduct. HSBC also said a $2 billion share buyback would be the only one this year given the “growth opportunities,” signaling the bank ...

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