April, 2018

• 17 April

  The humbling of technology in China

  

  Tech or media? What to many people is an esoteric question could end up making a multibillion-dollar difference to Chinese companies that serve up content ranging from jokes to gossip. Technology firms, those ground-breaking companies with research teams hard at work building moats, are more highly prized than media counterparts that merely provide content. In the S&P 500, for example, ...

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• 17 April

  London’s dream of Shanghai link is a bridge to nowhere

  

  Will you cross a bridge if you don’t know what’s on the other side? Unlikely. That’s the dilemma investors face as they look forward to the London-Shanghai Connect stock trading link that’s scheduled to start by year-end. The program’s timing was announced this week by People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gang, who also said authorities will quadruple daily trading ...

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• 17 April

  Bank capital rules need more than fine-tuning

  Having spent nearly a decade crafting new capital requirements to bolster the resilience of the country’s largest banks, the US Federal Reserve is getting ready to do some fine-tuning. The rules can certainly be improved — but what’s needed is more than tinkering around the edges. The Fed has two main tools to ensure banks have enough equity capital, the ...

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• 17 April

  Life won’t be easy for the ECB’s next president

  

  I once congratulated Mario Draghi on his performance as president of the European Central Bank (ECB), telling him he had made only one mistake. “What’s that?” came the instant question. “Taking the job,” I replied. My point was that by the time Draghi was appointed, the ECB could no longer hope to be a conventional central bank, if indeed it ...

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• 17 April

  Economists should stop being quite so certain

  

  The field of weather forecasting holds a lesson that economists might do well to heed: Stop being so sure of yourself. The reputation of the economics profession suffered after the 2008 financial crisis, in large part because its practitioners were so overconfident. They have since been working to forge more realistic models of the economy, and re-examining some of their ...

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• 17 April

  Russia’s Telegram ban isn’t just an attack on privacy

  

  Imagine if the US banned Facebook after Mark Zuckerberg’s disappointing performance last week on Capitol Hill. Something similar happened in Russia on Monday as the country’s internet censorship agency, Roskomnadzor, ordered internet providers to block access to the Telegram messenger. This being Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the ban isn’t just an attack on the freedom of communication and expression: It happens ...

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• 17 April

  China hits $957mn US sorghum trade with fresh duty

  

  Bloomberg China will impose temporary anti-dumping deposits on US sorghum imports from Wednesday, adding to trade tensions between the world’s biggest economies. Soybean meal futures climbed on concerns the oilseed could be targeted next. Imports will incur a 178.6 percent duty, China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a preliminary ruling. That’s in compliance with domestic law and World Trade Organization ...

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• 17 April

  Vingroup aims $2bn in share sale

  

  Bloomberg Vingroup JSC, Vietnam’s biggest developer, is targeting an initial equity offering of as much as $2 billion for its luxury residential arm, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Hanoi-based group’s Vinhomes JSC unit is considering seeking a valuation of $13 billion to $16 billion in the share sale, according to one of the people, who asked not ...

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• 17 April

  Shakeout in Japan job market sets big caps up to beat small guys

  Bloomberg A stellar rally for smaller-sized Japanese companies over the last two years is about to face its biggest test yet should evidence emerge this earnings season that the country’s tight labor market is starting to erode profitability. A combination of attractive relative valuations for larger stocks and the greater hit to small and medium enterprises from labor shortages should ...

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• 17 April

  Huawei can’t block Samsung China manufacturing: Court

  

  Bloomberg Samsung Electronics Co. can continue manufacturing and selling smartphones in China while it battles Huawei Technologies Co. over patent royalties, a US judge ruled. The order by a federal judge in San Francisco blocks Huawei from enforcing a decision by a Chinese court, which ruled Samsung is infringing two Huawei patents. In January, the Intermediate People’s Court of Shenzhen ...

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