March, 2018

• 27 March

  Facebook: Zuckerberg won’t testify to British lawmakers

  Bloomberg Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said he will not appear before a UK parliamentary committee to give evidence in the wake of allegations that information on millions of its users was misused. Damian Collins, the head of the committee that is also investigating the impact of social media on recent elections, had invited Zuckerberg to answer for a ...

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• 27 March

  Rift opens between Germany, France over US steel tariffs

  

  Bloomberg Germany is willing to offer the US concessions to stop President Donald Trump from slapping tariffs on European steel and aluminum, exposing a divide with France on how to avert a trade war. Germany is ready to discuss with the European Union in every respect measures to counter the US threat to impose tariffs, according to a government official ...

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• 27 March

  Not everyone will lose in US-China trade war

  

  Economists like to say that no one wins in a trade war. We may soon find out if they’re right. Only hours after US President Donald Trump said he would slap tariffs on a range of Chinese products, China imposed punitive duties on some imports from the US in retaliation for previously announced US tariffs on steel and aluminum. And ...

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• 27 March

  India should learn from China’s bond market

  

  India has much to learn from the opening of China’s onshore bond market. Last year, Beijing allowed overseas investors to access local-currency securities via its so-called Bond Connect. On Friday, Bloomberg LP announced the inclusion of Chinese government and policy-bank debt in the Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Index. Over a 20-month period starting in April next year, as many as ...

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• 27 March

  Just what Warren Buffett needs, more cash for the pile

  

  For Warren Buffett, when it rains, it pours — money, that is. The billionaire investor is grappling with an excessive cash buildup at his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and fewer acquisition opportunities to spend it on. The last thing he would seem to need is more cash. So it’s more than a little ironic that as Buffett searches up and down ...

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• 27 March

  Britain’s fund managers are in denial about Brexit

  With a year to go before Britain leaves the European Union, nervousness about Brexit’s impact on the asset-management industry is growing — and rightly so. The CFA Institute recently surveyed almost a thousand of its members, with most respondents employed by buy-side firms. About a quarter work in the UK, another 25 percent in other European Union countries and the ...

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• 27 March

  How the shale boom has been keeping the US afloat

  

  The US current account deficit grew a bit at the end of last year, to $128.2 billion in the fourth quarter from $101.5 billion in the third quarter, according to data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. That amounts to 2.6 percent of gross domestic product, which from the perspective of the past 15 years or so isn’t all ...

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• 27 March

  Life of Foxconn after Apple depends on a bit of nostalgia

  

  Ah, nostalgia. It keeps the Star Wars movie franchise ticking over and drives Bruce Springsteen concerts. It’s also a theme for Foxconn Technology Group’s strategy to wean itself off Apple Inc. First came the FIH Mobile Ltd. decision two years ago to bankroll a revival in the Nokia name. This week, fellow Foxconn affiliate FIT Hon Teng Ltd. announced it’s ...

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• 27 March

  Protect your data, then hope for a tech revolution

  

  Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, credited with inventing the World Wide Web, tweeted up a storm on Thursday, reassuring internet users that they could reassert control over their data — and the web’s future — after the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook scandals. He’s right, but not necessarily in the way he imagines. “What can Web users do?” Berners-Lee wrote. “Get involved. Care about your ...

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• 27 March

  China’s big banks stage a profit comeback as bad loans recede

  

  Bloomberg Two of China’s largest banks posted better-than-expected profit growth in 2017 as a strengthening economy curbed soured loans and the government’s campaign to cut debt boosted their lending margins. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd on Tuesday reported a 3 percent increase in net income last year, while Agricultural Bank of China Ltd posted a 5 percent gain. ...

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