April, 2018

• 4 April

  Murdoch gears up to fight for Sky

  

  Investors betting that Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. is ready to raise its 11.7 billion-pound ($16.4 billion) offer for Sky Plc have had their convictions reinforced. The media tycoon’s US television group has devised a cunning remedy to assuage British trustbusters’ concerns about the deal. It’s also sounding increasingly exasperated with the process. These are signs that Fox is ...

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• 4 April

  The UK finance gender pay gap isn’t bad. It’s worse

  It’s probably worse than it looks. Government-mandated gender pay gap reports are rolling in before Thursday’s deadline. The inequality is stark for UK finance companies — data last month from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. showed a median gender pay gap of 36.4 percent — in other words, women earn 64 pence for every pound that men earn. While the median ...

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• 4 April

  Trade tensions already weigh on metal prices

  The prices of industrial metals, oil and other commodities have risen significantly since the Chinese manufacturing recession ended in June 2016. But many have fallen from their highs in January 2018, first in reaction to the risk of higher interest rates and now, more critically, because of trade tensions and the potential for global manufacturing and growth to be slower ...

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• 4 April

  How the US courts could protect Mueller’s probe

  

  If President Trump fires Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, that won’t necessarily be the end of his investigation. Power to continue the probe, and report on its findings, could also rest with Beryl Howell, who as chief judge of the federal district court here oversees the Mueller grand jury. To prepare for the crisis that Mueller’s firing would cause, ...

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• 4 April

  Good news is no longer unspeakable in Japan

  

  The Bank of Japan (BOJ) is crossing an important threshold. It’s about time. Once off limits, Japan’s eventual exit from ultra-loose monetary policy is now a public topic for Governor Haruhiko Kuroda. In testimony to the Japanese parliament this week, he said there are internal discussions on how to begin to withdraw from the bond buying that’s kept interest rates ...

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• 4 April

  Four ways for technology wizards to perfect the world

  

  A new season of the Mike Judge’s HBO comedy ‘Silicon Valley’ is happily upon us, which means that over the next two months or so we’ll be getting regular reminders of one of the show’s recurring themes: that those who toil in the Valley care about nothing so much as making the world a better place. Or, as Gavin Belson, ...

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• 4 April

  BOJ buys record $7.8 billion of Japanese ETFs to support market

  

  TOKYO / Reuters The Bank of Japan (BOJ) bought the largest amount of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on record in March as the central bank supported a market hit by a rising yen and fears of a global trade war. The central bank, which usually buys ETFs to support the market when shares fall in morning trade, said it bought a ...

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• 4 April

  Easter price push keeps ECB on track for ending stimulus

  

  BRUSSELS / Reuters An early Easter helped drive a pick-up in euro zone inflation in March, keeping the European Central Bank on track with preparations to wind down its huge stimulus programme in coming months. Inflation in the 19 countries sharing the euro was 1.4 percent year-on-year, European Union statistics office Eurostat estimated on Wednesday — in line with market ...

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• 4 April

  ‘Oman has means to maintain its currency peg’

  

  Bloomberg Oman has the means to maintain its currency peg and has no plans to change it even though the decline in oil prices has hurt its finances, central bank Governor Tahir Al Amri said. Oman’s gross foreign currency reserves, which stood at $19.6 billion at the end of January, are enough to cover nearly nine months’ worth of imports, ...

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• 4 April

  Romanian central bank keeps main interest rate on hold

  BUCHAREST / Reuters Romania’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate on hold at 2.25 percent on Wednesday, it said, likely waiting to assess the impact of two consecutive hikes it delivered earlier this year on rising inflation. Nine of ten analysts polled by Reuters last month had expected the bank to hike interest rates by a quarter point. A ...

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