December, 2017

• 3 December

  Mercedes all set for US luxury sales crown

  

  Bloomberg With just a month left to go, Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz has all but clinched another year of luxury dominance in the US market. Mercedes eked out a 1.6 percent monthly sales gain in November on strong demand for its GLC sport utility vehicle. BMW AG, which boosted deliveries 7.1 percent last month on the strength of its X5 SUV ...

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• 3 December

  Car dealers dodge retail doomsday as Black Friday buoys sales

  

  Bloomberg There’s an exception to the rule that Black Friday deals don’t drive traffic to brick-and-mortar stores anymore: car dealerships. Honda Motor Co. and Ford Motor Co. reported bigger US sales gains than expected for in November as big rebates and cut-rate financing offers lured buyers into showrooms. While total deliveries dropped for General Motors Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles ...

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• 3 December

  US shale drillers set to plow OPEC’s gift into more wells

  

  Bloomberg OPEC and Russia just gave their most implacable foe, US shale, an early holiday gift. As corporate boards for American oil explorers prepare to sketch out 2018 drilling budgets, the historic agreement by Saudi Arabia, Russia and other major crude producers to extend supply caps for another year may prompt directors to spend more on drilling. That’s because the ...

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• 3 December

  Saudi’s Jarir expects moderate growth in 2018, plans expansion

  

  RIYADH / Reuters Major Saudi Arabian retailer Jarir Marketing Co expects single-digit growth in sales in 2018, after a double-digit pace this year as it took market share from smaller rivals, its chairman said. Government regulations pushing retailers of electronics to hire Saudi citizens instead of less costly foreigners hurt smaller companies that were less able to absorb the financial ...

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• 3 December

  First US offshore wind farm fails to set sail

  

  Bloomberg Cape Wind, the offshore wind project off the coast of Massachusetts that drew the ire of the Kennedy and Koch families, is officially dead. Energy Management Inc. has ceased efforts to build what was once expected to become the first offshore wind farm in the US, according to an emailed statement from Chief Executive Officer Jim Gordon. The project’s ...

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• 3 December

  Bahrain says economy robust after S&P cut

  Bloomberg S&P Global Ratings lowered Bahrain’s long-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings to ‘B+’ from ‘BB-’, prompting Bahrain’s central bank to reaffirm the country’s currency peg to the US dollar. S&P Global Ratings said the rating cut was due to weak external liquidity and increasing financial risk due to more limited access to international capital markets. The Central ...

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• 3 December

  Trump rebuffs oil, rewards Iowa with steady biofuel quotas

  

  Bloomberg The Trump administration, rebuffing oil industry demands for broad changes to the US biofuel mandate, largely maintained the status quo in setting final quotas for how much refiners must blend into gasoline and diesel. But the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision drew only tepid applause from Iowa politicians, Midwest corn farmers and producers of soy-based biodiesel, who say the targets ...

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• 3 December

  May fighting fires at home as EU’s Brexit deadline looms

  

  Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Theresa May is battling to put out multiple political fires at home as she prepa- res for a crucial meeting in Brussels that she hopes will end the deadlock in Brexit talks. Euro-skeptics including members of May’s own Conservative party set out new “red lines” for the negotiations ahead of a lunch meeting she’ll have on ...

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• 3 December

  Ireland close to achieving Brexit goals: Varadkar

  

  Bloomberg Ireland is well on its way to meeting its objectives in the Brexit negotiations, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said, as the European Union and the UK approach a deadline for moving on to talks about their future trading relationship. A day after European Commission President Donald Tusk said the EU would consult with Ireland before deciding whether to allow ...

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• 3 December

  Merkel to continue talks with SPD head to break German impasse

  Bloomberg Chancellor Angela Merkel and the leader of the Social Democrats, Martin Schulz, agreed to keep talking as they stepped up joint efforts to break an impasse over forming Germany’s next government. Merkel told her Christian Democratic Union party’s board during a call that she and Schulz would continue to hold discussions on a way out of the political stalemate, ...

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