July, 2017

• 30 July

  Japan’s inflation stalls at 0.4% even as job market tightens

  

  Bloomberg Japan’s key price gauge was unchanged in June, helped by rising power costs. The tight labour market may also start to help inflation, which remains far from the central bank’s 2 percent target. Highlights of Data Core consumer prices, which exclude fresh food, increased 0.4 percent in June from a year earlier (estimate +0.4 percent). Excluding fresh food and ...

  Read More »
• 30 July

  Demonetization enriches India’s richest banker

  

  Bloomberg At least one winner has emerged from India’s crackdown on so-called black money: the country’s richest banker. Uday Kotak, billionaire chairman of Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd., is reaping broad benefits as the government’s efforts to withdraw the biggest bills from circulation pushes savings into the formal financial sector — including his group’s banking, insurance, brokerage services and asset management ...

  Read More »
• 30 July

  Forget casinos, Singapore’s Indian tourists are in for some cruising

  

  Bloomberg When Indian architect Rahul Maini and his parents embarked on their first trip abroad in May, Singapore was their destination of choice. But the trio wasn’t going for the hawker food or even the city-state’s casinos — they were there to get on a ship. The equatorial island has become a flourishing entry point for Indian cruise-ship passengers, bolstering ...

  Read More »
• 30 July

  Can we die in peace?

  

  For those of us who had hoped that American attitudes towards death were shifting in ways that would promote a wider reconstruction of the health care system, there’s discouraging news from Health Affairs, the pre-eminent journal of health policy. It devotes its latest issue to ‘end-of-life’ care and finds that —at least so far —the power to make health care ...

  Read More »
• 30 July

  India’s bulls are not tiring yet

  

  An equity culture is growing in India, propelling benchmark indices BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 to a record bull run. Now beware a turning of the tide. For years, the market was a playground for foreign institutions. Since 2014, domestic investors bought $28 billion net of stocks, matching overseas buyers’ $30 billion inflow. Unlike China’s mom-and-pop day traders, Indian households ...

  Read More »
• 30 July

  UK financial regulator right to retire Libor

  

  The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has announced the end of Libor — the London interbank offered rate, one of the world’s most important interest-rate benchmarks. This is no minor technical adjustment. The change will have far-reaching effects in global financial markets. It’s a good move — and the timing is right. Libor is used to set payments on more than ...

  Read More »
• 30 July

  Emmanuel Macron’s ‘embarrassing’ act

  France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, vowed to attract more foreign investment and to push for greater European integration. His government’s decision to block an Italian takeover of France’s STX shipyard has broken both promises in one fell swoop. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said recently that France would temporarily nationalize the yard —blocking a deal that would have seen Italy’s ...

  Read More »
• 30 July

  Sharif’s ousting returns Pak to high risk investor play

  

  The ousting of Pakistan’s prime minister by the country’s top court dramatically raises the risk profile for investors and businesses in the tumultuous, but fast-growing South Asian economy. The Supreme Court’s disqualification of Nawaz Sharif after a graft probe, prompting his resignation, poses big challenges to the country’s credit profile. As the stock market dipped on Friday, the court’s dramatic ...

  Read More »
• 30 July

  BT’s only option is distraction with a shiny dividend

  

  Britain’s biggest telecoms provider, BT Group Plc, has been having a terrible time of it lately. Its shares are the fourth-worst performer on the FTSE 100 so far this year, and the worst among European industry peers. On Friday, it reported financial first-quarter results that reveal how hard it will be to change investors’ minds about its prospects. While the ...

  Read More »
• 30 July

  Don’t worry about FB’s revenue growth. Be happy

  

  Facebook has warned for months that its runaway train of revenue growth is running out of steam. The company showed on Wednesday that it is laying new track as fast as it can. Facebook continues to be one of the fastest growing and most profitable tech companies in the world. Revenue rose 45% in the second quarter, the company said ...

  Read More »