July, 2017

• 25 July

  Washington state cracks down on gunshop lies

  

  Washington began taking the threat of gun violence more seriously. The gun dealers in the state will be required to notify law enforcement when someone who is not legally allowed to buy a firearm tries to do so. There were more than 3,000 such people in Washington in 2015. They went to a licensed gun dealer and filled out a ...

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• 25 July

  How to make lawsuits work for consumers

  Congressional Republicans and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are clashing over a question that has implications far beyond the world of finance: How far can companies go to protect themselves from customer lawsuits? Neither side has got the answer quite right. If you’ve ever signed up for a credit card, you’ve most likely skipped through the boilerplate contracts at the ...

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• 25 July

  Brexit disarray points only towards disaster

  

  The Brexit talks have started, and there’s little sign yet of an intelligible UK strategy. All is disarray. The shambles makes two bad possible outcomes more likely. One is that the UK will crash out of the European Union in 2019 with no agreement in place. This would cause enormous economic disruption — damage that would take years to repair. ...

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• 25 July

  Greece shouldn’t be greedy in its second rehab attempt

  

  Greece has decided to brave the waters with a new five-year benchmark bond, the first fresh deal for nearly three years. Fortune favors the brave — but not the greedy. For now, a successful return to the fixed income markets matters more than securing the very best terms or the most money. Greek bonds have been the stand-out performer in ...

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• 25 July

  1997 legacy makes Indonesia’s balancing act harder

  

  Never again. That’s the mantra of Indonesia’s class of 1998 — the officials who were young adults when the country plunged into the Asian financial crisis that began two decades ago this month. The question now is whether their understandable caution could hold back Southeast Asia’s biggest — and at times, most frustrating — economy. Most retrospectives of the crisis ...

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• 25 July

  Rich Singapore investors stuck as bond restructuring drags on

  

  Bloomberg Keith Kueh was expecting Pacific Andes Resources Development Ltd. to pay back the company’s bonds last year so he could finance his son’s college bill and his own retirement. Now it’s 18 months after the Singapore-listed fishing company didn’t honor some obligations and he hasn’t gotten his money yet. “For investors like myself, we are not portfolio managers who ...

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• 25 July

  Zombie companies across Europe may tie ECB’s hands

  

  Bloomberg The plethora of companies propped up by the European Central Bank will limit policy makers’ ability to withdraw monetary stimulus that’s been supporting the continent’s bond market since the financial crisis, according to strategists at Bank of America Corp. About 9 percent of Europe’s biggest companies could be classified as the walking dead, companies that risk collapse if the ...

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• 25 July

  Ghana banks turn to mobile money in bid to enhance deposit base

  

  Bloomberg A record number of Ghanaians are saving money using mobile phones as lenders push products to lure deposits using technology that is cheaper than building branches. Deposits with mobile-money providers jumped 25 percent to 1.57 billion cedis ($360 million) this year through April, the Accra-based central bank said in a response to questions this month. That compares with 19.6 ...

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• 25 July

  Is ‘exceptionally’ weak dollar good news?

  

  Bloomberg The US dollar, down 8 percent this year, will probably weaken further, according to Morgan Stanley. That is primarily good news for American stock investors. The greenback may finish 2017 down 13 percent, handing S&P 500 companies a 6.5 percent boost to their rolling 2018 per-share estimates, Morgan Stanley analysts including Michael Wilson said in a note on Monday. ...

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• 25 July

  Worst of Mexico’s inflation, growth struggles may be over

  

  Bloomberg After months of investor concern that slammed everything from Mexico’s currency to its inflation outlook, the nation’s economy is riding a good streak. A report showed the annual inflation rate fell in early July by the most since January, suggesting that the pace of consumer price increases may finally be stabilizing after a year of acceleration. Another key indicator ...

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