April, 2017

• 13 April

  Europe’s wheat reserves shrinking to lowest in decade

    Bloomberg Europe is likely to end the wheat season with the smallest stockpiles in 13 years. Inventories of wheat held in the European Union will probably plunge 37 percent to 10.1 million metric tons at the end of June, according to Tallage SAS, publisher of the Strategie Grains report. The combination of a poor harvest, strong consumption and higher-than-expected ...

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• 13 April

  London housing market in worst slump since financial crisis

  

    Bloomberg London’s housing market is in its worst slump since the depths of the financial crisis eight years ago, part of a broader slowdown that may continue. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said its price balance for the city fell to the lowest since February 2009 last month. It declined to minus 49, indicating that a greater percentage ...

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• 13 April

  How middle-class US got fleeced of its wealth

  

    If you’re a middle-class American baby boomer or Gen Xer, you might have spent much of the past decade wondering what went wrong. If you’re a boomer, there’s a good chance you’re still working well after you thought you’d retire: And if you’re part of Generation X, you’re probably less wealthy than your parents were at the same age. ...

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• 13 April

  US president’s H-1B visa curbs might push Indian tech sector

  

    “Putting American Workers First,” reads the bold headline on the home page of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, proclaiming: “New Measures to Detect H-1B Visa Fraud and Abuse.” A click through to the April 3 statement outlines steps the agency will take to clamp down on the use of temporary visas for foreign workers in specialty occupations. Among ...

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• 13 April

  Stop pretending on Greek debt issue

    Greece and its creditors say they’ve made progress in their endless negotiations over the country’s debts — enough to avoid a default on payments worth more than 7 billion euros in July. That’s good, but it was the easy part. The definitive settlement that Greece and the European Union both need still isn’t in sight. For the past seven ...

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• 13 April

  Donald Trump’s policy volte face

    His critics called him a political novice, blasted his unorthodox presidential campaign and wrote him off for US presidency. Still Trump became 45th president of United States defying all odds. But one thing his detractors failed to understand was Trump’s ability to make about-face on promises and policies related to both domestic and international issues if the situation demands. ...

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• 13 April

  Currency manipulation has another meaning for traders

  

    Politicians like to throw around the phrase “currency manipulation” when they feel that some other nation has developed an unfair trade advantage by way of an artificially weak exchange rate. In the currency markets, though, it has a more benign meaning and can help explain some of the seemingly head-scratching moves of late such as the dollar’s weakness. That’s ...

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• 13 April

  Wal-Mart offers cheap when people want easy

  

    Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Wednesday unveiled a new discount program to entice customers to pick up online orders from its stores. The idea is: If it’s cheaper for Walmart to get stuff to its 5,000 stores, rather than millions of individual households, than why not pass along part of that discount? It has the extra benefit of getting customers ...

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• 13 April

  In Google’s fight with Uber, everyone loses

  

    Uber is currently in trouble for, well, a lot of things, but one particularly problematic thing is the claim that the ride-hailing company acquired trade secrets stolen from Waymo, the self-driving car unit of Google parent Alphabet Inc. It’s also a case where Uber isn’t the one behaving badly. According to a lawsuit filed by Waymo, employees swiped files ...

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• 13 April

  Airbus faces setback as Delta reviews $14 billion jet order

  

    Bloomberg Airbus SE’s expansion into Boeing Co.’s home market faces a potential setback as Delta Air Lines Inc. reviews a $14 billion purchase of the European planemaker’s two newest wide-body models. The Atlanta-based carrier, known as an influential and shrewd aircraft buyer, is studying its twin-aisle orders amid signs the long-range travel market is saturated, Ed Bastian, Delta’s chief ...

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