April, 2017

• 23 April

  Trump’s infrastructure plan a boon for iron ore

  

    Bloomberg US President Donald Trump’s plan to upgrade the nation’s roads, ports and bridges will drive demand for steel and support iron ore prices, Australia’s Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said. “The US and the Trump administration has put out a very ambitious infrastructure investment program” and the steel will have to come from somewhere, Cormann said in an interview ...

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• 23 April

  Britons’ housing market confidence near 3-year low

  

    Bloomberg Britons’ confidence in the housing market stayed near a three-year low in March as sentiment toward the economic outlook soured, according to Halifax. An index of home-value expectations climbed to 44 from 42 in October, when Brexit pushed it down by a record to its lowest level since June 2013, the lender said. Fifty-eight percent of respondents predict ...

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• 23 April

  Sales of existing US homes rise fastest in decade

  

    Bloomberg Sales of previously owned US homes rose more than forecast in March to the fastest pace in a decade, signaling sustained momentum in the housing market despite higher prices and scarce supply, a report from the National Association of Realtors showed. Contract closings jumped 4.4 percent to a 5.71 million annual rate (forecast was 5.60 million), the highest ...

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• 23 April

  Biotech M&A falls off as Trump ‘dashes hopes’

  

    Bloomberg After almost three years of booming health-care dealmaking in the US, 2017 is off to a slow start. Pharmaceutical and biotech acquisitions totaled $44 billion last quarter, down 13 percent from a year earlier, and 35 percent below the first quarter of 2015, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. And exchange-traded funds, a good indicator of investors’ appetite ...

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• 23 April

  Wage growth in east, central Europe shows upward trend

  

    Bloomberg Central and eastern Europe has long been considered a relatively cheap manufacturing hub to make sophisticated products like cars and electronics goods at a fraction of what it would cost in the West. Accelerating salary growth may now be changing that perception. Average nominal wages rose 10.7 percent in Hungary in February from a year ago, the most ...

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• 23 April

  Euro-area recovery broadens with strongest growth in 6 years

    Bloomberg Euro-area economic momentum accelerated to its fastest pace in six years, with France unexpectedly outperforming Germany in a strong start to the second quarter that suggests the recovery is broadening. France’s composite Purchasing Managers’ Index unexpectedly advanced to a six-year high of 57.4 in April, putting it above Germany’s for the first time since 2012, according IHS Markit ...

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• 23 April

  Waymo seeks to bar Uber engineer from driverless car project

  

    Bloomberg Waymo says it’s uncovered new evidence that Uber Technologies Inc. took and copied its trade secrets and urged a judge to bar the head of the ride-hailing company’s driverless car program from continuing to work on the project. Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo made the request as a federal judge weighs whether to issue a court order that may impede ...

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• 23 April

  Poland’s Play to announce IPO to boost growth

    Bloomberg Play, Poland’s fastest growing mobile provider, may soon announce an initial public offering that would give it a multibillion-dollar valuation. The Warsaw-based company, which already serves about 14 million customers, is reviewing options to generate further growth, according to a filing on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange Friday. One option is an IPO, the company said in the filing. ...

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• 23 April

  Don’t compare Reagan’s economy to Obama’s

  

    If I were teaching a college-level course on political economy, my midterm exam would ask students to spot the errors in an op-ed with the headline, “Do You Want Reagan’s Economy or Obama’s?” Why? Because this particular article, by former Republican Senator Phil Gramm and Michael Solon, a GOP policy adviser, provides a perfect opportunity to show how partisan ...

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• 23 April

  Beware the weak debt tail wagging emerging markets

  

    It’s not often that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns of a risk to global financial stability at its spring meeting in Washington, and almost immediately evidence jumps out of a bank earnings report in Mumbai. That’s what happened on Wednesday. The IMF released analysis showing an alarming buildup of vulnerable corporate debt — the kind where operating profit ...

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