February, 2017

• 11 February

  American consumer confidence retreats from a 13-year high

  Bloomberg Consumer confidence retreated in February from a 13-year high as Americans tempered expectations of their finances and the economy, with sentiment remaining sharply divided among party lines. The University of Michigan said that its preliminary index of sentiment cooled to a three-month low of 95.7 from 98.5 in January. The median projection in a Bloomberg survey called for 98. ...

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• 11 February

  Uber suffers for Trump ties, Tesla’s Musk goes unsullied

  

    Bloomberg While Uber got shellacked for its link to President Donald Trump, the electric carmaker and sometimes-rival Tesla Inc. has comfortably weathered its association with a president who has lower approval ratings than any predecessor in his first days in office. Uber Technologies Inc. lost customers and drivers and became the subject of a campaign on Twitter that encouraged ...

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• 11 February

  Disney boosts stake in Paris theme park

  

    Bloomberg Walt Disney Co. plans to take full ownership of its ailing theme park in Paris to get the resort under control after 25 years of ups and downs at its first and only outlet in Europe. Disney is acquiring a 9 percent stake in Euro Disney SCA from Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding Co. for 2 ...

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• 11 February

  Ford to spend $1 billion on AI from ex-Google, Uber leaders

  

    Bloomberg Ford Motor Co. is investing $1 billion in a months-old startup founded by two pioneers in the nascent autonomous vehicle sector. The Pittsburgh-based artificial intelligence company Argo AI will develop the brains — specifically, a virtual driver system — for the fully autonomous vehicles Ford has promised to bring to market in 2021. Founders Bryan Salesky and Peter ...

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• 11 February

  Sears rallies after CEO makes comeback plan

  

    Bloomberg Sears Holdings Corp. rose the most in more than two years after Chief Executive Officer Eddie Lampert vowed to fix the troubled retailer, saying he would lower its debt burden and cut annual expenses by at least $1 billion. The cost savings will be part of a push to reduce overhead and more tightly integrate the Sears and ...

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• 11 February

  Slumping wage growth mars surge in Canadian jobs

  

    Bloomberg Canada’s workers are getting plenty of jobs, just not wage increases. Data show a labor market that’s finally beginning to create new jobs, while at the same time offering little evidence that’s translating into higher incomes for workers as wage growth and hours worked slump. It’s a conundrum that casts a shadow over the report, which showed 48,300 ...

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• 11 February

  QNB eyes Southeast Asia after beating expansion goal

  

    Bloomberg Qatar National Bank (QNB), the biggest bank in the Middle East and Africa, is turning its focus to Southeast Asia for growth after hitting expansion goals in the region earlier than planned. “Our previous target to become a Middle East and Africa icon by 2017, was achieved in 2014, so we have upscaled our aspiration to become a ...

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• 11 February

  BOE nears its 2% inflation target for first time in 3 years

  

    Bloomberg UK inflation is almost back on target. Economists forecast that consumer-price growth accelerated to 1.9 percent in January, part of an upward trend that’s expected to continue through this year. While the prediction would leave inflation just shy of the Bank of England’s (BOE) 2 percent goal, last hit in 2013, there have been upside surprises for the ...

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• 11 February

  BNP Paribas shares drop the most since June

  Bloomberg BNP Paribas SA shares dropped the most since June after France’s largest bank posted earnings that fell short of estimates and cast doubt over growth in its home market. The bank tumbled as much as 5 percent in Paris trading after reporting fourth-quarter net income of 1.44 billion euros ($1.55 billion), below the 1.63 billion-euro average estimate of seven ...

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• 11 February

  China govt’s new drive squeezes nation’s banks

  

    Bloomberg China’s drive to reduce financial system risks is squeezing the nation’s banks. Caught between policy makers’ intensifying efforts to raise short-term borrowing costs, and benchmark interest rates that haven’t moved since 2015, Chinese lenders have few options but to absorb much of the higher costs. The gap between the three-month Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate and the one-year lending ...

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