Is Yellen doing Powell a favour on raising rates?

Janet Yellen may be doing a solid for Jerome Powell, her successor at the helm of the Federal Reserve. Yellen, now Treasury secretary, says higher interest rates would be beneficial for the US economy. Both borrowing costs and inflation have been too low for the past decade. “If we ended up with a slightly higher interest rate environment, it would ...

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Ireland doesn’t buy that many iPhones

If you want an example of how major Western companies manage their great taxation sidestep, take a look at Apple Inc’s chief supplier. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, the flagship of Foxconn Technology Group and the largest assembler of iPhones, booked $57.4 billion in revenue from the Republic of Ireland in 2020, according to its annual report. That’s around 25% ...

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Digital yuan may prove Hong Kong dollar cousin

The stronger the interest in China’s coming digital currency, the less we seem to know about it. Sifting through comments by officials thought to be the brains behind the project, Capital Economics’ chief Asia economist Mark Williams has raised an interesting question: What if the e-CNY, as some are beginning to call the new electronic cash, is not at all ...

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The ECB has far worse troubles than inflation

Break out the ticker tape — it’s happened at last. It took an unprecedented pandemic stimulus package to do it, but euro-area inflation has reached the European Central Bank’s (ECB) eternally out of reach 2% target. What should the ECB do next? Precisely nothing. The recovery from the pandemic has triggered surging inflation across the world but it’s partly a ...

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China’s trade boom continues to surge on high global demand

Bloomberg China’s exports continued to surge in May, although at a slower pace than the previous month, fuelled by strong global demand as more economies around the world opened up. Imports soared, boosted by rising commodity prices. Exports grew almost 28% in dollar terms in May from a year earlier, the customs administration said on Monday, weaker than forecast and ...

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SoftBank-backed firm files bankruptcy in US

Bloomberg Construction firm Katerra Inc filed for bankruptcy protection in the US, bookending the implosion of a startup that raised about $2 billion from investors including SoftBank Group Corp. The company filed Chapter 11 proceedings in the Southern District of Texas court. It estimated liabilities of $1 billion to $10 billion and assets of $500 million to $1 billion. The ...

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Evergrande reverses drop after operation concerns

Bloomberg China Evergrande Group, the country’s most indebted developer, reversed losses in Hong Kong trading after the company clarified that operations remained normal and it was compliant in dealings with a banking unit. The shares rose 3.7% on Monday after earlier sliding 5.3%. Evergrande said various “rumours,” including that it was resorting to widespread price discounts, were false. Chinese developers ...

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Flipkart in talks to raise $3b from SoftBank, wealth funds

Bloomberg Flipkart, the Indian e-commerce giant controlled by Walmart Inc, is in talks to raise at least $3 billion from investors including SoftBank Group Corp and several sovereign wealth funds, according to people familiar with the matter. The startup is targeting a valuation of about $40 billion and is in discussions with Singapore’s GIC Pte, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, ...

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China’s hot summer is test of its carbon-neutrality drive

Bloomberg For the second time in six months, Chinese provinces are rationing electricity as the nation’s grids struggle to manage a surge in demand. This time, it’s partly because residents are blasting their air conditions to keep cool during an unusually warm summer. Cities in Guangdong, a manufacturing hub in the south that’s home to 130 million people, have been ...

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Singapore’s Nium expands in UK before IPO

Bloomberg Nium, a Singapore-based fintech startup backed by state-owned investor Temasek Holdings Pte, agreed to buy payments firm Ixaris for an undisclosed amount to expand in Europe before pursuing an initial public offering in the US. All of Ixaris’s 86 employees in London and Malta will join Nium, according to an emailed statement from Nium. Ixaris, based in London, is ...

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