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Bloomberg The pound tumbled to a one-month low after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told German Chancellor Angela Merkel a Brexit deal is impossible under terms the EU demands. Dimming prospects of an accord between Britain and the EU sent sterling sliding against all of its major peers. Further souring the mood, European Council President Donald Tusk accused Johnson of ...

Bloomberg Yoshitaka Kitao wants to build a financial empire in an area shunned by investors: the downtrodden ranks of Japan’s regional banks. The chief executive officer of SBI Holdings Inc says he has close to $1 billion to plow into any of the 104 local lenders scattered across Japan, which were described recently by one analyst as an “accident waiting ...

Through all of President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, he has rarely focused on the job for which he was elected — steering the foreign policy of the United States. Instead, for Trump, Ukraine has been a continuing story of personal resentment and political opportunism. A narrative of the Ukraine affair — drawn from conversations with some of the principals, text ...

A change at the top is a moment for reappraisal. Bob Dudley, BP Plc’s chief executive officer, rehabilitated the oil major after the fatal Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and spill in the US in 2010. His replacement Bernard Looney should avoid the temptation to think his job is primarily to sustain that legacy. Like all the big international oil companies, ...

News that BlackRock Inc. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. are in talks for various types of cooperation is the kind of positive development both companies need. BlackRock is looking for ways to make its investment and portfolio-modeling tools available to the Chinese market, Bloomberg News and the Wall Street Journal reported. They may also codevelop a financial software system similar to ...

Given the news of grumbling among members of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) Governing Council and the resignation of a board member, it seems Mario Draghi’s last month as president might be marred by internal policy divisions. This would be a sad misunderstanding. Sad because Draghi’s legacy should be centered on his courageous action to save the euro zone, and ...

Vietnam seems to be the consensus pick for winner of the US-China trade war, as Chinese and other manufacturers shift production to the cheaper Southeast Asian nation. If there’s a loser, at least in terms of missed opportunities, it may be the countries of South Asia. To understand why, remember that the trade war has only accelerated an important trend ...

Gadget makers from Apple Inc. to Huawei Technologies Co. are turning to gimmicks like multi-lens cameras, folding screens, 5G connectivity and virtual-reality displays to juice sales amid a general upgrade apathy in the smartphone market. I’m among those skeptical that these new specs will do a lot to make devices fly off the shelves. Investors in Asia, however, seem pretty ...

Whether central banks should issue their own digital currencies may sound like an arcane debate. But allowing them to do so could have a profound impact on a nation’s economic and financial landscape — and not for the better. Various proposals are works in progress, but share one basic feature: Central banks would issue electronic deposits. These deposits would be ...

Bloomberg US equity-index futures extended a retreat alongside European stocks on Tuesday as investor optimism over looming trade talks was knocked by news the White House is moving towards possible restrictions on capital flows into China. Treasuries and gold advanced. Contracts for the three major US gauges had gained earlier, but they reversed after China said it strongly opposed an ...