Bloomberg Behind-the-scenes regulatory requirements imposed on the largest US banks may help explain one mystery spawned by recent turmoil in an obscure, but important, slice of the multitrillion-dollar money market. Dealers and policy makers alike have wondered why big banks didn’t step in as rates on overnight repurchase agreements soared to record highs. Those banks have about $1.4 trillion deposited ...
Read More »Dueling Glaxo, Astra drugs show wider benefits in ovarian cancer
Bloomberg Britain’s two largest drugmakers, betting on a new generation of cancer treatments that block tumor cells from fixing their damaged DNA, showed that these medicines work in a broad swath of patients. Women with ovarian cancer treated with GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s drug Zejula had a 38 percent reduction in the risk of dying or seeing the disease progress, the company ...
Read More »Swiss economy in difficult phase: Minister
Bloomberg Switzerland’s government is bracing for a possible recession as the country’s economy goes through a difficult period and faces substantial risks, economy minister Guy Parmelin told a newspaper. “There are several signs pointing to a slowdown,†Parmelin told Schweiz am Wochenende. “The trade war between the US and China, the blockade of the WTO, the stagnating economy in Germany ...
Read More »US’s social media firms must share messages with UK
Bloomberg Social media platforms based in the US including Facebook and WhatsApp will be forced to share users’ encrypted messages with British police under a new treaty between the two countries, according to a person familiar with the matter. The accord, which is set to be signed by next month, will compel social media firms to share information to support ...
Read More »De Beers keeps special terms in place for ‘diamond sale’
Bloomberg De Beers is continuing its policy of offering unprecedented flexibility to diamond buyers as the mining company works to fend off a slump in demand for the gems, according to people familiar with the situation. The Anglo American Plc unit extended the policy from its August sale to customers in Botswana, according to the people, who asked not to ...
Read More »Elon Musk unveils plan for SpaceX Mars ‘Starship’ rocket
Bloomberg Elon Musk gave space fans an outline of plans for “Starship,†the next-generation vehicle his Space Exploration Technologies Corp expects to use to eventually take humans to Mars. The goal is to make “space travel like air travel,†Musk said on stage during a highly technical presentation from the company’s Boca Chica test site near Brownsville, Texas. “We’re really ...
Read More »Time is on Taiwan’s side, but it needs US support
Now only 15 flags in the Foreign Ministry’s foyer represent the nations that have not yet succumbed to Beijing’s financial blandishments — targeted at governments and individual politicians — and other pressures to sever diplomatic relations with this island nation. There were 17 flags a few weeks ago. The last time many Americans thought of the Solomon Islands (population 650,000) ...
Read More »Future tech may solve climate change!
On climate change, leaders have a tendency to make lofty long-term promises but take only baby steps to reach them. At the United Nations climate summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave an interesting explanation for why: They believe technology eventually will pick up the slack. This represents an ideological divide with environmental advocates, who don’t put much stock in the ...
Read More »EBay’s next CEO inherits a confounding puzzle
EBay Inc. has been a resilient internet pioneer and also a confounding one. Now a new leader will have to solve the riddle. The company announced that Devin Wenig, the chief executive officer since 2015, had stepped down. The company’s chief financial officer, a longtime EBay employee, was named interim CEO while the company hunts for a permanent successor. Ebay ...
Read More »Zuckerberg struggles to keep Libra alive
Mark Zuckerberg’scryptocurrency project, Libra, has become the regulatory equivalent of a pinata: Everyone is lining up to hit it with a stick. France’s finance minister Bruno Le Maire calls it an assault on sovereignty and a risk to financial stability, an attack backed up by his German counterpart Olaf Scholz who dubbed it a “parallel currency.†You can see their ...
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