UK should break with Europe on palm oil

Post-Brexit, the UK will have a historic opportunity to strike a trade deal with one of the world’s fastest-growing regions and prove that it can shed European red tape and protectionism. The key is to rethink the European Union’s policy on palm oil. In 2017, the European Parliament approved a resolution to phase out and eventually ban biofuels made from ...

Read More »

What Boris Johnson fears more than no-deal Brexit

If UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson seems rather glib about the idea of his country crashing out of the European Union without a deal — an outcome that myriad authoritative bodies have predicted will be highly costly for the UK economy — it is most likely because there is something he fears more than that. Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party is ...

Read More »

The Fed could learn from Bank of Canada

The US Federal Reserve has developed a pretty poor track record for meeting its inflation and employment goals. If it wants to do a better job, it should follow Canada’s example and set some deadlines. More than four decades ago, Congress mandated that the Fed’s monetary policy pursue two objectives: price stability and maximum employment. In January 2012, the central ...

Read More »

Negative interest rates are coming for us all

First they came for central banks, then they came for government bonds, then they came for rich depositors. Then they came for me. Negative interest rates are coming for us all, in one form or another, as central banks redouble their efforts to avert a global economic slowdown that threatens to unleash deflation. So how can we defend ourselves from ...

Read More »

Markets left teetering as trade war derails Fed calming efforts

Bloomberg Any reassurance markets got from the Federal Reserve in Jackson Hole was wiped out within minutes. A volley of acrimonious presidential tweets and a nastier turn in the trade war sent Treasury yields, stocks and the dollar skidding into the weekend. Hopes that the central bank could guide markets to a cool-headed assessment of the US economy now look ...

Read More »

Pound’s biggest Brexit risk is not what it seems to be

Bloomberg As markets bet on a no-deal Brexit, the real shock for pound traders could be Prime Minister Boris Johnson clinching a sudden deal. Sterling has tumbled in recent weeks as Johnson’s “do or die” stance has led traders to increase bets against the currency on the prospects of a no-deal Brexit on October 31. Yet a surge of nearly ...

Read More »

Deutsche Bank SEC case showing ‘classic’ nepotism in Russian hires

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG executives were outraged. They had just missed out on a major deal with the Russian government and wanted answers. “We must use whatever tactic and political pressure to avoid this embarrassment,” a senior banker in London wrote in an email to the firm’s top executive in Russia. “DB not participating is a slap in our face.” ...

Read More »

‘No-deal Brexit may prompt BOE easing’

Bloomberg A collapse of Brexit talks resulting in the UK leaving the European Union without a transition agreement would likely prompt the Bank of England to loosen monetary policy, Governor Mark Carney said. While the Monetary Policy Committee’s reaction would depend on how demand, supply and exchange rate are hit, “the appropriate policy path would be more likely to ease ...

Read More »

Slowdown trims RBC earnings

Bloomberg Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) posted fiscal third-quarter earnings that missed analysts’ estimates, hurt by a slowdown in the company’s capital-markets division. Canada’s largest lender by assets had C$653 million ($491 million) in profit from RBC Capital Markets, a 6.4% decline, the result of lower trading revenue and a drop in investment-banking fees, according to a statement Wednesday. Earnings from ...

Read More »

Pimco rules out Swedish rate hike

Bloomberg Sweden is stuck in negative interest rates. That’s the view of fixed-income giant Pacific Investment Management Co, which predicts that Sweden’s central bank will need to leave its benchmark rate at minus 0.25% through 2020. Sweden’s central bank is struggling to exit more than four years of negative rates. A plan to raise rates to zero again towards end ...

Read More »
Send this to a friend