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Bloomberg Japan’s biggest manufacturers say current business conditions are at the worst in nearly three years, the latest indication the nation’s export-dependent economy is taking a battering in the current quarter. The Finance Ministry’s quarterly business survey, released on Tuesday, showed a reading of minus 7.3 for conditions among Japan’s largest manufacturers, the worst result since the second quarter of ...

Bloomberg Toyota Motor Corp. is scoping out a new frontier: lunar rovers. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is teaming up with the country’s largest carmaker to build a six-wheeled self-driving transporter that can carry two humans for a distance of 10,000 kilometers. They’re aiming to land a vehicle on the moon in 2029. The announcement comes less than a week ...

Bloomberg A tide of money from China is likely to lift the Thai baht back up after it went from first to one of the worst among Asia’s currencies. While the baht dropped last month versus the ringgit by the most in almost two years, flows from China are likely to favour Thailand in the coming months. Bangkok is looking ...

Bloomberg The catastrophic slump of Singapore’s much-vaunted water and power company, Hyflux Ltd., has stunned 34,000 retail investors who were lured by the promise of a 6 percent annual return forever from a company that seemed to have a gold seal of government approval. At the heart of the debacle is Tuaspring, a desalination and power plant that cost S$1.1 ...

Bloomberg European debt markets have suddenly become more appealing to some big American corporations again, spurred in part by monetary policy changes. Several American household names have recently crossed the pond to issue debt in Europe. Companies such as Altria Group Inc., Coca-Cola Co., Ford Motor Credit Co. and International Business Machines Corp., among others, together have sold almost 18 ...

Bloomberg US companies submitted a record number of patent applications to the European Patent Office in 2018, retaining the country’s status as the most prolific filer. The 43,612 patent applications US companies filed was 25 percent of the total, the agency said on Tuesday, and far more than the 26,734 filed by Germany, the closest competitor. It was up 2.7 ...

Bloomberg Property investors cut or stopped purchases of commercial property in London this year as Brexit negotiations lurched from crisis to crisis. Spending on UK offices, malls and warehouses plunged more than 40 percent in the first two months of the year to 4.3 billion pounds ($5.6 billion), according to research firm Property Data. With less than three weeks left ...

Bloomberg Volkswagen AG aims to produce almost 50 percent more electric cars than it previously targeted, boosting a bet that has already strained profit margins. The world’s largest automaker now plans to build 22 million vehicles over the next 10 years, compared with an earlier goal of 15 million. Return on sales fell last year at the company’s three core ...

Fast-forward past next week’s critical Brexit votes in the UK parliament. If Britain ends up leaving the European Union (EU) without a deal, it will have to set its own independent trade policy for the first time in a generation. How would it mitigate the trade frictions it will face outside the bloc? Brexit supporters have a beguiling answer: eliminate ...

Remember when Japan was going to become the world’s biggest economy? Don’t laugh. Herman Kahn, the Rand Corp. futurist who partly inspired the character of Dr. Strangelove, predicted as far back as 1970 that Japan’s gross domestic product (GDP) would overtake the US around the year 2000. Decades later, his prediction still seemed on track. Thanks in part to strength ...