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There may be such a thing as a free lunch in China’s pharmaceutical industry. It turns out it’s not an unlimited buffet, though. For years, the country’s largest drugmakers have happily sold low-cost generic medicines yielding gross margins of 80 percent to 90 percent without giving much thought to consumer protection or innovation. It’s not uncommon for pharma companies to ...

As the great unwind of global monetary stimulus gains momentum, markets are at increased risk of experiencing doom loops. Investors need to be prepared for these downward spirals, where shocks set off a self-perpetuating sequence of disruptions. There are five doom loops that feed each other in a financial crisis. collateral doom loop Declines in the value of stocks, bonds, ...

Bloomberg As he browsed digital store shelves last month in search of an aromatherapy diffuser, entrepreneur David Berger had a single requirement for his wife’s Christmas gift: It had to work with Amazon.com Inc.’s Alexa software. “She’s really into making the house smell beautiful, and I’m really into Alexa,” says Berger who lives in Weston, Connecticut. “So this is a ...

Bloomberg Largan Precision Co., which supplies camera lenses to Apple Inc, said revenue in December fell by a third amid weakening appetite for iPhones in China. Sales dropped 33.9 percent from a year to NT$3.23 billion ($104.9 million), and were in line with Largan’s estimates, a company spokeswoman said on Saturday. The company, which also makes lenses for Huawei Technologies ...

Bloomberg Last year, Microsoft Corp’s Azure security team detected suspicious activity in the cloud computing usage of a large retailer: One of the company’s administrators, who usually logs on from New York, was trying to gain entry from Romania. And no, the admin wasn’t on vacation. A hacker had broken in. Microsoft quickly alerted its customer, and the attack was ...

Bloomberg Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell signalled the central bank could pause interest-rate increases if the US economy weakened and pledged he will stay at his post even if President Donald Trump presses him to resign. Invoking events of 2016, when the Fed held rates unchanged through most of the year amid financial market turmoil spurred by concerns over slower ...

Bloomberg Polish central bank Governor Adam Glapinski is undergoing “routine” questioning by prosecutors in relation to a bribery scandal that led to the arrest of the country’s banking watchdog chairman. The latest in a string of central bankers from emerging Europe becoming involved in legal probes, Glapinski has rebuffed calls to step down from opposition parties that are demanding a ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) took the unprecedented step of placing the cash-strapped Italian lender Banca Carige SpA in temporary administration, a move that could be a prelude to a sale or merger. The administrators and a three-member surveillance committee will focus on reducing balance sheet risk and finding a possible partner for the bank, Carige said in a ...

Bloomberg The two Indian banks which will be merged into Bank of Baroda saw their share prices plunge in reaction to news of the terms of the deal. The share swap ratio has been set at 110 Bank of Baroda shares for every 1000 shares in Dena Bank, and 402 Bank of Baroda shares for 1000 shares of Vijaya Bank, ...

Bloomberg China’s central bank took a further step to secure liquidity to the slowing economy, amid investor jitters over the outlook and expectations that more easing moves are in the pipeline. The amount of cash lenders must hold as reserves will be cut by 1 percentage point, dropping by 0.5 percentage point on January 15 and a further 0.5 percentage ...