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Bloomberg Even after a plunge last month that wiped $46 billion off Chinese health-care stocks, domestic drugmakers may be far from their floor as a Beijing-led policy shift gathers pace. China’s plan to drive down generic drug prices through a centralised bulk procurement programme is set to redraw the industry by forcing its thousands of small generic drugmakers to streamline ...

Bloomberg Coal’s three-year run of blistering gains in Europe is set to end, clobbered by a combination of weakening demand and energy polices aimed at phasing out the dirtiest fossil fuel. After prices more than doubled since 2016 as Asian importers drove demand, coal is expected to fall more than 10 percent to $76.50 a tonne this year in Europe, ...

Bloomberg UK manufacturing growth unexpectedly improved to a six-month high in December 2018, as companies built up inventories and boosted new orders in preparation for a potentially disruptive Brexit. IHS Markit’s Purchasing Managers Index for the industry rose to 54.2, more than the 52.5 expected by economists. Still, the average reading for the final three months of 2018 was the ...

Bloomberg Canadians enter 2019 far less optimistic about the economy than a year earlier. The Bloomberg Nanos Canadian Confidence Index, based on weekly telephone polling, ended 2018 at 55.1, down from 62.2 at the close of 2017. The change was driven more by Canadians’ views of the overall outlook than of their own finances — 39.6 percent expect the domestic ...

Bloomberg Five Federal Reserve indexes of regional manufacturing all slumped in December 2018, the first time they’ve fallen in unison since May 2016 and the latest evidence that a pillar of the US economy has started to wobble heading into 2019. The Dallas Fed’s factory index unexpectedly contracted, falling to a two-year low of minus 5.1 from 17.6 in November, ...

The Trump administration’s willingness to push the Chinese harder on trade has struck a bilateral chord. Beijing is listening. So far, so good. Now the question is what the US wants to achieve. Answer: the total destruction of China as a competitor. That isn’t a trade goal, and the demands being made contradict one another. This aim also unnecessarily awakens ...

This year heralds a brave new world for euro credit spreads. The continent’s biggest buyer of corporate debt is calling a halt after amassing a 180 billion euro portfolio in just two and a half years. The European Central Bank’s Corporate Sector Purchasing Program (CSPP for short) is ending net new buys after gorging on investment grade euro corporate bonds. ...

In light of the recent stark warning from the United Nations that the world is on course to reach the limit of tolerable warming in a scant 21 years, nuclear power is getting some overdue attention and enthusiasm. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is coming around to the view that nuclear power has a crucial role in climate ...

With Brexit negotiations paralysed, and fewer than 100 days till the clock runs out, it’s worth remembering that the UK government — despite its assurances — remains entirely unready for a no-deal exit from the European Union. Pretending otherwise helps no one. In recent weeks, the government has started making some frantic preparations. It has directed 2 billion pounds to ...

A new year, a new central bank governor. Yet the first salvo to come out of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) policy arsenal in 2019 is encouragement of good old “extend and pretend” lending. Banks and shadow banks are being allowed a one-time restructuring of loans of up to 250 million rupees ($3.6 million) to micro, small and medium ...