German economic growth slows to four-year low

Bloomberg German economic growth was the weakest in almost four years in November as both services and manufacturing cooled. The composite Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for Europe’s largest economy dropped to 52.2 in November from 53.4 last month, according to a flash reading released by IHS Markit. The result, below all estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists, pushed the euro ...

Read More »

London home prices ‘out of reach’ amid Brexit concerns

Bloomberg Discounts on London homes are creeping out further from the center as prices remain out of reach for many people and uncertainty surrounding Brexit starts to damp demand for homes in the capital’s cheaper neighbourhoods. “Vendors in outer boroughs are catching up and becoming more realistic about pricing,” said Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at the Royal Institution of Chartered ...

Read More »

Venezuela GDP sinks 17% in 2017

Bloomberg Preliminary figures compiled by Venezuela’s central bank indicate that the crisis-wracked nation’s economy contracted 16.6 percent in 2017, according to two people with direct knowledge of the estimates. For the first time since 2016, the bank is preparing a raft of macroeconomic indicators for International Monetary Fund (IMF) to avoid sanctions including a possible expulsion from lender. Bank technicians ...

Read More »

Xi can’t ignore private enterprise anymore

After more than five years in power, Xi Jinping has constructed a singular political persona: of a leader who places the Communist Party and its authority above all, on top of the state, the economy and military. So it may have come as a surprise to see Xi usher China’s top entrepreneurs into Beijing’s Great Hall of the People earlier ...

Read More »

Equity analysts can dream of autonomy

If some of the most august independent analysts in the business feel their future lies inside a large US broker, does any research boutique have a future? There is still hope. Autonomous Research, the London-based firm set up in 2009 by Stuart Graham, the former head of Merrill Lynch & Co.’s European bank-stocks team, agreed to be taken over by ...

Read More »

When Foxconn sounds alarm, you better listen

There’s no denying it now. The global electronics industry is in a funk, and the world’s biggest manufacturer has the wounds to prove it. Foxconn Technology Group aims to cut $2.9 billion in costs next year, Bloomberg News’s Debby Wu reported, citing an internal company memo that she had seen. You may know Foxconn as the assembler of iPhones for ...

Read More »

Thailand is no beach party for investors

Bangkok may be among the world’s top 10 tourism destinations, but for overseas investors it’s about as popular as a beach holiday in the Arctic. Foreigners sold a net $8.7 billion or so of Thai stocks this year, the most since data began in the late 1990s. On the face of it, that’s a puzzle. Thailand has been something of ...

Read More »

Theresa May’s Brexit deal has a fatal defect

When Theresa May unveiled her draft agreement with the European Union (EU) on the terms of Britain’s exit, the reaction was exactly as expected. Remainers despaired because the deal is so much worse than staying in the union. Leavers despaired because the deal is Brexit in name only. But that was bound to happen, right? Whatever variant of the earlier much-derided ...

Read More »

Want to see your dystopian future? Look at China

South Koreans are worried about the surveillance state. At a recent conference that was supposed to be about protests, journalists invariably asked me one question: How do we maintain democracy in an age when governments and companies are collecting ever more data on everything we do? They’re right to be concerned. If people don’t recognise the danger, they might eventually ...

Read More »

Here is a Thanksgiving wish: Let’s slow things down

Here’s a simple four-word wish for Thanksgiving 2018 — a day when most of us take a break from the blurring, dizzying speed of our internet world: Let’s slow things down. I don’t just mean stopping to smell the roses, or taking a hike in the woods, or hiding our screens for a few hours. I mean, literally: Slow down ...

Read More »
Send this to a friend