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Since becoming France’s president last year, Emmanuel Macron has made bold moves. He has modernized the economy by relaxing labor rules, reducing taxes for entrepreneurs, and making the higher education system more meritocratic. His government’s new budget includes the biggest tax cuts introduced in France in more than a decade. Yet the public remains unimpressed. Macron’s approval rating has been ...

When one of India’s largest shadow bankers — an institution with 169 subsidiaries that calls itself Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) — admitted to a series of defaults last week, Indian markets came close to a crisis. Fearing that a prolonged investment slowdown would intensify, the government invoked a little-known clause in India’s Companies Act and appointed a new ...

Investors’ pens are hovering a bit longer before writing checks to fintech startups. Funding Circle Holdings Plc was once tipped to be valued at as much as 2 billion pounds ($2.6 billion) in its initial public offering (IPO). When it made its market debut last week, the online lending marketplace weighed in at a skinnier 1.5 billion pounds. That’s still ...

Australia’s investigation into misconduct within its financial-services sector is moving towards the last act. Just don’t expect to see the bad guys get punished. The Royal Commission, which published its interim report, has heard a litany of bad practices the country’s banks, insurers, financial advisers and others have committed, from charging dead people fees to duping the corporate regulator. The ...

Bloomberg US equity futures fell with European shares as fresh concern about Italy’s defiance of EU officials added to an already gloomy mood across stocks, with those in China tumbling after a one-week vacation ended. The dollar rose as Treasuries took a holiday before a busy week of debt sales. Oil companies and banks led the Stoxx Europe 600 Index ...

Bloomberg If the Federal Reserve tightens US monetary policy too far, investors in the bull market’s biggest winners will feel the pain first, according to Bank Julius Baer & Co. That’s tech stocks. Strong economic growth will encourage the Fed to keep raising interest rates, even if the tightening sucks out more liquidity than financial markets can tolerate, said Yves ...

Bloomberg As concerns from bank investors go, “peak profitability” seems an unusual one. But as the biggest US banks report results that analysts estimate will set a new high for profitability this decade, shareh-olders are wondering: is this as good as gets, or is Jamie Dimon right that banks are entering a golden age. “The quarter will be fine,” Susan ...

Bloomberg UBS Group AG goes on trial in Paris on Monday accused of encouraging rich clients to stash cash overseas to evade French taxes by deploying tactics “worthy of James Bond.” The Zurich-based lender dispatched bankers across the border to seek out new clients even though they lacked the paperwork — a banking license or European passport — to offer ...

Bloomberg Morgan Stanley is remodeling. About 1.2 million square feet (111,000 square meters) of office space will get an overhaul in the next 15 months to put technology experts closer to brokers, traders and bankers, the firm’s head of technology, Rob Rooney, said in an interview. After changes to wealth-management operations, tra- ding floors, investment-banking offices and space tied to ...

Bloomberg The economist tipped to be Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s first central bank board nominee said he expects policy makers to cut the key interest rate starting next year given the outlook for slowing inflation and growth. Policy makers have room to ease even as the Federal Reserve tightens, Jonathan Heath, a former chief economist at HSBC Holdings ...