GE exits health and oil as CEO aims to turn around ‘the titan’

Bloomberg This is John Flannery’s General Electric Co. — and so far, Wall Street likes it. A year after being named chief executive officer, Flannery took the boldest steps yet to revamp the sinking corporate titan, unveiling plans to pull GE out of the health-care and oil markets. By slimming it down and reorienting around power, renewable energy and aviation, ...

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Trump decides against harshest measures on Chinese investments

Bloomberg The White House opted to take a less confrontational approach towards Chinese investments in the US as it pushes Congress to strengt-hen an existing review pro-cess rather than invoke a little-used law reserved for economic emergencies. President Donald Trump wants Congress to pass legislation to bolster the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, or CFIUS, so it can ...

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London house prices fall

Bloomberg UK house-price growth has slowed to the weakest pace in five years, while London values are falling, according to Nationwide Building Society. The lender said the “subdued economic activity” and squeezed household budgets are keeping a lid on demand, and the national market is unlikely to see any change to the recent trend in the near term. Nationwide’s monthly ...

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Facebook retools political ad rules

Bloomberg A top Facebook Inc executive said the company’s strategy to distinguish between journalism and political content will go into effect in the “coming days.” Facebook’s head of global news partnerships, Campbell Brown, said in an updated blog post that the social-media giant would divide its political ads archive into two sections — one for ads promoting news stories about ...

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New York condos are becoming rentals at a record rate

Bloomberg At a new luxury-condo building in Brooklyn, one buyer told broker Ryan Serhant that she’d like three apartments — one for herself to live in, and two as investments to rent out. She wasn’t the only one. The tower, 550 Vanderbilt, had more buyers become landlords in 2017 than any other condo project in the city, according to data ...

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Is ‘gig economy’ a myth?

The ‘gig economy,’ RIP. Well, maybe. As you’ll recall, the gig economy refers to a radical transformation of the nature of work and US labor markets. Digital platforms better match workers with jobs (aka, gigs). Uber was, and is, the prototype of this upheaval. Its existence seemed confirmed. One survey by well-regarded labor economists Lawrence Katz of Harvard and Alan ...

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Trade tensions infect tech stocks

The US- China trade dispute seems to have an odd casualty: tech stocks. The market dived on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling nearly 500 points before rebounding by the end of the day after President Donald Trump said he would deploy investment limits against China, which has already been responding to US tariffs with those of its ...

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Losing China has taken wind out of Xiaomi’s sails

Mainland investors starry-eyed about the listing of a homegrown tech company will be disappointed by Xiaomi Corp.’s decision to postpone the China half of its stock debut. You can expect moms and pops in Hong Kong to feel a bit deflated in turn. Without Chinese depositary receipts to stir interest, demand in the city will likely be more muted, too. ...

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Macron’s labor market reforms aren’t enough

Every French leader since the 1980s has been elected on a mandate to fight unemployment — and failed. Whatever else he accomplishes, getting people into work is the one thing French President Emmanuel Macron will be judged on at the end of his term. The Macron plan is basically a wish-list of reforms that France’s senior technocratic elite has urged ...

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Investors, not banks, could spark next financial crisis

Banks must bear much of the blame for previous financial crises. In the next one, ordinary investors could play a more central role. Ironically, they’ll do so through vehicles created with them in mind – exchange-traded funds, or ETFs. These listed funds are passive by nature, designed to track the performance of an index of stocks, bonds, currencies or commodities ...

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