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 ...
Read More »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. ...
Read More »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 ...
Read More »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 ...
Read More »Tariffs won’t be good for fashion retailers
Tariffs wouldn’t be a good look for fashion retailers. Right now, clothing and footwear aren’t included in the list of Chinese products threatened with punitive duties by the US. But as my colleague David Fickling has noted, adding another $200 billion would probably mean consumer goods being drawn into the fray. Clothing accounts for about $35 billion of China’s annual ...
Read More »Instagram forgot lessons of internet abuses
Facebook Inc. didn’t learn from the last two years of internet scandals. The company’s Instagram app announced a YouTube-like video hangout called IGTV, which I suspect is going to be a hit. Instagram has quickly become a go-to digital home base for younger people and is on its way to becoming Facebook’s next huge advertising money-minting machine. Analysts at KeyBanc ...
Read More »German banks bet billions on tech to boost revenue
Bloomberg German banks — jostling for position in one of Europe’s most competitive markets — will plow billions of euros into digitisation over coming years to boost revenue. The question is how many will get their money back. The 50 top lenders will spend as much as 6 billion euros ($7 billion) by 2020 developing their digital initiatives, according to ...
Read More »PBOC’s cash dump is not a market rescue
Bloomberg China’s latest monetary policy move, due to take effect on July 5, won’t do much for investors seeking respite from a falling stock market or slumping yuan. 500 billion yuan ($75.7 billion) out of 700 billion yuan freed up by a cut in reserve-ratios announced June 24 is intended to assist banks in funding debt-to-equity swaps — a key ...
Read More »Bank of America sued over ‘Ponzi scheme’
Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. was accused in a lawsuit of providing more than 100 accounts used to perpetrate what the US regulators called a $102 million Ponzi scheme. The class-action suit filed on behalf of people who lost money follows a complaint last week by the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that five men and three companies defrauded more ...
Read More »EU should act to prevent bank havoc: BOE
Bloomberg The Bank of England (BOE) stepped up pressure on the European Union to remove threat that Brexit poses to trillions of pounds of derivative contracts. Unless the EU follows the UK government in putting in place temporary workarounds, there could be havoc in financial markets when Britain leaves the bloc next March. Firms could find themselves unable to service trillions ...
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