Brexit is turning into the road trip from hell

Theresa May survived a key Brexit showdown with rebels in her own Conservative Party in parliament. The apparent compromise frees the prime minister to negotiate a divorce agreement with the European Union. But her threat of walking away without a deal is no longer credible. If she fails in the negotiations, there’s now every chance parliament will force her back ...

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Why economists avoid discussing inequality

Why would economists rather talk about efficiency than inequality? Having lived among them for a while, I don’t think the reason is what many people think. The common narrative on the political left is that economists are shilling for the rich, focusing on growth in order to draw attention away from how a few are gaining enormous wealth. But a ...

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India’s right to throw homebuyers a lifeline

From overburdened tribunals to some bizarre judgments and costly delays, India’s new bankruptcy code has had its share of teething troubles. But the law, which will decide the fate of $210 billion in bad loans, has also broken new ground. Take the most recent tweak, for instance. Hapless homebuyers left without apartments by debt-stressed builders will have their status raised ...

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Amazon is still sorting out its grocery strategy

When Amazon.com Inc. announced a year ago this week that it was buying the Whole Foods supermarket chain, investors braced for an industry shake-up. Stock prices of companies even remotely connected to groceries tumbled. Experts imagined supermarket price wars and stores transformed by Amazon robots. Some predicted Amazon would leverage Whole Foods stores as online delivery hubs, or as a ...

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US stocks creep higher, dollar declines before Fed decision

Bloomberg US equities edged higher ahead of Wednesday’s Federal Reserve rate decision, while European stocks gained. The dollar slipped as benchmark Treasury yields held steady, and emerging-market currencies extended a drop. The S&P 500 Index rose tentatively in morning trading, with a surge in health-care stocks offsetting the telecom weakness brought on after the AT&T takeover of Time Warner won ...

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No letup for Bitcoin as world’s biggest digital coin drops

Bloomberg Bitcoin edged lower, bringing its four-day slide to about 16 percent, as questions mount about whether the world’s biggest cryptocurrency was manipulated during last year’s record price surge. The digital coin has closed below its 50-, 100- and 200-day moving averages for the past 16 days, the longest stretch below those support levels this year. Bitcoin, which surged more ...

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Faster inflation in India puts analysts on watch for rate hike

Bloomberg Inflation picked up in India for a second straight month, giving ammunition to the central bank to further tighten monetary policy and squeezing returns for bond investors. Consumer prices rose 4.87 percent in May from a year earlier, the statistics ministry said in a statement in New Delhi. That was broadly in line with the 4.9 percent median estimate ...

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PBOC to mirror Fed with rate hike keeping other taps open

Bloomberg The People’s Bank of China will raise borrowing costs in the open market if the US Federal Reserve decides to increase rates this week, according to a Bloomberg survey. A majority of 31 economists said the PBOC will increase by five basis points the rate it charges on reverse-repurchase agreements, which guide funding costs in financial markets, after the ...

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Draghi set to boost euro, weigh on bonds

Bloomberg Buy the euro, sell bonds. That’s the takeaway from strategists who expect that the European Central Bank President Mario Draghi will announce on Thursday an end to the institution’s asset-purchase program as the immediate risks surrounding Italian politics subside. Analysts have become more bullish on the euro following recent hawkish comments from ECB officials, with Credit Agricole SA forecasting ...

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UK banks urged to step up fight against cyber threat increase

Bloomberg The Bank of England told banks to be ready for war against the mounting threat of crippling cyber attacks. “I would like our firms to be on a WAR footing: withstand; absorb; recover,” Lyndon Nelson, deputy chief executive of the BOE’s Prudential Regulation Authority, said in a speech. The PRA expects firms to set out their own tolerances for ...

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