Electric cars are feeling a little bit of competition

Electric cars topped the 1 million sales milestone in 2017, a 57 percent increase over 2016. Chinese consumers alone purchased more than half a million electric cars. And Bloomberg New Energy Finance expects more than half of all new cars sold, and a third of the total light vehicles on the road, to be electric by the year 2040. But ...

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Lawmakers officially forget financial crisis

The US Congress might have just set a record for shortness of memory: Just 10 years after a crisis that nearly brought down the global financial system, it’s loosening the safeguards designed to prevent a repeat. Now it’s up to regulators — and specifically the Federal Reserve — to ensure that the backsliding doesn’t go too far. Prodded by President ...

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Italy finally gets a taste of Boris Johnson’s cake

Italy’s populist dream team has a radical plan to revive the country’s economy. Successive drafts of the coalition agreement between the League and the Five Star Movement, seen over the past few days, show the two parties are keen to press ahead with their lavish tax cuts and spending pledges, in spite of Italy’s mammoth public debt. There’s a double ...

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Unemployment in US hits a low. Then comes the recession

Whatever one might think about the US political situation, it’s hard to deny that the economy is doing just fine. In April, the unemployment rate dropped to 3.9 percent, a 17-year low. At this point, there’s a job opening for every unemployed person in the country. Not bad. In the spirit of seeing the glass as half empty, though, it’s ...

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A top economics prize for a theory that really works

What do people think economic theorists do? The pundits who regularly criticize the profession, particularly in the pages of British magazines, seem to think that they spend all their time making abstruse, unrealistic theories about how free markets are the best of all possible worlds. And it’s true that there are still a few economists out there who are essentially ...

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US stock futures rise on hopes of US-North Korea summit

Bloomberg US equity futures followed Asian shares higher on signals an America-North Korea summit is back on track, but risk appetite waned in Europe as Italy’s political outlook darkened. The region’s stocks and common currency both surrendered gains. S&P 500 futures advanced, as did South Korean stocks, after President Donald Trump appeared to confirm that his June meeting with Kim ...

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Markets convulse as Italy seen on course for new elections

Bloomberg Chaos ruled Italian markets as the nation plunged deeper into political turmoil. Yields on the nation’s two-year bonds surged to the highest in four years in holiday-thinned trading, while stocks slumped for a fourth day as President Sergio Mattarella asked economist Carlo Cottarelli to form a government. Earlier League leader Matteo Salvini said that it made no sense for ...

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ECB tests flavour of inflation as big policy discussion looms

Bloomberg This isn’t the inflation the European Central Bank is looking for — but it is inflation. Figures this week are forecast to show euro-area consumer-price growth could have reached its fastest since early 2017 on the back of more expensive oil and a rebound in travel costs. The cost of crude and a weaker euro are also set to ...

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Toronto-Dominion CEO says ‘uncertainty’ Canada’s biggest risk

Bloomberg From trade talks and scrapped deals to elections and government infighting, “uncertainty” has emerged as the biggest obstacle for Canada, according to the head of the nation’s largest lender. “It’s all this uncertainty we’re looking at,” Toronto-Dominion Bank Chief Executive Officer Bharat Masrani said in a BNN Bloomberg interview when asked what’s the biggest risk to his bank’s Canadian ...

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