Bloomberg Tesla Inc. has all the tools to meet its planned Model 3 production rate in the first quarter. The problem is that a key to its future battery manufacturing is still in Germany. The electric-car maker — which still plans to make about 2,500 of the cars a week by the end of March — designed a new automated ...
Read More »UK factories post best year since 2014
Bloomberg UK factory production extended its record run in December, capping the strongest year since 2014. Manufacturing rose 0.3 percent from November, the Office for National Statistics said. Overall industrial output slumped a larger-than-forecast 1.3 percent after the closure of a key North Sea pipeline led to a steep drop in oil output. Separate figures show construction output rose 1.6 ...
Read More »Maersk drops as it misses estimates after an ‘unusual’ year
Bloomberg A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S fell short of earnings expectations last year but promised its shareholders profit at the world’s biggest shipping company will grow as much as 43 percent in 2018. Maersk opened about 5 percent lower in Copenhagen, making it the day’s worst performer on Denmark’s index of benchmark stocks. In a note to clients, Clarksons Platou said Maersk ...
Read More »Uber agrees to pay Waymo $245 million equity to settle suit
Bloomberg Uber Technologies Inc. agreed to give Waymo about $245 million in closely held stock to cut short a trade-secret theft trial, ending a high-stakes conflict that already cost the ride-hailing giant its top driverless car engineer and threatened to further embarrass the company. The deal will give the Alphabet Inc. driverless-car unit 0.34 percent of Uber equity, Waymo said. ...
Read More »America’s prudence deficit
Well, we just kicked the can down the road again — to quote former President Barack Obama, who developed into an expert can-kicker during his eight years in the White House. The bipartisan budget agreement reached last week by Congressional leaders is nothing if not a huge evasion of responsibility. Neither party will make the unpopular choices necessary to pay ...
Read More »Bad news for bonds is terrible news for stocks these days
It’s time for markets to grow up. An important element in the current volatility tantrum is the return of inflation. Last Friday’s US payroll report kicked it off, and the struggle at this week’s 10-year and 30-year US Treasury auctions suggests fixed-income investors don’t spy an end to the rout. This means the next key event for them is U.S. ...
Read More »Janet Yellen asks the right question about Wells Fargo
In her final hours in charge at the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen raised an issue central to the health of the US financial system: Can banks grow too big and complex to manage? Wells Fargo, the case in point, certainly makes you wonder. And it isn’t alone. The world’s biggest financial institutions run myriad lines of business, with hundreds of ...
Read More »Amid market turmoil, China is absent from conversation
China is eroding American dominance in many arenas — just not the one that’s been fixating the world for the past week. With global capital markets in turmoil, China has been largely absent from the conversation. Plenty of players are in the mix, from the Federal Reserve, to inflation, to volati ity, to earnings, to stretched valuations. But China has ...
Read More »How Elon Musk beat Russia’s space program
Nowhere did Tuesday’s launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket echo as powerfully as in Russia. The private US company continues to produce technical feats on which the Russian space industry has given up: First the consistent reuse of rockets, and now the successful launch of a rocket with as many as 27 engines. The Soviet Union tried something similar in ...
Read More »Asia’s rich must leave crowded trades, cut leverage
While equity markets were braving a cold, bleak meltdown in Hong Kong, the bond market was basking in sunshine — or at least trying to keep itself warm in the not-so-bright glow of Sunshine 100 China Holdings Ltd.’s $165 million dollar bonds. Amid the carnage, and with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. warning of more pain ahead, the stressed Chinese builder, ...
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