Auto-debt risk reaches Europe as leases create a used-car glut

Bloomberg A shift in how Europeans finance their cars is threatening to expose bondholders in the region to the same risk that’s been building in the US for decades. Buyers of notes backed by auto debt are increasingly vulnerable to drops in used-vehicle prices because more and more drivers in Europe are leasing cars and trading them in for new ...

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Microsoft plans sales reorganization focused on cloud

Bloomberg Microsoft Corp. is planning a global sales reorganization to better focus on selling cloud software, according to people familiar with the matter. The restructuring is scheduled to be announced as soon as next week and will impact the Worldwide Commercial Business under Judson Althoff and Jean-Philippe Courtois’ global sales and marketing group, the people said. Job cuts are likely ...

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Wind industry tacks as Trump shifts political climate

Bloomberg Three days after Energy Secretary Rick Perry directed his staff to find ways to give a boost to coal and nuclear power, the rival wind industry kicked its lobbying response into action. The American Wind Energy Association would tap allies in Congress willing to weigh in with Perry and buy advertisements on “news channels closely followed by the Trump ...

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Trump undecided on ‘steel import measures’

Bloomberg President Donald Trump hasn’t decided yet whether to impose punitive measures on steel imports for reasons of national secur- ity, as the administration missed a self-imposed deadline to conclude its investigation. While the Commerce Department has until early next year to determine whether foreign-made steel threatens US security under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, Secretary Wilbur Ross ...

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Hong Kong should profit from China – not defy it, warns Xi

Bloomberg President Xi Jinping warned a divided Hong Kong that challenges to China’s rule wouldn’t be tolerated and said the city’s leaders must find new ways to profit from Chinese economic clout. Xi’s stern speech on Saturday — at a ceremony in which he swore in Carrie Lam, 60, as Hong Kong’s first female chief executive — capped a three-day ...

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‘IS decline makes Singapore a target’

Bloomberg Terrorism is entrenched in Southeast Asia and will only worsen as IS’s fortunes fade and foreign fighters skilled in bomb making and hijacking return from the Middle East, Singapore’s defense minister said. “When we talk about endemic threats we usually refer to threats like dengue or tuberculosis, which means that it’s here to stay, that despite years of effort ...

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May’s tough stance ‘hamstrung’ Brexit chief

Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s inflexible position in negotiations to leave the European Union has made the task more difficult for Brexit Secretary David Davis, a former aide said in a BBC interview. James Chapman, who was Davis’s chief of staff until last month, said May’s ‘absolutist’ stance on ending the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice over ...

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Obama takes swipe at Trump on Paris climate accord

Bloomberg Former US President Barack Obama pointed to the importance of the Paris climate accord while criticizing Donald Trump for pulling the world’s biggest economy out of the pact. Trump said last month he would withdraw from the pact and seek to negotiate a better deal, in a move that attracted widespread criticism from counterparts in Europe and elsewhere. The ...

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Battered Abe looks to fend off party defector in Tokyo election

Bloomberg A Tokyo election this weekend gives Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a chance to stop the bleeding from a series of recent scandals that hurt his popularity. Polls indicate that his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) risks losing its position as the largest party in the capital’s assembly on Sunday to a group led by Governor Yuriko Koike, who resigned ...

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The global politics of selfishness?

In the capital of Iraqi Kuridstan, the mood is ‘Kurdistan First’ with the announcement of a referendum on independence in September. In Moscow, where I visited a few weeks ago, it’s ‘Russia First,’ with a vengeance. And so it goes, around most of the world. The politics of national self-interest is on steroids these days. For global leaders, it’s the ...

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