Serbia will choose EU if forced: PM

Bloomberg If Serbia is forced to choose between closer ties with Russia and joining the European Union, it will side with the latter, the country’s new prime minister said. Ana Brnabic said she’d continue a path started by her predecessor, President Aleksandar Vucic, to make the country ready for EU membership by the time her term ends in 2020. Eastern ...

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Mad at everyone!

This is the summer of our discontent. As Americans celebrate July 4, they are mad at their leaders, mad at their government and mad at each other. A recent Pew poll finds that ‘public trust in government remains near historic lows.’ Just 20 percent of Americans trust the government to ‘do the right thing just about always or most of ...

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Wall Street banks face another false Chinese dawn

Wall Street banks, struggling with years of declining revenue from Asia, will be hoping two market-opening measures by China at the weekend finally spell a return to boom times. They’re likely to be disappointed. HSBC Holdings Plc’s achievement in becoming the first foreign bank to control a mainland securities joint venture, coupled with the launch of China’s bond-connect program with ...

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Why Japanese investors should say oui again

Japanese investors had a torrid time in the lead up to the French elections, offloading about 3 trillion yen ($26.5 billion) of French government bonds. But with net buying of the overseas notes in seven of the past eight weeks, according to Japan Ministry of Finance data, could they be returning? The recent jump in 10-year European bond yields provides ...

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The dangerous simplicity of Trump

President Donald Trump has always had a weakness for simple and fantastical fixes. Illegal immigration? Build a wall. Jobs moving overseas? Tax imports. Unemployment in Appalachia? Dig more coal. Rising medical costs? Repeal Obamacare. Trump’s gift for simple slogans served him well as a candidate. As president, however, it is failing him and endangering the country. When the Supreme Court ...

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China bond connect has potential to shift PBOC policy

China’s President Xi Jinping’s visit to Hong Kong coincided with the official start of the China Bond Connect program with Hong Kong that gives offshore investors another way to access the mainland’s $10 trillion debt market. Although the link between China’s mainland and offshore bond markets may look ceremonial, for the People’s Bank of China it could help set the ...

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Toshiba’s trash becomes someone else’s treasure

Toshiba Corp. forgot to add its cardboard box of bits and bobs to the corporate garage sale. The flailing Japanese group is in the process of selling its prized chips business for $20 billion in badly needed funds, having already hived off a medical device unit and nuclear power. And it continues to consider selling or taking public the Swiss ...

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Hong Kong needs to crack the enigma code

Thrill-seekers in Hong Kong who want to gamble in casinos usually have to take a bumpy, hour-long ferry ride to Macau. Those who crave excitement without leaving the city might do just as well punting on Hong Kong’s small-cap stocks. Structural weaknesses and a reluctance by regulators to delist miscreant companies has turned Hong Kong’s $4.6 trillion stock market into ...

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Haven assets advance as missile test rattles traders

Bloomberg A risk-off mood seeped into markets on Tuesday, with haven assets including gold and the Japanese yen climbing and stocks slipping in the wake of an apparent milestone in North Korea’s weapons program. Early market optimism in Asia — sparked by bullish American economic data yesterday — ebbed as North Korea said it successfully test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile, ...

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Hong Kong stock market tumbles most in eight months

Bloomberg Hong Kong stocks sank the most since November as profit taking in some of the city’s top performing shares sparked a wider selloff. The Hang Seng Index dropped as much as 2.1 percent before paring declines to 1.5 percent at the close. Tencent Holdings Ltd., Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd. and Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. were the biggest losers on ...

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