Euro-area inflation outpaces expectations as crude surges

  Bloomberg Euro-area inflation accelerated in December at the fastest pace since 2013, suggesting that a debate about the appropriate degree of European Central Bank stimulus is about to gather momentum. Consumer prices rose 1.1 percent from a year earlier, following a 0.6 percent gain in November, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said on Wednesday. That’s above a ...

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Tesla deliveries miss forecasts on production delays

  Bloomberg Tesla Motors Inc. reported fourth-quarter deliveries that fell short of its own forecasts, sending shares lower in after-market trading, as production delays continue to plague the carmaker led by Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk. The Palo Alto, California-based maker of electric cars and energy-storage products delivered about 22,200 vehicles in the final three months of last year, according ...

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Manhattan home prices fall to lowest in 4 years

  Bloomberg Manhattan resale home prices tumbled by the most in more than four years, a sign that sellers are lowering their expectations in a slowing market where buyers have the option to walk away. The median price of previously owned condominiums and co-ops fell 6.3 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier to $900,000, according to a ...

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AT&T to test 5G for delivery of ‘DirecTV Now’ to homes

  Bloomberg AT&T Inc. has reached speeds of up to 14 gigabits a second in lab trials of 5G wireless technology, and plans to test the high-speed network by beaming its DirecTV Now video service to homes in Austin, Texas before midyear. Through a collaboration with a dozen partners including Intel Corp., Ericsson AB and Qualcomm Inc., AT&T plans to ...

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Obama was indeed transformational, ‘alas’

Any summation of Barack Obama’s impact on domestic policy and politics should begin with this: In 2008, he assured supporters, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Soon he will be replaced by someone who says, “I alone can fix it.” So, Americans have paid Obama the compliment of choosing continuity, if ...

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Fantasy land is where deposits fuel an Indian loan boom

  Three months ago, Gadfly advised India’s state-run banks to stop lending because they didn’t have the capital to keep up appearances. That was before the surprise November 8 cash ban, which led to a deluge of low-cost deposits into the system. Add a government eager to dispel criticism that getting rid of 86 percent of the currency in circulation ...

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Leave the high seas to the fish

  The high seas — all that deep water beyond 200 nautical miles from a coastline — are this planet’s last frontier. And like all previous frontiers, they’re ripe for plunder. But there may be a surprisingly simple solution to the scourge of overfishing on the high seas: a ban on commercial fishing in international waters. The proposition may sound ...

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Powers work in concert to contain N Korea N-ambitions

  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un claimed in his New Year’s message that the development of banned intercontinental long-range missiles is in ‘final stages’. US president-elect tweeted the following day: it won’t happen. Kim also vowed to further enhance his country’s military capability unless the US ends war games with rival South Korea. Trump is confident that Pyongyang will ...

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Actually, active-investment management never went away

  This is the year that active-investment management makes its return to form. It is the year, or so we are told, when active fights back, scores some points, and gets its revenge on passive indexers. For the record, active management never went away. The claim that it has returned, after a run of fairly horrific performance, is likely little ...

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Try breathing in Beijing

  When the temperature drops to freezing in a country of almost 1.4 billion people, the power needed to keep the population warm soars. That’s one of the main reasons China’s northern cities have spent much of the past month choking on smoggy, toxic air. Particulate concentrations in areas north of Shanghai that once qualified for state heating subsidies and ...

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