Month: May 2020

A slump in capital investments, private consumption and exports pushed the German economy into a recession in the first quarter, detailed data showed on Monday, giving a glimpse of the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The Federal Statistics Office said capital investments fell by 6.9%, private consumption by 3.2% and exports by 3.1% between January and March compared with the last three months of 2019. This meant that private consumption took off 1.7 percentage points of overall economic activity and net trade shaved off 0.8 percentage points, translating into a first-quarter contraction of 2.2%, the steepest rate …read more […]

Boeing Co (BA) will lay off 400 employees at its aerospace manufacturing facility in Winnipeg as a result of the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.”Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Boeing previously announced we would adjust the size of our company to reflect new market realities through a combination of voluntary layoffs, natural turnover and involuntary layoffs,” Boeing spokeswoman Jessica Kowal said in a statement.Boeing Winnipeg, which employs 1,600 workers is one of the largest aerospace composite manufacturers in Canada. At the site, Boeing produces over 500 end item composite parts for the company’s commercial airplanes. Major …read more […]

May.25 — Ben Powell, chief APAC investment strategist, at BlackRock Investment Institute, shares his views on the region’s markets and global policies. He speaks with Haslinda Amin and Tom Mackenzie on “Bloomberg Markets: Asia.” …read more […]

Chinese financial investors betting on a rebound in oil prices are filling commercial storage tanks held by the Shanghai futures exchange just as fast as the exchange can find them. The flood of purchases has come from companies little-known to the oil industry which have been bidding up Shanghai futures, China’s only oil futures contract, since early April when global oil prices slumped as COVID-19 hammered demand. “We call them ‘hermit’ investors,” said a state oil official whose firm recently delivered cargoes into the contract. …read more […]

May.25 — The Japanese government is on the brink of lifting the state of emergency for Tokyo, its surrounding regions and the northern island of Hokkaido, allowing more parts of the economy to re-open as new coronavirus cases tail off. Still, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s political troubles may be just beginning. Isabel Reynolds reports on “Bloomberg Markets: Asia.” …read more […]

May.24 — Tom James, co-founder and chief executive officer of Tradeflow Capital Management Pte, a commodities trade financing firm, discusses the outlook for agricultural commodities. He speaks with Yvonne Man and Tom Mackenzie on “Bloomberg Markets: Asia.” …read more […]

May.24 — Susan Shirk, a former deputy assistant secretary of state during the Clinton administration and currently a professor chair of the 21st Century China Center at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego, looks at the tensions between the U.S. and China. The U.S. should give up its “wishful thinking” of changing China, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, warning that some in America were pushing relations to a “new Cold War.” Shirk speaks on “Bloomberg Markets: Asia.” (Corrects typographical error in headline) …read more […]

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(Bloomberg) — Hong Kong’s stock exchange was having a good week until Beijing crashed the party.Seen as one of the potential big winners from a bill last week by the U.S. Senate to limit listings of Chinese companies, Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. now faces what could be an even more rocky year than 2019, when political unrest cooled trading and brought revenue growth to a near standstill.The bourse’s shares on Friday had their biggest tumble in a year as investors absorbed Beijing’s proposal to impose security legislation on the semi-autonomous city. Protesters held their biggest rally in months …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. slid after projecting revenue growth will slow this year, reflecting post-Covid 19 economic uncertainty at home as well as the potential for U.S.-Chinese tensions to disrupt its business.Its stock slid as much as 4% in Hong Kong Monday, after a drop of almost 6% in New York before the weekend. The e-commerce giant forecast sales growth this year of at least 27.5% to more than 650 billion yuan ($91 billion), down from 35% previously and slightly below analysts’ estimates. While it posted a better-than-expected 22% rise in March quarter revenue of 114.3 billion yuan, …read more […]