Trump denies asking former lawyer Michael Cohen to break the law December 13, 2018 Donald Trump has denied directing his former lawyer Michael Cohen to break the law following Cohen’s sentencing for making hush-money payments to aid Trump’s election campaign. Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison yesterday after pleading guilty to the violation of campaign law and lying to Congress about a proposed Trump Tower project in [...]
China reduces tariffs on US cars to 15 per cent amid signs trade war is softening December 11, 2018 China has agreed to reduce tariffs on US cars from 40 per cent to 15 per cent. Shares in US car firms jumped slightly on immediate reaction to the news. Shares in General Motors were up 2.8 per cent, while Tesla was up 0.7 per cent and Ford 0.65 per cent. Meanwhile, US markets were up slightly [...]
Chief executives can no longer stay out of the political fray December 10, 2018 Activism is everywhere. From our neighbourhoods to boardrooms, national crusades to local causes, there is no shortage of people clamouring to bring pressing, worthy issues to our attention. And business is no exception, hence the rise of a new type of chief executive: the “activist”. This creature takes many forms: publicly outspoken, actively involved in [...]
Hubris will doom the imperial reigns of Macron and Trump December 7, 2018 A political outsider who came out of nowhere to ride to victory on a populist movement he built himself, to the shock of the mainstream establishment. An expert campaigner who promised that he alone had the easy fixes to the challenges that his country had been grappling with for years. A President who now faces [...]
Editor’s Notes: The Bank of England must protect its independence December 7, 2018 Former chair of the US Federal Reserve Janet Yellen once said “the principle that a central bank should be independent from the government is unassailable.” Donald Trump probably thinks unassailable means you can’t sell it, but even if he understood Yellan’s point he seems determined to ignore it. His broadsides against Fed policy are quite [...]
We have paved the way for the next financial crisis December 6, 2018 Optimists believe that the last decade of roiling financial crisis and austerity is behind us, and that current fears of trade war, Brexit, populism, and market crashes are overblown. They hope for a global economy poised for many years of growth, increasing personal wealth and prosperity, and political stability. Sadly, hope is never a strategy. Realists, [...]
Tariff man Trump is the most economically illiterate President in US history December 6, 2018 America and China may have called a truce in the trade war, but nobody seems to have told the President. On Tuesday, Donald Trump tweeted: “I am a tariff man. When countries come in to raid the great wealth of our nation, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so.” I don’t have [...]
Housebuilders lead the FTSE risers as no-deal Brexit risk fades December 5, 2018 Britain's largest housebuilders saw the value of their shares jump this afternoon as the prospect of a no-deal Brexit began to recede. Property heavyweights such as Berkeley Group, Persimmon and Redrow were among the top 10 FTSE risers today as a frantic 24 hours of political tussling in Westminster fuelled the possibility of a “softer” Brexit [...]
Rigged and ready: After recent gains, are oil prices set to recover? December 4, 2018 The oil market has had a tough time this year, with prices sliding since October. And yet, there’s been a radical turn of events over recent days, with the picture looking drastically different as the markets opened for trading this week. In fact, one of yesterday’s biggest market movements was oil, with brent crude surging [...]
The G20 was a temporary truce, not the end of Trump’s trade war December 4, 2018 It would be easy to see last weekend’s G20 meeting as heralding a thaw in the US-China trade war. But sadly, it hasn’t. There are some positives. It looks increasingly likely that the US will not put in place a fresh 10-25 per cent tariff hike in January on $250bn of Chinese exports, as most had [...]
