Pictet Group, Switzerland’s oldest and most prestigious private bank for the wealthy, agreed to pay $122.9 million to the U.S. Justice Department after admitting it helped American account holders conceal their foreign assets so they could evade their tax obligations.
For the third successive meeting of its governing council, the Bank of Canada (BoC) left its key interest rate at 5 percent, saying that neither the economy nor the labor market are running at too fast a pace.
Luxury brands such as Coach, LVMH, and Richemont piled up profits during the COVID War as consumers locked down at home took comfort in treating themselves. Sales in the sector grew by 15 percent in 2022, Bain & Co. reported.
Speculation that the Bank of Japan is about to scrap its policy of negative interest rates, which has held the central bank’s key rate at -.10 percent since 2016, roiled the country’s markets last week.
António Guterres, UN secretary-general, and Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) called for an end to global subsidies of fossil fuels, which surpassed $7 trillion in 2022, according to an IMF analysis.
Players in European swaps markets are increasing their bets that the European Central Bank (ECB) will cut its 4-percent interest rate in March and follow it with as many as five additional cuts in 2024, according to the Financial Times.
After reports that the German and French economies—Europe’s two largest—contracted in this year’s third quarter, analysts were not surprised to learn that the Eurozone’s overall GDP shrank by 0.1 percent during the same period, as many analysts had predicted.
In recent times, the economic landscape has presented an array of challenges that have profoundly affected the business community. Some of the most significant challenges include soaring inflation rates, escalating interest rates, looming fears of a recession, and a tangible decrease in revenues for many sectors…
While Washington and The Street keep selling the strong job numbers, as we have detailed and continue to do so, the jobs being created are mostly in low-paying human services and hospitality sectors. Indeed, across the global economic spectrum, from manufacturing, retail, financial etc., they keep shedding jobs.
Consolidation is the name of the “Bigs” game. The more they own the more they control... it’s the way of the power hungry world.