HSBC ACCELERATES ITS TURN TOWARD ASIA. HSBC, the world’s seventh-largest bank by assets, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, is speeding its reorientation toward Asia, transferring top executives from London to Hong Kong, shutting down its retail U.S. operations, and planning to expand further in Singapore. The bank is relocating its chiefs of global markets,...
Category: TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT
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PHARMA SERVICE FIRMS UNITE IN $12-BILLION BUY
Dublin-based Icon PLC, which conducts clinical trials for drug companies and reported $2.8 billion in 2020 sales, will buy competitor PRA Health Sciences for $12 billion. PRA is headquartered in Raleigh, NC. PRA is an expert in using digital technologies to gather and report test results, allowing people to remain at home and send data...
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EMERGING MARKET INVESTMENTS LOSE THEIR LUSTER AS RATES RISE
Stock markets in developing countries have risen about 90 percent over the past 12 months and reached historic highs during the week of 19 February, according to MSCI’s index of markets across 27 nations. Now, however, investors’ relentless hunt for higher returns has pushed bond prices up. Those higher yields have helped to knock down...
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INDIA’S ECONOMY REBOUNDS IN FOURTH QUARTER
India’s economy grew 0.4 percent in 2020’s fourth quarter, year on year, according to the National Statistics Office, compared to a 24.4-percent crash in the second quarter and a further 7.3-percent slide in the third. Farming added 3.9 percent and manufacturing 1.6 percent, figures showed. Investment grew 2.6 percent during the period, its first increase...
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BRITISH POUND CLIMBS TO THREE-YEAR HIGH VALUE
As we noted earlier, despite the U.K. falling into its worst recession in three centuries, the British pound rose to an exchange rate of £1.41 to the dollar on 24 February, its highest value since April 2018. The pound’s value had slumped for more than a year under Brexit fears and the damage inflicted by...
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GLOBAL TRADE REACHES PRE-COVID WAR LEVELS
Global trade shrank 5.3 percent last year but had returned to 2019 levels by November, according to CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis. The global crisis spiked the need for personal protective and medical care equipment, pushing worldwide demand up 46 percent in 2020, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development reported. Working...
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GOING DOWN, GOING BUST, GOING OUT
AIRBUS LOSES €1.1 BILLION IN 2020. Europe’s premier aircraft builder blamed its loss on canceled or postponed orders for new jetliners as the pandemic scuttled travel. “Global air traffic reached a low point in April 2020 at the peak of the global pandemic,” CEO Guillaume Faury said in a statement announcing the loss, adding that...
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TURKEY’S CURRENCY GAINS ON THE DOLLAR
Turkey’s lira has risen 6.5 percent in value against the dollar this year, reversing its steady 2020 slide and marking it as the best-performing currency among emerging markets so far in 2021. The lira lost 20 percent of its value against the dollar last year, trading below 8 to the buck for the first time...
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SAUDIS TO BOOST OIL PRODUCTION AS PRICES STRENGTHEN
Saudi Arabia, which cut its oil production by a million barrels daily this month and next to boost oil prices, has let it be known that will reverse those cuts at the beginning of April. The decision follows oil’s price rise from $30 a barrel last summer to more than $60 now. The kingdom will...
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JAPAN’S ECONOMIC RECOVERY GAINS SPEED
Japan’s economy grew 3 percent in 2020’s fourth quarter compared to the third, surging past expectations of a 2.3-percent expansion, figures from the government’s Cabinet Office show. The GDP grew in both domestic demand and export markets. The quarter’s GDP was just 1 percent below that of a year earlier, signaling a strong rebound from...