Tag: Mar 2 2021

AIRBnB REPORTS 2020 LOSSES. The room-booking company reported losing $3.89 billion in 2020’s fourth quarter, more than ten times the $352 million it lost in the same period in 2019. Revenue for the quarter was $859 million, down 22 percent compared to the previous year but enough beat analysts’ expectations of $747.6 million. The value of...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...