Cannes Lions: How culture is catching up with adland’s notorious knees-up June 19, 2019 As the plane touches down on the hot tarmac at Nice airport, the butterflies start to set in. My neighbour, a senior media executive, has given me a disconcerting pep talk. “Trust me, it’s worse than Glastonbury,” he says with a smile. As we disembark, it’s clear everyone is headed for the same glimmering town [...]
Oil prices rise as Trump says he is set to meet with the Chinese President Xi June 18, 2019 Oil prices rose by nearly two per cent this afternoon as markets were buoyed by hopes of an ease in US-China tensions. Markets turned upwards after US President Donald Trump said he was expecting to hold an “extended” meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jingping later this month at a meeting of the Group of [...]
EU must drop its City hostility in UK trade talks, warns Brexit secretary June 18, 2019 The European Union must drop its hardline approach to relations between the City and the continent after Brexit, a cabinet minister has warned. The EU insists London’s finance sector must be closely-tied to the bloc’s own regulations in order to grant market access post-Brexit, despite calls for a more wide-ranging and preferential deal in light [...]
Global stock markets jump as Trump announces meeting with China’s Xi Jinping June 18, 2019 Stock markets around the world have been boosted by US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he will meet President Xi Jinping of China for trade talks at next week’s G20 meeting in Japan. Read more: IMF head: US-China trade war biggest threat to global growth Trump had previously said that China would be slapped with [...]
Why the Square Mile must break its silence on China June 17, 2019 If timing is everything, London’s stock exchange tie-up with China has been a disaster from the start. It is now four years since the plan was first revealed under the Sino-philic leadership of David Cameron and his chancellor George Osborne. Read more: London-Shanghai Stock Connect finally launches Yet the summer of 2015 also brought a [...]
Shanghai-London stock market connection finally launched June 17, 2019 The long-awaited London-Shanghai Stock Connect that links the two markets has been launched today, letting UK and Chinese companies sell shares on each others’ stock markets in a pioneering scheme. Read more: HSBC confirms it is exploring Chinese listing via new London-Shanghai link It marks the first time any foreign company will be able to [...]
China industrial output growth eases to 17-year low as US trade tensions mount June 14, 2019 China’s industrial output growth plunged to a more than 17-year low in May as the world’s second biggest economy continued to be hit by trade tensions with the US. Industrial production grew by five per cent in May compared to a year earlier, below forecasts and the weakest growth since the beginning of 2002. Read [...]
Why the world economy is like a wobbly bike June 14, 2019 Three months ago we said “the easing in US-China trade tensions, more flexible central banks and the benefits of lower oil prices should stabilise activity later this year and support an upgrade in our global growth forecast for 2020”. However, two of those supports have now fallen away and we are more reliant on looser [...]
Slamming on the brakes: Chinese car sales suffer steepest ever annual decline June 12, 2019 The Chinese car market suffered its largest ever monthly sales drop in May, bolstering concerns around the country’s economic slowdown. Sales fell 16.4 per cent last month compared to the same period last year, said the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). The drop is the 11th straight month of decline, after falls of 14.6 [...]
Trump’s bluster shows why we need a rethink on world trade June 12, 2019 Helicoptered in to London and driven around in The Beast – an armoured limousine – what will the US President have seen during his state visit to the UK? A man who famously eyes up every opportunity, Donald Trump saw a weakened UK, lost in the Brexit escape rooms and vulnerable to the dark arts [...]