market
FILE PHOTO: Xiaomi branding is seen on a carrier bag at a UK launch event in London, Britain, November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Toby Melville
April 26, 2019
BENGALURU (Reuters) – Chinese brands controlled a record 66 percent of Indian smartphone market in the first quarter, led by Xiaomi Corp, a report showed, with volumes rising 20 percent on the back of popularity for brands like Vivo, RealMe and Oppo.
Xiaomi’s India shipments fell by 2 percent over last year, but the Beijing-based company was still the biggest smartphone brand in the country, followed by Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, according to Hong-Kong based Counterpoint Research.
Shipment volumes for Vivo jumped 119 percent, while those of Oppo rose 28 percent.
“Vivo’s expanding portfolio in the mid-tier range ($100 to $180) drove its growth along with aggressive Indian Premier League cricket campaign,” Counterpoint analysts said.
India is the world’s fastest growing market for smartphones, where affordable pricing coupled with features like “selfie” cameras and big screens have popularized Chinese brands.
Video streaming services like Netflix Inc and Hotstar, as well as heavy usage of messaging apps like Facebook Inc’s WhatsApp have further spurred demand.
“Data consumption is on the rise and users are upgrading their phones faster as compared to other regions,” Counterpoint’s Tarun Pathak said.
“As a result of this, the premium specs are now diffusing faster into the mid-tier price brands. We estimate this trend to continue leading to a competitive mid-tier segment in coming quarters.”
(Reporting By Arnab Paul in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
Source: OANN
LinkSpace’s reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as NewLine Baby, is carried to a vacant plot of land for a test launch in Longkou, Shandong province, China, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee
April 26, 2019
By Ryan Woo
LONGKOU, China (Reuters) – During initial tests of their 8.1-metre (27-foot) tall reusable rocket, Chinese engineers from LinkSpace, a start-up led by China’s youngest space entrepreneur, used a Kevlar tether to ensure its safe return. Just in case.
But when the Beijing-based company’s prototype, called NewLine Baby, successfully took off and landed last week for the second time in two months, no tether was needed.
The 1.5-tonne rocket hovered 40 meters above the ground before descending back to its concrete launch pad after 30 seconds, to the relief of 26-year-old chief executive Hu Zhenyu and his engineers – one of whom cartwheeled his way to the launch pad in delight.
LinkSpace, one of China’s 15-plus private rocket manufacturers, sees these short hops as the first steps towards a new business model: sending tiny, inexpensive satellites into orbit at affordable prices.
Demand for these so-called nanosatellites – which weigh less than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and are in some cases as small as a shoebox – is expected to explode in the next few years. And China’s rocket entrepreneurs reckon there is no better place to develop inexpensive launch vehicles than their home country.
“For suborbital clients, their focus will be on scientific research and some commercial uses. After entering orbit, the near-term focus (of clients) will certainly be on satellites,” Hu said.
In the near term, China envisions massive constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking coal shipments. Universities conducting experiments and companies looking to offer remote-sensing and communication services are among the potential domestic customers for nanosatellites.
A handful of U.S. small-rocket companies are also developing launchers ahead of the expected boom. One of the biggest, Rocket Lab, has already put 25 satellites in orbit.
No private company in China has done that yet. Since October, two – LandSpace and OneSpace – have tried but failed, illustrating the difficulties facing space start-ups everywhere.
The Chinese companies are approaching inexpensive launches in different ways. Some, like OneSpace, are designing cheap, disposable boosters. LinkSpace’s Hu aspires to build reusable rockets that return to Earth after delivering their payload, much like the Falcon 9 rockets of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
“If you’re a small company and you can only build a very, very small rocket because that’s all you have money for, then your profit margins are going to be narrower,” said Macro Caceres, analyst at U.S. aerospace consultancy Teal Group.
“But if you can take that small rocket and make it reusable, and you can launch it once a week, four times a month, 50 times a year, then with more volume, your profit increases,” Caceres added.
Eventually LinkSpace hopes to charge no more than 30 million yuan ($4.48 million) per launch, Hu told Reuters.
That is a fraction of the $25 million to $30 million needed for a launch on a Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus, a commonly used small rocket. The Pegasus is launched from a high-flying aircraft and is not reusable.
(Click https://reut.rs/2UVBjKs to see a picture package of China’s rocket start-ups. Click https://tmsnrt.rs/2GIy9Bc for an interactive look at the nascent industry.)
NEED FOR CASH
LinkSpace plans to conduct suborbital launch tests using a bigger recoverable rocket in the first half of 2020, reaching altitudes of at least 100 kilometers, then an orbital launch in 2021, Hu told Reuters.
The company is in its third round of fundraising and wants to raise up to 100 million yuan, Hu said. It had secured tens of millions of yuan in previous rounds.
After a surge in fresh funding in 2018, firms like LinkSpace are pushing out prototypes, planning more tests and even proposing operational launches this year.
Last year, equity investment in China’s space start-ups reached 3.57 billion yuan ($533 million), a report by Beijing-based investor FutureAerospace shows, with a burst of financing in late 2018.
That accounted for about 18 percent of global space start-up investments in 2018, a historic high, according to Reuters calculations based on a global estimate by Space Angels. The New York-based venture capital firm said global space start-up investments totaled $2.97 billion last year.
“Costs for rocket companies are relatively high, but as to how much funding they need, be it in the hundreds of millions, or tens of millions, or even just a few million yuan, depends on the company’s stage of development,” said Niu Min, founder of FutureAerospace.
FutureAerospace has invested tens of millions of yuan in LandSpace, based in Beijing.
Like space-launch startups elsewhere in the world, the immediate challenge for Chinese entrepreneurs is developing a safe and reliable rocket.
Proven talent to develop such hardware can be found in China’s state research institutes or the military; the government directly supports private firms by allowing them to launch from military-controlled facilities.
But it’s still a high-risk business, and one unsuccessful launch might kill a company.
“The biggest problem facing all commercial space companies, especially early-stage entrepreneurs, is failure” of an attempted flight, Liang Jianjun, chief executive of rocket company Space Trek, told Reuters. That can affect financing, research, manufacturing and the team’s morale, he added.
Space Trek is planning its first suborbital launch by the end of June and an orbital launch next year, said Liang, who founded the company in late 2017 with three other former military technical officers.
Despite LandSpace’s failed Zhuque-1 orbital launch in October, the Beijing-based firm secured 300 million yuan in additional funding for the development of its Zhuque-2 rocket a month later.
In December, the company started operating China’s first private rocket production facility in Zhejiang province, in anticipation of large-scale manufacturing of its Zhuque-2, which it expects to unveil next year.
STATE COMPETITION
China’s state defense contractors are also trying to get into the low-cost market.
In December, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) successfully launched a low-orbit communication satellite, the first of 156 that CASIC aims to deploy by 2022 to provide more stable broadband connectivity to rural China and eventually developing countries.
The satellite, Hongyun-1, was launched on a rocket supplied by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the nation’s main space contractor.
In early April, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), a subsidiary of CASC, completed engine tests for its Dragon, China’s first rocket meant solely for commercial use, clearing the path for a maiden flight before July.
The Dragon, much bigger than the rockets being developed by private firms, is designed to carry multiple commercial satellites.
At least 35 private Chinese companies are working to produce more satellites.
Spacety, a satellite maker based in southern Hunan province, plans to put 20 satellites in orbit this year, including its first for a foreign client, chief executive Yang Feng told Reuters.
The company has only launched 12 on state-produced rockets since the company started operating in early 2016.
“When it comes to rocket launches, what we care about would be cost, reliability and time,” Yang said.
(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Gerry Doyle)
Source: OANN
Werner Baumann, CEO of German pharmaceutical and chemical maker Bayer AG, attends the annual general shareholders meeting in Bonn, Germany, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay
April 26, 2019
By Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger
BONN (Reuters) – Bayer shareholders vented their anger over its stock price slump on Friday as litigation risks mount from the German drugmaker’s $63 billion takeover of seed maker Monsanto.
Several large investors said they will not support aspirin investor Bayer’s management in a key vote scheduled for the end of its annual general meeting.
Bayer’s management, led by chief executive Werner Baumann, could see an embarrassing plunge in approval ratings, down from 97 percent at last year’s AGM, which was held shortly before the Monsanto takeover closed in June.
A vote to ratify the board’s actions features prominently at every German AGM. Although it has no bearing on management’s liability, it is seen as a key gauge of shareholder sentiment.
“Due to the continued negative development at Bayer, high legal risks and a massive share price slump, we refuse to ratify the management board and supervisory board’s actions during the business year,” Janne Werning, representing Germany’s Union Investment, a top-20 shareholder, said in prepared remarks.
About 30 billion euros ($34 billion) have been wiped off Bayer’s market value since August, when a U.S. jury found the pesticide and drugs group liable because Monsanto had not warned of alleged cancer risks linked to its weedkiller Roundup.
Bayer suffered a similar defeat last month and more than 13,000 plaintiffs are claiming damages.
Bayer is appealing or plans to appeal the verdicts.
Deutsche Bank’s asset managing arm DWS said shareholders should have been consulted before the takeover, which was agreed in 2016 and closed in June last year.
“You are pointing out that the lawsuits have not been lost yet. We and our customers, however, have already lost something – money and trust,” Nicolas Huber, head of corporate governance at DWS, said in prepared remarks for the AGM.
He said DWS would abstain from the shareholder vote of confidence in the executive and non-executive boards.
Two people familiar with the situation told Reuters this week that Bayer’s largest shareholder, BlackRock, plans to either abstain from or vote against ratifying the management board’s actions.
Asset management firm Deka, among Bayer’s largest German investors, has also said it would cast a no vote.
Baumann said Bayer’s true value was not reflected in the current share price.
“There’s no way to make this look good. The lawsuits and the first verdicts weigh heavily on our company and it’s a concern for many people,” he said, adding it was the right decision to buy Monsanto and that Bayer was vigorously defending itself.
This month, shareholder advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis recommended investors not to give the executive board their seal of approval.
(Reporting by Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger; Editing by Alexander Smith)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: An usher holds a baton to guide attendees towards the AGM of advertising agency WPP in London, Britain, June 13, 2018. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo
April 26, 2019
LONDON (Reuters) – The world’s biggest advertising company WPP reported an 8.5 percent slump in first-quarter underlying sales in North America, its biggest market, due to client losses that held the overall group back.
WPP, being led by company veteran Mark Read following last year’s departure of founder Martin Sorrell, said group organic revenue less pass-through costs was down 2.8 percent, compared with a full-year forecast of a fall of between 1.5 to 2 percent.
The British company reaffirmed its full-year outlook, including the forecast that the first half of the year would be more difficult.
(Reporting by Kate Holton, Editing by Paul Sandle)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Dow Jones Industrial Average stock market index listed company Goldman Sachs (GS) is seen on the clothing of a trader working at the Goldman Sachs stall on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, United States April 16, 2012. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
April 26, 2019
LONDON (Reuters) – The protracted process of Britain’s exit from the European Union has caused side-effects on the domestic economy to intensify, Goldman Sachs said on Friday, pointing to dwindling company investment.
Capital expenditure by businesses has been particularly subdued, the bank said, and strong employment figures mask a misallocation of UK company resources to labor rather than capital which will ultimately hurt productivity.
Since the referendum, firms have hired workers rather than invest in capital, Goldman Sachs economists said.
“The misallocation of resources looks to have deepened.”
An increasingly tight labor market – with unemployment at its lowest since early 1975 and pay growing at its joint fastest pace in over a decade – could thus be a sign of strain rather than resilience.
“The balance between weaker demand for workers and a shorter supply of workers bears the hallmarks of a Brexit-induced labor market shock,” the economists said.
Low investment combined with a tight labor market are likely to “accentuate the chronic underperformance of UK productivity,” they added.
Goldman Sachs maintained its view that Britain is likely to leave the EU with a modified version of the current withdrawal agreement, but said that until Brexit is resolved it is hard to see a strong rebound in growth.
Next year could see a pick-up in activity as uncertainty fades, the bank added, but “the persistence of the structural headwinds facing the UK economy is likely to take longer to address.”
(Reporting by Helen Reid; Editing by Thyagaraju Adinarayan)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO:A man enters the Lloyd’s of London building in the City of London financial district in London, Britain, April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah McKay
April 26, 2019
By Carolyn Cohn and Jonathan Saul
LONDON (Reuters) – Lloyd’s of London, the world’s oldest insurer of seafaring vessels, is facing its own perfect storm. Old-fashioned business practices, exposure to natural disasters, competition from rival centers and Brexit are all threatening Lloyd’s reputation as the place to insure anything from ships to sculptures to soccer stars’ legs. Stung by combined losses of 3 billion pounds ($3.9 billion) over the last two years, John Neal, the new chief executive of an insurance market founded in a London coffee house in 1688, is under growing pressure to drag Lloyd’s into the 21st century. Following a six-month review, Neal will unveil a new strategy next week expected to include a push to automate arcane processes, a shift away from risky catastrophe insurance, a hard look at the middlemen who drive up the cost of doing business at Lloyd’s and ways to attract new sources of capital.
It is also looking to improve inclusion at a time when the culture at Lloyd’s is in the spotlight following a report by Bloomberg News about sexual harassment and day-time drinking.
But in a market where shipwrecks are still recorded by some insurers with a quill and paperwork is lugged around Lloyd’s futuristic 14-storey building in slipcases, some brokers and underwriters are resisting innovation. “Lloyd’s has to change, it’s like an old man dancing – a bit awkward and embarrassing,” said one insurance company chief executive, who declined to be named. “We do not have a great track record in modernization.” All of Lloyd’s brokers are meant to shift to an electronic platform by June, but many are complaining about the cost and increased transparency – which risks hurting their fees. Underwriters are meant to move 50 percent of their business to the platform by the middle of the year but several are behind, and much of their business has been deemed outside the scope of the automation drive. “Recent performance has not been acceptable and the work we began last year has placed the market on a much firmer footing,” Neal, who joined as CEO in October, told Reuters.
“The focus now turns to the changes we must make to ensure Lloyd’s succeeds in the future – by supercharging innovation, simplifying the process for capital to access Lloyd’s, automating claims processes, lowering costs by making an electronic exchange, and creating a culture of inclusivity.”
‘DEFINITELY A THREAT’ Lloyd’s is not an insurance company in itself but a group of 99 syndicates, or members, who price and underwrite policies and spread the risk among themselves. More than 150 brokers act as middlemen with clients, along with another group of intermediaries known as managing general agents.
Once mostly wealthy individuals, members now include small underwriters and listed firms such as Beazley and Hiscox, as well as global insurers specializing in business lines such as shipping, aviation and property. The problem for Lloyd’s is that while it still has global cachet and a strong A credit rating, investors from hedge funds to private equity firms looking for higher yields are piling into rival centers such as Bermuda, New York and Singapore. While Lloyd’s reputation for specialization and innovation has pushed it to the forefront of new areas such as insurance against hacking, cheaper centers are muscling in on its turf. Bermuda, for example, has developed a specialism in catastrophe bonds and other insurance-linked securities.
“It definitely is a threat and it will happen in a number of areas,” said industry veteran Andrew Bathurst, director of PWS Gulf, an insurance broker in London and Dubai. “Lloyd’s is aware that overseas underwriters are looking at those classes of business and weighing up whether to underwrite them.”
“If we should see some more losses, particularly on the older accounts, then Lloyd’s will come under pressure and then there will be more incentive to look outside,” said Bathurst, who has been a Lloyd’s underwriter and CEO of a Lloyd’s broker. SLOW TECH Automating claims processes to cut costs in a market where most business is still done face-to-face is one of the areas highlighted in a Lloyd’s leaflet hinting at its new strategy. Lloyd’s has an expense ratio – costs divided by net premiums – of 40 percent, according to ratings agency AM Best. Sources say this is some 10 points higher than commercial insurers like Germany’s Allianz or AIG in the United States. “The market needs to modernize. It does not make sense to have business placed by paper when we have the technology,” said Ian Fantozzi, chief operating officer at Beazley, which manages seven Lloyd’s syndicates.
Hiscox has also embraced technological change but Lloyd’s has struggled to persuade some underwriters and brokers to adopt an electronic processing platform launched in July 2016. While some say the system is easy to use, others complain it is unwieldy and creates, rather than reduces, workload. Former Lloyd’s CEO Inga Beale made it compulsory last year for syndicates to shift their business to the platform because underwriters had moved only 10 percent voluntarily.
Underwriters who miss the targets face charges while brokers could be deregistered – a rare event in the market. For smaller brokers and underwriters, however, the upfront costs of adapting to the system are high. Persuading them to change is like “herding cats”, according to one market source. One senior broker said the system was not ideal because different syndicates work and use it in different ways. The system is suited to simple, commoditized policies, rather than the complex business with lots of conditions and clauses for which Lloyd’s is known, the insurance CEO said.
Smaller brokers are also wary of the increased transparency provided by the system, which would expose their charging structures and could put pressure on their fees, said one City of London source familiar with Lloyd’s. Charles Manchester, chairman of the Managing General Agents’ Association, also said there was no great demand from brokers. POWER SHIFT? Despite the inertia, Lloyd’s will be reluctant to push too hard by imposing sanctions for non-compliance at such a sensitive time for the industry, which is grappling with lower premiums globally, City of London sources said. “There is a growing worry that this could compel many brokers to leave,” said a second City source familiar with Lloyd’s. “In the past, British banks would insist on using Lloyd’s of London to write insurance. That balance of power is shifting and other centers could emerge, such as New York.” The risk to Lloyd’s and other insurance companies in London was highlighted in a 2017 report by Boston Consulting Group and industry association London Market Group. It said the market faced competition from emerging markets and Bermuda, Singapore and Switzerland, helped by lower costs of capital and expense.
London’s share of global reinsurance premiums fell to 12.3 percent in 2015, from 13.4 percent in 2013, and 15 percent in 2010. Premiums from emerging markets fell to $9.3 billion in 2015 from $10.5 billion in 2013, the report said. London is still the largest center for commercial insurance and reinsurance, but Singapore, Bermuda and Switzerland grew by 4 percent, 1 percent and 0.6 percent respectively each year from 2013 to 2015, while London shrank 0.3 percent, the report said.
Lloyd’s is also facing a threat from European competition due to Britain’s impending departure from the European Union. Lloyd’s has opened a subsidiary in Brussels to cope with Brexit but it operates under a complex structure which some market sources worry will not prove popular. “Lloyd’s of London is beginning to fracture. With the fallout from Brexit, more companies have started to look around the world and ask whether they need to be in London,” the second City of London source said. “Underwriters in France and Germany are now starting to look at writing their business locally,” the source said.
(Additional reporting by Simon Jessop; editing by David Clarke)
Source: OANN
Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks at the opening ceremony for the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, China April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Florence Lo
April 26, 2019
By Brenda Goh and Yilei Sun
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Belt and Road initiative must be green and sustainable, President Xi Jinping said at the opening of a summit on his grand plan on Friday, adding that the massive infrastructure and trade plan should result in “high quality” growth for everyone.
Xi’s plan to rebuild the old Silk Road to connect China with Asia, Europe and beyond with huge spending on infrastructure, has become mired in controversy as some partner nations have bemoaned the high cost of projects.
China has repeatedly said it is not seeking to trap anyone with debt and only has good intentions, and has been looking to use this week’s summit in Beijing to recalibrate the policy and address those concerns.
Xi said in a keynote speech to the summit that environmental protection must underpin the scheme “to protect the common home we live in”.
“We must adhere to the concept of openness, greenness, and cleanliness,” he said.
“Operate in the sun and fight corruption together with zero tolerance,” Xi added.
“Building high-quality, sustainable, risk-resistant, reasonably priced, and inclusive infrastructure will help countries to fully utilize their resource endowments.”
Western governments have tended to view it as a means to spread Chinese influence abroad, saddling poor countries with unsustainable debt.
While most of the Belt and Road projects are continuing as planned, some have been caught up by changes in government in countries such as Malaysia and the Maldives.
Those that have been shelved for financial reasons include a power plant in Pakistan and an airport in Sierra Leone, and Beijing has in recent months had to rebuff critics by saying that not one country has been burdened with so-called “debt traps”.
Since 2017, the finance ministries of 28 countries have called on governments, financial institutions and companies from Belt and Road countries to work together to build a long-term, stable and sustainable financing system to manage risks, China’s finance ministry said in a report released on Thursday.
Debt sustainability has to be taken into account when mobilizing funds, the finance ministry said in the report, which outlined a framework for use in analyzing debt sustainability of low-income Belt and Road nations and managing debt risks.
The framework is based on the IMF/World Bank Debt Sustainability Framework for Low Income Countries while penciling in local conditions and development of partner nations, according to the report.
CHINESE PROMISES
The Belt and Road initiative will also open up development opportunities for China just as China itself is further opening up its markets to the world, Xi said.
“In accordance with the need for further opening up, (we’ll) improve laws and regulations, regulate government behavior at all levels in administrative licensing, market supervision and other areas, and clean up and abolish unreasonable regulations, subsidies and practices that impede fair competition and distort the market,” he said.
Xi promised to significantly shorten the negative list for foreign investments, and allow foreign companies to take a majority stake or set up wholly-owned companies in more sectors.
Tariffs will be lower and non-tariff barriers will be eliminated, Xi added.
China also aims to import more services and goods, and is willing to import competitive agricultural products and services to achieve trade balance.
“China will strengthen macroeconomic policy coordination with major economies in the world and strive to create positive spillover effects to promote a strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth for the world economy,” said Xi.
VISITING LEADERS
Visiting leaders include Russia’s Vladimir Putin, as well as Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan, a close China ally and among the biggest recipients of Belt and Road investment, and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy, which recently became the first G7 country to sign on to the initiative.
The United States, which has not joined the Belt and Road, is expected to send only lower-level officials, and nobody from Washington, citing concerns over opaque financing practices, poor governance, and disregard for internationally accepted norms.
“The United States is not sending high level officials from Washington to the Belt and Road Forum,” a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said.
“We continue to have serious concerns that China’s infrastructure diplomacy activities ignore or weaken international standards and best practices related to development, labor protections, and environmental protection.”
(Reporting by Brenda Goh and Yilei Sun; Additional reporting by Tony Munroe, Stella Qiu, Ryan Woo, Cate Cadell and Tom Daly; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
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FILE PHOTO: U.S. 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and former Governor of Colorado John Hickenlooper (D-CO), speaks at the 2019 National Action Network National Convention in New York, U.S., April 5, 2019. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo
April 26, 2019
By Sharon Bernstein
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – Democratic presidential hopeful John Hickenlooper, a former governor of Colorado, will release an anti-monopoly plan in California on Friday that could challenge the dominance of such companies as Amazon and Google, his campaign told Reuters.
In his first detailed economic policy proposal since announcing his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination last month, Hickenlooper’s plan, shared exclusively with Reuters on Thursday, could help him distinguish himself in a crowded field of 20 candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 2020.
Hickenlooper, who made his fortune as a small-business owner, plans to take on the tech giants and other large companies in San Francisco on Friday, in the heart of the state’s thriving technology center.
“He’s talking about it from the perspective of an entrepreneur,” spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said in an interview. Mega-corporations like Amazon or Google that dominate the market can make it difficult for new ideas to percolate.”
In a white paper to be released Friday morning in advance of a speech at the Commonwealth Club, Hickenlooper, 67, bemoans a slowing of the creation of new startup businesses in the United States, blaming lax enforcement of anti-trust laws from tech to retail for leading to dominance by a few companies in such varied sectors as hardware stores, cell phone providers and e-commerce.
Hickenlooper is not the first Democratic candidate to make the dominance of the big tech companies a campaign issue. Senator Elizabeth Warren last month vowed to break up Amazon, Google and Facebook if she is elected president, saying at a campaign event in New York City, “The competition needs the opportunity to thrive and grow.”
LIMIT WORKER NON-COMPETE AGREEMENTS
Hickenlooper’s proposal calls for beefing up U.S. regulation of large companies, including expanding the Clayton Anti-Trust act to encourage competition and appointing judges who are “committed to the original aims of the anti-trust laws.”
Although the white paper stops short of calling for breaking up such companies as Amazon.com or Facebook, Hickenlooper’s campaign said that beefed-up enforcement and a new focus on encouraging competition could lead to such results.
As president, the white paper said, Hickenlooper would also push for legislation to limit employers’ ability to demand non-compete agreements from workers, and ban makers of automobiles, farm equipment, computers and other products from forcing consumers to use the companies’ own authorized repair systems when equipment breaks down.
Hickenlooper would also direct the Federal Trade Commission to resume a long-abandoned practice of tracking companies’ industry dominance, including examining past mergers to see if they should be undone.
Warren, in her announcement last month vowing to combat the dominance of big tech companies, said she would nominate regulators to unwind acquisitions, such as Facebook’s purchases of WhatsApp and Instagram and Amazon’s deals for Whole Foods and Zappos.
Hickenlooper is one of two governors to join the race to unseat U.S. President Donald Trump, who is expected to seek reelection. Washington Governor Jay Inslee has made climate change the centerpiece of his campaign.
A centrist, Hickenlooper reinvented himself after a devastating job loss by founding a brew pub in what was then a neglected area of Denver. He later became the city’s mayor and served two terms as governor of Colorado, leaving office in January of this year.
In a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Wednesday, Hickenlooper was among several Democratic hopefuls who fell near the bottom of the pack in terms of name recognition. Former Vice President Joe Biden, who had not yet declared his run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination when the poll was conducted, led all other candidates in the race and drew his strongest levels of support from minorities and older adults.
Biden declared his candidacy on Thursday.
(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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FILE PHOTO: The sun sets behind an oil pump outside Saint-Fiacre, near Paris, France March 28, 2019. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann
April 26, 2019
By Henning Gloystein
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Oil prices dipped on Friday on expectations that producer club OPEC will soon raise output to make up for a decline in exports from Iran following a tightening of sanctions by the United States against Tehran.
Brent crude futures were at $74.09 per barrel at 0029 GMT, down 26 cents, or 0.4 percent, from their last close.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $64.82 per barrel, down 39 cents, or 0.6 percent, from their previous settlement.
The dip followed Brent’s rise above $75 per barrel for the first time this year on Thursday after Germany, Poland and Slovakia suspended imports of Russian oil via a major pipeline, citing poor quality. The move cut parts of Europe off from a major supply route.
But prices were already gaining before the Russian disruption, driven up by supply cuts led by the Middle East dominated Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and U.S. sanctions against Venezuela and Iran. Crude futures are up around 40 percent so far this year.
Washington said on Monday it would end all exemptions for sanctions against Iran, demanding countries halt oil imports from Tehran from May or face punitive action from Washington.
To make up for the shortfall from Iran, the United States is pressuring OPEC’s de-facto leader Saudi Arabia to end its voluntary supply restraint.
“The U.S. will continue to pressure Saudi Arabia to lift its production to cover the supply gap,” said Alfonso Esparza, senior market analyst at futures brokerage OANDA.
Energy consultancy FGE said “the need is now very apparent for OPEC+ to take action and increase production” in order to keep markets well supplied and prevent prices from spiking.
Despite U.S. efforts to drive Iranian oil exports down to zero, many analysts expect some oil to still seep out of the country.
“A total of 400,000 to 500,000 barrels per day of crude and condensate will continue to be exported,” said FGE, down from around 1 million bpd currently.
Most of this oil would be smuggled out of Iran or go to China despite the sanctions.
China, the world’s biggest buyer of Iranian oil, this week formally complained to the United States over its unilateral Iran sanctions.
(Reporting by Henning Gloystein; editing by Richard Pullin)
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FILE PHOTO: An investor looks at an electronic board showing stock information at a brokerage house in Shanghai, China July 6, 2018. REUTERS/Aly Song
April 26, 2019
By Wayne Cole
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Asian shares got off to a subdued start on Friday, while the dollar held near two-year highs against the euro on speculation that data later in the day will show the U.S. economy outperforming the rest of the developed world.
The euro was off 1 percent for the week at $1.1133 as euro zone economic figures continued to disappoint.
Against a basket of currencies, the dollar was 0.8 percent firmer for the week so far at 98.128 having touched its highest since May 2017.
The yen proved an outlier by gaining as speculators cut short positions ahead of holidays which will see most Japanese markets shut for six whole trading days.
The exceptionally long break has investors concerned there could be another “flash crash” like the one in early January that drove the yen massively higher in a matter of minutes.
The dollar was down at 111.51 yen, after shedding 0.5 percent overnight, but was buoyed elsewhere by solid data on U.S. capital goods orders.
The rise in the yen and some mixed Japanese economic data nudged the Nikkei down 0.7 percent. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan eased 0.1 percent.
The mood might lighten later on Thursday should data on U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) prove as upbeat as some now expect.
A string of solid numbers has led analysts to revise up their forecasts for growth and the latest median polled by Reuters is for an annualized 2.0 percent.
The closely-watched estimate of GDP from the Atlanta Federal Reserve is projecting an outcome of 2.7 percent, a huge turnaround from a few weeks ago when it was down at 0.5 percent.
Yet the rebound has not been mirrored in inflation which remains subdued across much of the developed world, prompting a host of central banks to turn dovish.
Just this week central banks in Sweden and Canada have backed off plans to tighten, while the Bank of Japan tried to dispel doubts about its accommodative stance by pledging to keep rates at super-low levels for at least one more year.
European Central Bank Vice-President Luis de Guindos on Thursday opened the door to more money-printing if needed to boost inflation in the euro zone.
Rate cuts look much likelier in Australia and New Zealand after recent disappointingly weak inflation reports.
The Federal Reserve holds a policy meeting next week and is expected to reaffirm its patient stance. A Reuters poll of analysts out Thursday found most believed the Fed was done with tightening altogether.
MIXED EARNINGS
Wall Street had ended Thursday mixed after a raft of earnings reports. The Dow fell 0.51 percent, while the S&P 500 lost 0.04 percent and the Nasdaq added 0.21 percent.
Amazon.com Inc shares firmed after the market closed as the company reported a first-quarter profit that topped estimates.
Shares of Facebook Inc and Microsoft Corp both jumped after they reported better-than-expected results. Intel Corp fell sharply after the chip maker forecast current-quarter revenue below estimates.
In commodity markets, spot gold was idling at $1,278.26 per ounce.
Brent crude ran into profit-taking after hitting $75 per barrel on Thursday for the first time in nearly six months following the suspension of some Russian crude exports to Europe.
Brent crude futures lost 20 cents to $74.15 a barrel, while U.S. crude was last down 24 cents at $64.97 a barrel.
(Editing by Kim Coghill)
Source: OANN
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