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  • Pimco, AllianceBernstein have boosted holdings since hurricane
  •  Once big buyers, mutual funds sold when fiscal crisis worsened

Traditional bond buyers are going back to Puerto Rico.

After shunning the U.S. territory for much of the past six years, municipal-bond mutual funds are again buying the government’s debt as it recovers from the 2017 hurricane and inches closer to winning a potential court approval to restructure more than $17 billion of sales-tax-backed debt, a major step in its record-setting bankruptcy…

Puerto Rico Rebound Lures Mutual Funds Back to Island’s Bonds

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Categories : Bankruptcy
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  • Senator’s plan would cut estate tax exemption to $3.5 million
  •  Independent is considering a second presidential run in 2020

Senator Bernie Sanders

Senator Bernie Sanders. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders is proposing to expand the estate tax on wealthy Americans, including a rate of as much as 77 percent on the value of estates above $1 billion.

Sanders of Vermont, who’s considering a second run for president, said in a statement that his plan would apply to the wealthiest 0.2 percent of Americans. It would set a 45 percent tax on the value of estates between $3.5 million and $10 million, increasing gradually to 77 percent for amounts more than $1 billion. The current estate tax kicks in when an estate is worth about $11 million…

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Categories : Finance
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  • Borrowing committee’s list includes perpetuals, zero-coupons
  •  America’s financing needs to exceed $12 trillion over decade

The U.S. Treasury is beginning to think outside the box about ways to fund escalating borrowing needs that are on course to exceed $12 trillion over the next decade just as foreign demand for America’s debt is stagnating

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin tapped his committee of external advisers on borrowing this month to assemble a list of potential new debt securities the government might use to expand its investor base. The brainstorming comes as the federal budget deficit is forecast to exceed $1 trillion in fiscal 2022 and as the nation’s debt burden has surged to $15.6 trillion, up more than $1 trillion from the end of 2017…

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Categories : Wall Street
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  • Dovish turnaround puzzles investors, spurs rate-cut bets
  •  Notion of data-dependent policy is gone, says DB’s Saravelos

Jerome Powell on Jan. 30.Jerome Powell on Jan. 30. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has long promised to be flexible when setting monetary policy. After Wednesday’s performance, many on Wall Street are questioning whether that flexibility means bending over backward to placate jittery financial markets.

At firms from London to Los Angeles, investors and analysts are not mincing words about the significance of the Fed’s decision to stop signaling that more interest-rate increases may be coming. The surprise triggered a rally in stocks, gains in Treasuries and weakness in the dollar — not dissimilar to what investors were used to when the Fed was deploying its financial crisis-fighting stimulus…

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  • GPIF to report quarterly investment results in Tokyo Friday
  •  U.S.-China trade friction dims performance outlook: SMBC Nikko

The world’s largest pension fund may have incurred a record loss after a global equity rout last quarter pummeled an asset class that made up about half of its investments.

Total assets at Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund may have dropped to 155.6 trillion yen ($1.43 trillion) as of the end of December, according to calculations by Yohei Iwao, executive director of the institutional equities division at Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities Co. in Tokyo. That would be a record decline of about 14 trillion yen from the end of September. Results are due at 3:30 p.m. in Tokyo on Friday…

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Categories : Pension Funds
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Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman.CreditCreditJim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via Shutterstock

In a sharp reversal of the stance it took just week ago, the Fed’s chairman, Jerome Powell, said yesterday it had “the luxury of patience” in deciding whether to raise rates again, writes the NYT’s Binyamin Appelbaum.

The news: The Fed left its benchmark interest rate unchanged, a decision that was widely expected. What surprised markets was the indication that rates, which are in a range of 2.25 percent to 2.5 percent, would stay put for some time…

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Sydney property values continued to fall in January, driving nationwide house prices back to levels last seen in October 2016, amid tighter lending conditions and high levels of housing supply.

  • Nationwide home values dropped 1 percent last month, led by a 1.3 percent decline in Sydney and a 1.6 percent slide in Melbourne, according to CoreLogic Inc. data released Friday…

Australia’s Housing Downturn Deepens as Prices Hit 2016 Levels

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  • President’s re-election effort spent $23 million in quarter
  •  Committee raised more than $21 million during same period

The silhouette of Donald Trump

The silhouette of Donald Trump. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

President Donald Trump’s re-election committee finished 2018 with $19.3 million in the bank after spending more than $23 million during the fourth quarter, according to a filing made late Thursday with the Federal Election Commission.

The campaign raised more than $21 million during the fourth quarter through both direct contributions and donations raised by its joint fundraising committees with the Republican National Committee, according to a statement from the re-election committee…

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  • FleetCor paid Clarke as much as Visa, Mastercard CEOs combined
  •  Customers accuse fuel-card company of charging excessive fees

In her 35 years running a small business, Maria Kirk dealt with only one company that made her physically ill: fuel-card provider FleetCor Technologies Inc. and the thousands of dollars in fees it charged.

“Many companies try to nickel-and-dime you, but this can’t even compare,’’ said Kirk, the owner of an ice-delivery firm in Orlando, Florida. She said her health deteriorated in the years it took to resolve the dispute. “It felt like: ‘Let’s wear everybody down and see how much money we can glean from those that stop fighting back.’’’…

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Categories : Finance
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  • Treasury yields decline after dovish Federal Reserve statement
  •  Positive reports from General Electric, Facebook fuel jump

U.S. stocks rallied to cap their biggest monthly gain in three years as better-than-expected corporate earnings and the Federal Reserve’s dovish turn lifted investor sentiment.

Technology shares led advances as the S&P 500 Index closed at an eight-week high. General Electric Co. and Facebook Inc. both surged more than 10 percent after traders cheered their quarterly results. Emerging-market shares advanced while Treasury yields fell a day after signals from the Fed that it will be “patient” on interest-rate moves and flexible on reducing its balance sheet…

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Categories : Private Equity
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  • Managers banking on volatility after years of poor returns
  •  Traders also like carbon allowances, emerging market credit

Macro managers, who have struggled for much of the last decade, are once again expecting a winning year. This time, they might be right.

The main reason for optimism is the increased volatility in markets that began in 2018 with rising interest rates in the U.S., trade wars with China and populist politics in Italy. The turbulence helped several old macro hands including Paul Tudor Jones and Alan Howard profit after posting losses or sub-par gains…

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Categories : Hedge Funds
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  • Vesper is the biggest luxury property developer in the city
  •  Moscow property gains as rich Russians face barriers abroad

Nabokov House in Moscow.

Nabokov House in Moscow. Photographer: Ilya Ivanov

Moscow real estate executives Boris Azarenko and Denis Kitaev should write the U.K. Home Office a thank-you note.

Their company, luxury apartment developer Vesper, is seeing a pickup in demand from wealthy Russians, as Britain’s anti-money laundering measures block many from London, once their favorite city…

Moscow Luxury Real Estate Sales Are Soaring

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  • Commission headed by Crown Prince ‘completes its mission’
  •  Settles cases with 87 individuals after 381 people testifies

Mohammed bin Salman

Mohammed bin Salman Photographer: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg

Saudi authorities said they’ve recovered about $107 billion from people implicated in what the government has described as a crackdown on graft that has rattled the kingdom’s business elite and weighed on economic growth.

An anti-corruption commission headed by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said the funds received from 87 individuals came in cash, real estate, companies and securities. It wasn’t clear whether the amount was collected in full. Prince Mohammed said in October the state has received about $35 billion, while the rest would take about two years. Officials didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment…

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  • Housing market showing signs of broad-based price declines
  •  Fed on hold means banks won’t have to raise interest rates

The Federal Reserve’s signal that the pace of interest rate hikes this year will be cautious is respite for Hong Kong’s economy.

Because the Asian finance hub pegs its currency to the dollar, Hong Kong effectively imports U.S. monetary policy. That means borrowing costs are expected to push higher in tandem with Fed rate hikes, pressuring a housing market that’s already showing signs of strain…

Powell’s `Patience’ Is Relief for Hong Kong as Pressures Mount

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Categories : Private Equity
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U.K. lenders approved the fewest home loans in eight months in December and demand for unsecured debt remained subdued, Bank of England figures published Wednesday show.

The slowdown reflects fears that Britain risks leaving the European Union without a deal, a scenario that could rock the property market and the economy. Consumer credit grew at its slowest annual pace in four years…

U.K. Lending Slows as Brexit Uncertainty Hangs Over Outlook

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  • Earnings report follows CEO’s warning about ‘difficult’ road
  •  Price drop, job cuts fuels concerns about profitability

Tesla Inc. had a turbulent 2018, and early 2019 hasn’t been any smoother. To get the shares back on track, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has to ease concerns that sales and profitability could be hitting a wall.

An across-the-board price drop, job cuts and Musk’s warning about a “very difficult” road ahead has investors on edge heading into Tesla’s release of quarterly earnings results Wednesday. The CEO has already warned preliminary results for the fourth quarter may come up short of the record earnings the Model 3 maker posted in the prior three months…

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  • Shares of payments upstart Adyen have almost tripled since IPO
  •  CEO Pieter van der Does is among company’s newest billionaires

Adyen NV says it saves merchants millions of dollars by streamlining card-payment transactions. The fintech firm, thousands of miles from Silicon Valley, is making its founders a lot more.

Chief Executive Officer Pieter van der Does, Chief Technology Officer Arnout Schuijff and former innovation director John Caspers have all become billionaires since Adyen’s June initial public offering, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That kind of wealth creation, rare for a European company, puts Amsterdam-based Adyen in a similar league to U.S. tech titans Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc…

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Categories : Private Equity
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  • Carmakers delay decision-making as no-deal fears stalk sector
  • Annual output slides 9.1% amid diesel doubts, China slowdown

The British automotive industry saw investment plunge last year as carmakers delayed decisions on upgrading machinery and factories amid mounting concern about the impact of a hard Brexit.

Spending plunged 46 percent to 589 million pounds ($769 million), the lowest since the global financial crisis, the Society of Motor Manufacturers said in a statement Thursday…

U.K. Auto Investment Drops Almost 50% as Brexit Chills Spending

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Gary Cohn is on stage at the Context Summit in Miami as we type, and according to a tipster in the room, The Big Grundle sounds like a man looking to feed a new fund.

Context is, of course, a who’s who of hedgies, and with all that money hunkered down poolside at the Fountainbleu as their colleagues and families freeze to death slowly back up here in NYC, Gary is making the best of the situation and letting all the asset managers in the auditorium know that he’s back and ready to trade their assets…

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Billionaires who want to run for president should work their way up, perhaps by starting with city council, Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in tweet referring to former Starbucks Corp. Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz.

“Why don’t people ever tell billionaires who want to run for President that they need to ‘work their way up’ or that ‘maybe they should start with city council first’?” Ocasio-Cortez ’s tweet said…

Ocasio-Cortez Says Billionaires Like Schultz Should Work Their Way Up

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WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve signaled on Wednesday that its march toward higher interest rates may be ending sooner than expected, suspending its previous plans to continue raising rates this year.

The Fed’s chairman, Jerome H. Powell, said economic growth remained “solid” and the central bank expected growth to continue. But in a sharp reversal of the Fed’s stance just six week ago, Mr. Powell said the Fed had “the luxury of patience” in deciding whether to raise rates again…

Fed Signals End of Interest Rate Increases

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Markus Braun, chief executive officer of Wirecard AG.

Markus Braun, chief executive officer of Wirecard AG. Photographer: Matthias Doering/Bloomberg

Wirecard AG’s billionaire leader saw his fortune tumble $221 million Wednesday following a Financial Times report that a senior executive at the German payments firm used forged contracts.

Chief Executive Officer Markus Braun’s stake in the Aschheim-based company dropped to $1.44 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Wirecard said the allegations were false and misleading. An entity Braun controls is Wirecard’s biggest shareholder, with about 7 percent of the stock…

Billionaire Wirecard CEO Takes $221 Million Hit on Fraud Report

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  • David Malpass remains the clear frontrunner for the position
  •  Cruz is wife of Senator Ted Cruz and a Goldman Sachs executive

Heidi Cruz and husband Ted Cruz.Heidi Cruz and husband Ted Cruz. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

President Donald Trump interviewed Heidi Cruz for the job of World Bank president although he’s not offering the post to the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive and wife of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, people familiar with the matter said.

Treasury Undersecretary David Malpass remains the clear frontrunner for the job, but Trump has continued to consider others, including Cruz and prominent investor Mohamed El-Erian, the people said. A decision could come as soon as this week, one of the people said…

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A Foxconn logo before the arrival of President Trump for a groundbreaking ceremony in Mount Pleasant, Wis., last June.CreditCreditDarren Hauck/Reuters

It was heralded a year and a half ago as the start of a Midwestern manufacturing renaissance: Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics behemoth, would build a $10 billion Wisconsin plant to make flat-screen televisions, creating 13,000 jobs. President Trump later called the project “the eighth wonder of the world.”

Now that prospect looks less certain…

Foxconn Reconsidering Plans for a Wisconsin Factory Heralded by Trump

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Barry Sternlicht

Barry Sternlicht Photographer: John Lamparski/Getty Images

Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Capital Group is seeking to raise $500 million to fund investments in low-income areas deemed “opportunity zones” under a new U.S. tax policy — of which he’s been a vocal critic…

Starwood Capital Seeks $500 Million to Chase Tax Break Criticized by Its CEO

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It’s been a mournful start to 2019 for two of Asia’s richest families.

Eka Tjipta Widjaja, who began as a coconut and palm-oil trader at age 15 before building a multibillion-dollar empire in Indonesia, died Saturday at 98. A week earlier, Henry Sy, a shoe salesman who became the wealthiest man in the Philippines, died at 94. Their combined fortunes exceeded $16.5 billion…

Eight Asian Billionaires Aged Over 90 Control $125 Billion

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Grosvenor Group Ltd., one of the biggest central London property owners, is facing rejection of its plan to develop more than 1,300 rental homes in the arty Bermondsey district.

Planning officials recommended Southwark borough members vote against the plan on Feb. 6, in part because they say the most-affordable homes in the south London project would be too expensive for lower-income renters, according to a filing by the borough on Tuesday. Grosvenor wants to create a 500-million-pound ($654 million) neighborhood on the site of a former biscuit factory, which would include a school, office space and food and drink outlets…

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Industry disruptions may be changing investors’ ideas of the risks.

relates to PG&E Shows Utility Stocks Arenâ??t Boring AnymoreILLUSTRATION: NICHOLE SHINN FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

It wasn’t so long ago that investors saw utilities as safe, boring, and modestly profitable. With dependable revenue from monthly electric bills and regular dividends, they were a favorite among penny-saving retirees and portfolio managers wanting to hedge against volatility in the broader market.

That was then. Things first began to change with the deregulation of the 1990s, but global warming and rooftop solar panels have also been steadily chipping away at the notion that the sector is a safe haven. And now there’s PG&E Corp. California’s largest utility owner plans to file for Chapter 11 as early as Jan. 29 in the face of as much as $30 billion in potential liabilities from wildfires that killed more than 100 people in 2017 and 2018…

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That price does get you 10.6 acres and a view, though.

You can build your dream home from scratch just across from the Hotel Bel Air.

You’ll just need a little over $14 million per acre for the land…

A $150 Million Plot of Land Hits Market in Bel Air House Not Included

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Beijing has an incentive to push yields below 3 percent. With deflation threatening, it may not be too late to join the rally.

A dip below 3 percent could open the debt floodgates.

A dip below 3 percent could open the debt floodgates. Photographer: Goh Chai Hin/AFP/Getty Images

A watershed moment is approaching for China’s $11 trillion bond market: The 10-year sovereign bond yield looks poised to tumble below 3 percent.

The yield slumped to as low as 3.08 percent this month from 3.7 percent in September as the government fixed-income market rallied. The last time it fell below 3 percent for a sustained period was in 2016, when China was battling deflation…

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Financing designed to fund prolonged stay in chapter 11

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  • Malaysian wireless giant has three weeks to decide on M1 bid
  •  Axiata considers it unlikely rival bidder will emerge

Malaysian wireless giant Axiata Group Bhd. is caught in a bind as it weighs whether to exit its decade-long investment in Singapore operator M1 Ltd.

Axiata, M1’s biggest shareholder, has less than three weeks left to decide whether to tender its stock into a takeover offer valuing the target at S$1.9 billion ($1.4 billion). The Malaysian company held a board meeting last week to discuss the merits of the bid from Keppel Corp. and Singapore Press Holdings Ltd., according to people with knowledge of the matter…

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  • Washington hosting highest-level talks since Trump-Xi dinner
  •  March 1 deadline for U.S. tariffs to rise to 25 percent looms

The U.S. and China are sitting down Wednesday for the first of two days of high-level talks aimed at finding a solution to a trade war that’s casting a growing shadow on both of the world’s two largest economies. But don’t hold your breath for a deal.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who remains the most prominent advocate of a deal in the Trump administration, on Tuesday told the Fox Business Network he expected “significant progress” in this week’s talks…

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Many electricity producers, such as Topaz Solar Farms, rely completely on sales to PG&E

PG&E Corp. quickly took steps after filing for bankruptcy protection Tuesday to renegotiate power deals with green energy projects that rely on the California utility for most or all of their revenues.

The utility filed papers in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Francisco requesting authority to shed up to $42 billion in power purchase agreements with roughly 350 different suppliers, the majority for solar, wind and other green energy…

PG&E Bankruptcy Hits Green Energy Suppliers

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  • New rule will require asset managers to report what they did
  •  FRC has no research on whether the stewardship code works

An endangered U.K. regulator is demanding that asset managers change the way they interact with investors under new rules that require funds to provide more information on their business culture.

A key difference in the updated stewardship code from the Financial Reporting Council is that asset managers will have to report what they’ve actually done, rather than just their policies on stewardship. The effectiveness of the current rules is unknown, nine years after the industry first signed up…

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  • Utility giant’s assets top liabilities, but big costs loom
  •  Financing packages seen unlikely to address long-term issues

PG&E Corp.’s descent into bankruptcy came even though the company isn’t broke.

Its Pacific Gas & Electric utility serves 16 million people — more than 40 percent of California’s population — and pulls in $17 billion in revenue per year. The steady flow of monthly customer payments, plus a regulated rate of return on its power lines and poles, gives PG&E the kind of stable, predictable income many businesses can only envy. It has about $240 million in cash on hand, though that number has been quickly falling…

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  • Anonymous collector selling 250 lots of Romanee-Conti Burgundy
  •  About 17,000 bottles spanning five decades offered at auction

The auction house will be selling 16,889 bottles in Hong Kong from March 29 to 31 featuring more than 250 lots of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, known as DRC, the most coveted Burgundy wines spanning more than five decades.

The auction house will be selling 16,889 bottles in Hong Kong from March 29 to 31 featuring more than 250 lots of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, known as DRC, the most coveted Burgundy wines spanning more than five decades. Photographer: Elin McCoy/Bloomberg

In the latest sign that Chinese thirst for top wines is returning, Sotheby’s is offering a single-owner wine collection estimated to sell for as much as a record $26 million…

Sotheby’s to Offer Record $26 Million Wine Collection

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Europe’s largest asset manager favors India, Russia and Chile among emerging markets, arguing they fare better against those with weaker fundamentals and political risks amid an expected global slowdown.

Amundi Asset Management, which oversees the equivalent of about $45 billion of developing-nation assets, also likes stocks and bonds in China, Indonesia, Czech Republic, Brazil, and Peru, Pascal Blanque, group chief investment officer, said in an interview in Singapore…

Where Europe’s Biggest Fund Manager Is Putting Its Cash (And Where It’s Avoiding)

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It’s been a mournful start to 2019 for two of Asia’s richest families.

Eka Tjipta Widjaja, who began as a coconut and palm-oil trader at age 15 before building a multibillion-dollar empire in Indonesia, died Saturday at 98. A week earlier, Henry Sy, a shoe salesman who became the wealthiest man in the Philippines, died at 94. Their combined fortunes exceeded $16.5 billion…

Eight Asia Billionaires Aged Over 90 Control $125 Billion

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Single or rare events should never be used to draw conclusions about, well, anything.

A mosquito is a much bigger threat.

A mosquito is a much bigger threat. Photographer: Richard Bouhet/AFP/Getty Images 

One of the key lessons of behavioral economics is the danger of not examining your own beliefs. Failing to consider the reasons that underlie our decision-making increases the risk of error. Although we can operate in our daily life on autopilot, other situations are not so forgiving. When we put capital at risk, the danger of not understanding what influences our decisions can be monetary losses, career risk or worse.

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If you can’t invest with them, you might as well set your money on fire and join the circus.

So Ray Dalio did pretty well for himself and his investors last year. Better, in fact, than anyone else. This means that the Svengali of Westport remains the greatest hedge fund manager of all time, as far as fund of hedge funds LCH Investments is concerned. The retired George Soros is still second, and Ken Griffin is still third—and making it count.

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  • Money markets now pricing in a 70% chance of interest-rate cut
  •  Weaker business conditions dovetail with lower economic growth

Australian firms suffered the worst slump in conditions since the 2008 global financial crisis as evidence mounts that the economy slowed in the latter part of last year.

The business conditions index — measuring hiring, sales and profits — dropped to 2 in December from 11 a month earlier, a National Australia Bank Ltd. report showed Tuesday. A gauge of employment fell to 4 from 9 in November, while profitability plunged to zero from 8. A separate confidence index was unchanged at 3…

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  • White House places new sactions on state oil firm PDVSA
  •  WTI edges lower after falling the most in a month Monday

Oil held its biggest loss in a month as renewed concern over slowing global growth largely outweighed U.S. sanctions against Venezuela’s state oil company.

Futures rose 0.4 percent in New York, after dropping 3.2 percent in the previous session. The Trump administration issued new sanctions on Venezuela’s PDVSA that effectively block the regime of President Nicolas Maduro from exporting crude to the U.S. On Monday, Microchip-maker Nvidia Corp. and heavy-equipment giant Caterpillar Inc. warned of slowing growth in China and elsewhere…

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  • Smallest output seen since 2013 as miners avoid new projects
  •  Use growing for solar cells, touch screens, even medicine

Think of it as a potential silver lining for investors. A burgeoning shortage of the precious white metal is promising to boost its price as 2019 rolls out.

Silver surged 9.1 percent in December, its biggest monthly gain in almost two years. This year, with miners avoiding new projects amid global economic uncertainty, the price could spike as high as $17.50 an ounce from about $15.36 now, according to a Bloomberg survey of 11 traders and analysts…

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  • Saudi Arabia looking to break reliance on oil sales for income
  •  Investment target ‘growing as we speak,’ energy minister says

Saudi Arabia unveiled a sweeping plan to develop infrastructure and industry across the world’s leading oil-exporting nation.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who’s embarked on the biggest overhaul of the Saudi economy in its modern history, on Monday presided over the signing of agreements in planned deals before an invite-only crowd in Riyadh. The program will net more than $426 billion in investments by 2030 and add 1.6 million new jobs, according to a government statement…

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Malaysia will terminate a $20 billion rail project with contractor China Communications Construction Co., Economic Affairs Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali said.

The Cabinet decided the East Coast Rail Link project was “beyond the government’s financial capability,” he told reporters on Saturday. Malaysia Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng wouldn’t corroborate Azmin’s comments, saying an official announcement would be issued if necessary by next week on the instructions of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad…

Malaysia to Terminate $20 Billion China-Backed Rail Project

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  • Labour set to order its lawmakers to back Cooper proposal
  •  Knife-edge House of Commons votes expected on Tuesday evening

Theresa May

Theresa May Photographer: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg

Theresa May faces losing control of Brexit to Parliament on Tuesday in a series of crucial votes that will shape Britain’s split from the European Union.

Despite a last minute gamble aimed at buying off rebels in her Conservative Party, the prime minister will face a knife-edge battle to block a proposal that would hand Parliament the power to delay the process and prevent a no-deal divorce…

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  • Queens native heads private-equity firm’s wealth effort
  •  She aims to quadruple Blackstone’s wealth assets in 10 years

Joan Solotar

Joan Solotar Photographer: Blackstone

Steve Schwarzman’s Blackstone Group LP is a behemoth in private equity, real estate, credit and hedge fund investing, thanks to its ability to raise cash from giant pension plans and sovereign wealth funds.

But given the firm’s goal of managing $1 trillion in assets by 2026, it’s not enough…

Blackstone’s Race for $1 Trillion Leans on Ex-Analyst Joan Solotar

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  • Mnuchin, Bolton unveil new measures to try to unseat Maduro
  •  Venezuela’s PDVSA will have to find other buyers for its crude

The Trump administration dealt its toughest blow yet to the authoritarian Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, issuing new sanctions on the nation’s state-owned oil company PDVSA that effectively block his regime from exporting crude to the U.S.

The move ratchets up pressure on Maduro to resign and cede power to National Assembly leader Juan Guaido by cutting off the regime from the market where it gets the bulk of its cash. The U.S. and other countries recognized Guaido last week as Venezuela’s rightful president, and he said Monday he would take control of Venezuelan accounts abroad and appoint new boards to PDVSA and its Houston-based subsidiary Citgo Petroleum

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Catherine Clifford of CNBC reports, Hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio: ‘Capitalism basically is not working for the majority of people’:

With just over $18 billion to his name, capitalism has been good to Ray Dalio: He started his hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, out of a two-bedroom New York City apartment in 1975 and it now manages $160 billion in assets and is the largest hedge fund in the world, according to Forbes.

Quite literally, Dalio has built a fortune thanks to capitalism. But he’s also keenly aware that it is a deeply flawed system…

Ray Dalio on the Limits of Capitalism?

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The Bank of Japan appears to be trying to let some steam out of the property market, an area where it’s seen incipient financial imbalances driven by its monetary stimulus. The central bank reduced the pace of its REIT purchases to 55 billion yen ($503 million) over the 12 months through December, about 40 percent below its annual target of 90 billion. In the view of Bloomberg Economics, this isn’t a signal that a bigger shift in policy may be in the works, rather it’s likely more an effort to calibrate its stimulus within the current framework so it can sustain its easing for a longer period if necessary…

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PG&E Corp. still expects to file for Chapter 11 protection as soon as Tuesday, despite last-minute proposals by investors to keep the utility out of bankruptcy, people familiar with the situation said.

The board evaluated secured-debt arrangements and other forms of capital, but decided they weren’t the best alternatives to address billions of dollars in potential wildfire liabilities, according to one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public…

PG&E Still Plans Bankruptcy Despite Investor Proposal

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From Hong Kong to Miami, private bankers are finding new ways to serve the growing ranks of the world’s wealthy.

undefinedIllustration: Peter Oumanski for Bloomberg Businessweek

Ten years ago, stock markets plunged, major banks faltered, and the global economy teetered on a precipice. Few would have predicted that the ensuing decade would produce an explosion in wealth.

But that’s just what happened. An unprecedented infusion of central bank funds into the world’s largest economies bolstered asset prices, making many people richer and exacerbating inequality. Global personal wealth reached a record $201.9 trillion last year, according to Boston Consulting Group Inc…

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  • Saudi state firm already majority owner of S. Korea’s S-Oil
  •  Aramco to buy Oilbank stake from Hyundai Heavy Industries

An offshore drilling platform stands in shallow waters at the Manifa offshore oilfield, operated by Saudi Aramco, in Manifa, Saudi Arabia.

An offshore drilling platform stands in shallow waters at the Manifa offshore oilfield, operated by Saudi Aramco, in Manifa, Saudi Arabia. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

Saudi Arabian Oil Co. is buying up to 19.9 percent of South Korean oil refiner Hyundai Oilbank Co. for 1.8 trillion won ($1.6 billion), tightening the OPEC behemoth’s grip in the world’s biggest crude consuming region.

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Categories : Private Equity
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The central bank must balance continuing to please markets and responding to domestic economic strength.

Spotlight on Jay Powell.

Spotlight on Jay Powell. Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images

One of the major questions facing the Federal Reserve when its policy-making committee meets this week is whether to counter the recent big change in the way markets characterize its policy mindset. In the last few weeks, markets have come to believe that the central bank led by Chair Jerome Powell is behaving, and will continue to behave, much more like its two predecessors: averse to bouts of financial volatility, and willing to use words and actions to both counter and minimize them. This is a notable change from the earlier view that this new Fed leadership is focused on normalizing monetary policy as a means of creating greater policy flexibility to deal with a future economic downturn, while also reducing the probability of severe financial instability down the road…

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  • Desmond How’s long-short fund to focus on EM corporate debt
  •  How joined GaoTeng Global in 2017 as head of fixed income

An ex-Nomura Holdings Inc. trader has started a hedge fund focused on emerging-market corporate bonds at a money manager backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd.

Desmond How, who headed a proprietary trading desk covering credit products at Nomura, launched the long-short fund on Monday at GaoTeng Global Asset Management Ltd. How joined GaoTeng, the Hong Kong-based investment firm set up by Tencent and Hillhouse Capital Management Ltd., in 2017 as head of fixed income…

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Categories : Hedge Funds
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Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates and Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies beat their rivals in a tough year for hedge funds in 2018, making a combined $13 billion for their investors.

The profits accounted for more than half the money generated by the top 20 managers last year, according to estimates by LCH Investments NV, a fund of hedge funds. Firms outside that top group lost more than $64 billion as stock declines and volatility took their toll…

Bridgewater Rentech Make $13 Billion in a Grim Hedge-Fund Year

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Which is why Steve Cohen & co. have set up shop by the beach in Sydney.

Everyone knows that many of Australia’s early white settlers were criminals. From 1787 until 1868, the British rid themselves of much riff-raff by putting the undesirables on boats and shipping them halfway round the world to Botany Bay, from which they went forth and multiplied and created the Australians we all know and love to see traveling abroad…

There’s No Word For ‘Black Edge’ In Australian

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Lenders can’t continue this pace of loan growth without a bigger cushion. Beijing needs to make fundraising easier.

Trouble on the horizon.Trouble on the horizon. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

In the past decade, China has relied primarily on credit growth to fund its economic ambitions. The country’s banks are now feeling the constraints of this lending binge and need to raise a lot of capital over the next couple of years.

The way China handles this challenge will determine its economic health. With 267 trillion yuan ($39.4 trillion) of total assets, and home to the world’s four largest banks by this measure, the country’s financial system doesn’t operate in isolation. Whatever happens in China will have a global impact…

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  • U.S. shares closed higher Friday on deal to end U.S. shutdown
  •  Busy week ahead with trade talks and Fed meeting in focus

Asian stocks were mixed on Monday at the start of a crucial week for global trade and a policy meeting of the Federal Reserve.

While the MSCI Asia Pacific Index headed toward an eight-week high, fewer than half of the benchmark’s stocks were up on the day. China and Hong Kong shares led the region, Japan saw modest losses, U.S. futures dipped and Australia’s markets were shut for a holiday. Shares on Wall Street finished the week higher Friday on corporate earnings and a reopening — for now — of the federal government. Oil fell as traders assessed the implications of political turmoil in Venezuela, a major exporter. Treasury yields edged lower and the yen climbed…

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