Finanzas

RARELY do people compare the British pound to the Nigerian naira, Azerbaijani manat or Malawian kwacha. But these are special times. Following the Brexit vote, investors dumped sterling. Some are worried about the possibility of a «hard» Brexit. Others are simply baffled by the government’s xenophobic and divisive rhetoric. 

One question which people have not really explored is, what assets precisely are investors selling? After all, British stockmarkets are on the up (in pound terms, at least). And Britain’s government-bond prices are still very high (though in recent days they have fallen a little). Both of those phenomena suggest that money is flowing into British assets, not out of them. 

We cannot be sure, but one likely explanation is that foreigners are selling cash holdings (instead of assets). The rise in the stockmarket, meanwhile, may be mainly due to the actions of domestic investors. The FTSE pays lots of dollar-denominated dividends so is increasingly attractive to British investors as the pound falls.

Anyway, so the pound is falling. How bad is the drop? To the right is a chart of a year-to-date change against the…Continue reading

IT HAS been a long time since the economy really worked well for most American workers. Those without a college degree have found themselves losing relative economic ground since the early 1980s, and nearly all workers have had a rough time of things—facing stagnant pay, for example—since the beginning of this century. It would be really great if workers, and those with less education especially, could find ways to earn more. In an intriguing piece published over the weekend, Neil Irwin, of the New York Times, suggests that Walmart, the massive discount retailer, may have found an answer: pay workers more and you get better workers. It sounds fantastic, a win-win for everyone, and why has it taken firms so long to discover this possibility? Yet the solution might not be as simple as all that.

Mr Irwin notes that Walmart has long been one of the most aggressive and influential cost-cutters in the American economy: credited, in some studies, with single-handedly depressing pay…Continue reading

RESTRICTIONS on smartphones aboard aeroplanes have long been a bugbear of business travellers. Rules proscribing their use are slowly falling away; they might not after all, it has been decided, interfere with an aircraft’s systems. (This was discovered, coincidentally, around the same time that carriers found that they could charge for onboard Wi-Fi.) But now airlines are banning them them once again. Or at least one particular type: the Samsung Galaxy Note 7

These phones, it seems, might pose a real danger to an airliner in flight. It was the Note 7’s propensity to catch fire that persuaded American authorities to ban them on American flights last week. (Back in September, some carriers had already told passengers not to re-charge them while aboard.) However, in the past few days, many other airlines around the world have followed suit. Over the weekend Japan’s transport ministry said it was prohibiting passengers from flying with the phones. Those caught trying to smuggle the devices onto carriers such as ANA would have them confiscated, it said. Emirates and Etihad are also taking a hard line, the latter insisting that «Guests must not carry Samsung Galaxy Note 7…Continue reading

La cifra de personas en peligro de exclusión vuelve en los Veintiocho a niveles precrisis mientras en España sigue por encima

La inmobiliaria adquiere 10,8 millones de acciones de la sociedad cotizada, que sube el 7% en Bolsa

El gran mérito ha sido pasar del “trimestre del diablo” a una tasa de paro del 5%.

El Gobierno en funciones envía a Bruselas el proyecto de presupuestos de 2017 y avisa de que los recortes serán «completamente necesarios»

La región recibió en 2015 más de 67.000 millones de dólares en remesas y para este año se prevé que la cifra se eleve un 4%

Los inspectores reclaman más independencia, fijar unos objetivos plurianuales y advierten sobre la discriminación en la Dirección General de Tributos

Los empleados con ingresos mínimos mensuales alcanzan los 3,7 millones debido al aumento de la precariedad