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The Morning Ledger: Trade Friction Between U.S., China Escalates |
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The White House plans to announce within the next few days tariffs on as much as $200 billion in Chinese goods. PHOTO: SUSAN WALSH/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Good morning. China and the U.S. are set to step up threats over bilateral trade policies this week, The Wall Street Journal reports.
New tariffs from Washington: The Trump administration plans to unveil fresh tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese products as early as Monday morning, reports Reuters. Combined with earlier rounds, the administration will have levied duties on roughly half of the more than $500 billion in Chinese goods that enter the U.S. each year, a considerable escalation amid a series of other U.S. initiatives aimed at overhauling American trade policy.
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New threaats could sink talks: U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is leading an effort to broker negotiations aimed at staving off new rounds of tariffs. However, Chinese officials said that if President Trump carries out his plans to announce the new tariffs early this week then plans for bilateral talks could get scuttled.
Beijing can pull other levers: Some Chinese officials advising the leadership are proposing to step up the trade fight a notch by restricting China’s sales of materials, equipment and other parts key to U.S. manufacturers’ supply chains. Such restrictions could even apply to Apple Inc.’s iPhones, which are assembled in the mainland.
Investors aren't fans: Chinese stocks hit the lowest level since 2014 as investors sold holdings across Asia in response to the trade policy uncertainty. Futures pointed to a lower open for U.S. stocks, though European markets firmed after an initial dip.
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Danish insulin producer Novo Nordisk A/S is turning towards robotic process automation to reduce the amount of manual tasks in its finance function.
“We will be deploying more robots in our finance processes,” the company's finance chief, Karsten Munk Knudsen, told CFO Journal’s Nina Trentmann.
One of Novo’s goals is to reduce the number of invoices that require handling by a human, he said, and to cut down on costs and errors. The company has also started experimenting with chatbots that are assisting the finance team, said Mr. Knudsen.
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Richard Peretz, chief financial officer of United Parcel Service Inc., speaks in New York, U.S., on Thursday, Sept. 13, 2018. PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER GOODNEY/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Cost reductions will drive the bulk of the earnings gains that United Parcel Service Inc. expects to reap from a new corporate transformation plan, the delivery giant’s finance chief, Richard Peretz, told CFO Journal.
UPS expects the transformation effort to boost adjusted earnings per share by $1.00 to $1.20 by 2022. The company in July confirmed its 2018 full-year adjusted earnings guidance range of $7.03 to $7.37.
The parcel delivery company is centralizing the procurement and sourcing function across its global operations, a project that will deliver roughly one-third of the earnings improvements, Mr. Peretz said. UPS spends between $20 billion and $25 billion a year on commodities such as fuel and tires, and currently some business units are negotiating with vendors on a local level, Mr. Peretz said. “We’re lifting all that and making it one global conversation,” he said.
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Royal Dutch Shell PLC said it will announce plans to lay out targets to manage its emissions of the greenhouse gas methane Monday, joining a handful of major oil companies that have made similar pledges this year.
Oracle Corp. is set to report financial results for its fiscal first quarter after the close of trading Monday. WSJ's Jay Greene outlines what you need to know.
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On Wednesday, Brazil’s central bank is expected to keep rates at the historic low of 6.5% reached in March. The rate decision will be announced at 5 p.m. ET.
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On Thursday, European Union leaders will hold their first serious discussions on Brexit since March at a summit in Austria as the U.K. and the rest of the bloc step up preparations to reduce major economic disruptions if a deal isn’t reached.
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Also Thursday, The U.S. Labor Department will publish weekly jobless claims data at 8.30 a.m. ET. The layoffs gauge recently hit a near-half-century low. Economists expect jobless claims to continue to move lower in the coming months as the labor market tightens and employers become more reluctant to let go of workers.
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The U.S.-based National Association of Realtors will release August existing-home sales figures Thursday at 10 a.m. ET. Economists expect to see sales pick up in this latest report.
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On Friday, a survey of purchasing managers in the manufacturing and services sectors across Europe is expected to indicate that activity continued to cool into September. Economists predict the composite Purchasing Managers Index edged down to 54.4 from 54.5.
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Drugmaker Gilead Sciences, alongside networking-equipment giant Cisco Systems Inc., account for about two-thirds of the $143 billion repatriated so far by the 108 companies holding the bulk of U.S. corporate offshore cash. PHOTO: ERIC RISBERG/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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U.S. companies have moved cautiously in repatriating stockpiled overseas profits in response to last year’s tax-law change, despite the Trump administration’s assertions that trillions of dollars would return home quickly and supercharge the domestic economy.
Amazon.com Inc. is investigating suspected data leaks and bribes of its employees as it fights to root out fake reviews and other seller scams from its website.
Shares in Hennes & Mauritz AB surged more than 13% on Monday after the fashion retailer reported stronger-than-expected quarterly sales, a sign its turnaround efforts could be starting to bear fruit.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. finance chief Marianne Lake has emerged as a front-runner to succeed Chairman and Chief Executive James Dimon when he eventually retires, reports Reuters.
The victor in a very public bidding war between 21st Century Fox Inc. and Comcast Inc. for British broadcaster Sky PLC is likely to be decided in private. U.K. corporate-takeover rules require a sealed-bid auction to conclude what might otherwise become a never-ending game of ever-sweeter bids.
Three of the Big Four accounting firms in the U.S. now have women in the corner office, but auditing still has a large gender gap. Only 15% of the “engagement partners” in charge of each S&P 500 company’s audit are women, according to a study to be published this week by the CFA Institute.
Native Deodorant, an online-only line of natural deodorants and soaps, will go on sale at Target Corp. on Monday, the latest in a series of online startups selling personal-care products to turn to bricks-and-mortar retailers to reach customers.
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NLRB Chairman John Ring was confirmed in April, giving Republicans the majority on the body that oversees union-employer disputes. PHOTO: RON SACHS/ZUMA PRESS
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The National Labor Relations Board has proposed rolling back an Obama-era job ruling that made it easier for contractors and workers at franchised businesses to form unions and collectively bargain with big corporations.
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European Union antitrust regulators have set an Oct. 19 deadline for their ruling on Walt Disney Co.'s $71.3 billion bid for 21st Century Fox Inc’s entertainment assets, the European Commission said on Monday, reports Reuters. They will decide on Microsoft Corp.’s $7.5 billion acquisition of privately held coding website GitHub Inc. on the same day, Reuters said.
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Spirits companies are taking on the U.S. military after the Defense Department this summer began allowing military commissaries—the equivalent of grocery stores on bases—to sell beer and wine for the first time but not vodka, whiskey and other types of liquor.
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Deutsche Bank AG is considering shifting large volumes of assets from London to Frankfurt after the UK’s planned exit from the European Union next year to meet demands from European regulators, a person close to the matter said on Sunday, reports Reuters.
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Nordstrom Rack in the Herald Square New York store. Retailers are struggling to fill jobs ahead of the holiday season. PHOTO: RICHARD B. LEVINE/ZUMA PRESS
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Staffing up for the year-end crush is an annual challenge for retailers. But with unemployment at record lows, this year is shaping up to be an exceptional slog.
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Hurricanes upend lives and destroy wealth, but leave little lasting imprint on the broader economy shows an examination of the economic effects of storms in recent years.
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