|
The Morning Ledger: Trade Deal Alone Won’t Fix Strained U.S.-China Business Relations
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Stanley Brown, a security guard at the former Sanyo television plant in Forrest City, Ark., walks through the plant. A Chinese company announced plans to buy the plant, but the trade dispute between the U.S. and China has put the deal on hold. PHOTO: ANDREA MORALES FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
|
|
|
Good morning. Rattled businesses on both sides of the Pacific are skittish about rushing back in to revive the once-booming investment activity between the U.S. and China even as negotiators are drawing up an accord to resolve the trade fight, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Investment slump. Rounds of tariffs, investment restrictions and sharp rhetoric have sapped investment, investment specialists said, as some Chinese and U.S. companies rethink their businesses through the prism of prolonged U.S.-China trade tensions. Investment flows between China and the U.S. plunged to just over $19 billion last year, from a 2016 peak of $60 billion.
[Continued below…]
|
|
|
|
Truce in sight. The U.S. and China are now aiming to conclude a trade deal in late May or early June, and that could bode well for an improved business climate, said Craig Allen, president of the U.S. China Business Council, which represents U.S. companies doing business in China. “We are hopeful that the bilateral trade negotiations will lead to an environment in which investment flows going both ways across the Pacific will be more stable and predictable,” Mr. Allen said.
Risky business. Despite signs of a resolution on the horizon, the business community has remained uncertain. A late-February survey from the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai found that 65% of members said the tensions were influencing their longer-term strategy, with nearly a quarter delaying additional Chinese investments.
|
|
|
Hershey Co. is turning to a finance chief from outside the food industry, a move that comes as the company expands beyond its core portfolio of chocolate and other confectionery, CFO Journal’s Nina Trentmann reports.
|
|
|
The Hershey, Pa.-based company on Thursday named Steve Voskuil senior vice president and chief financial officer, effective May 13. Mr. Voskuil joins from medical devices maker Avanos Medical Inc., a company that spun out from consumer goods giant Kimberly-Clark Corp. in 2014.
|
|
|
Energy delivery company CenterPoint Energy Inc. named Xia Liu, the finance chief of Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power, to lead its finance team.
|
|
|
The Houston-based company said Ms. Liu will start as executive vice president and chief financial officer Monday. She succeeds William Rogers, who retired March 8.
Georgia Power on Thursday named David Poroch to succeed Ms. Liu as executive vice president, CFO and treasurer, effective immediately.
|
|
|
Monday kicks off a busy week of earnings, with some of the biggest names in the technology, consumer-products and industrial sectors reporting. Some 155 of the companies in the S&P 500, or 31% of the index, and 40% of the firms in the Dow Jones Industrial Average are scheduled to release their quarterly results. Kimberly-Clark Corp., W.W. Grainger Inc. and Whirlpool Corp. are among the companies scheduled to report earnings today.
As Tesla Inc. faces questions about whether demand for the Model 3 compact car is slowing, Chief Executive Elon Musk wants investors to focus on the auto maker’s road much farther ahead: vehicles driving themselves in a robot-taxi fleet. Mr. Musk is gathering investors Monday to reveal the electric-car maker’s latest efforts to develop self-driving car technology and his strategy for deploying it.
The National Association of Realtors is scheduled to release existing-home sales data for March at 10 a.m. ET. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal forecast existing-home sales fell 3.8% in March from February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.30 million.
|
|
|
Airline shares, which have mostly lagged behind the broader stock market this year, are set to face their next major test in the coming days. Southwest Airlines Co., Alaska Air Group Inc. and American Airlines Group Inc. are all scheduled to report quarterly results.
The Commerce Department is scheduled to release March durable-goods figures on Thursday. Economists forecast durable-goods orders rose 0.8% in March from a month earlier.
The Commerce Department is scheduled to release first-quarter gross domestic product data on Friday. Economists are expecting a slightly stronger annual growth rate of 2.4% for the first quarter.
Also on Friday, the University of Michigan is scheduled to release final consumer-sentiment data for April on Friday. Preliminary April sentiment data showed consumers’ outlook on the U.S. economy deteriorated. Economists forecast the University of Michigan’s consumer-sentiment index logged a final reading of 97.0 in April.
|
|
|
|
|
Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen says he believes the company has devised a plan to help it grow again. PHOTO: SANGSUK SYLVIA KANG/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
|
|
|
Kroger Co., America’s biggest supermarket company, is adjusting operations and investing in technology to try to hang on to customers who no longer like to buy their food in stores.
Huawei Technologies Co. said its first-quarter revenue jumped 39% to 179.7 billion yuan ($26.81 billion), as the Chinese telecom giant made further inroads in the market for 5G wireless technology.
Consumer-focused businesses may have more cachet, but tech startups that cater to companies are what’s really hot. Shares of business-software firms have risen a median 126% from their market debuts, outperforming high-profile consumer-tech companies.
Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.’s movie business has lost ground, while internal conflict and outside competition weigh on its pay-TV network. Since last summer, the company’s shares have fallen 42%.
BP PLC and its partners will lead a $6 billion development of the giant Azeri-Chirag-Deepwater Gunashli oil-field complex offshore Azerbaijan, the U.K. oil major said Friday.
Samsung Electronics Co. abruptly canceled two prelaunch events for its new Galaxy Fold smartphone in Hong Kong and mainland China, following a product headache that began with tech reviewers reporting their test devices had malfunctioned.
|
|
|
|
A Teva building in Jerusalem. Teva is based in Israel. PHOTO: AMMAR AWAD/REUTERS
|
|
|
-
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave approval to Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. to market generic naloxone nasal spray to treat opioid overdoses.
-
The State Department is expected to announce the end of waivers for countries to import Iranian oil on Monday, as part of the Trump administration’s effort to drive Iran’s exports to zero, people familiar with the decision said.
-
A unit of online lender Prosper Marketplace Inc. agreed to pay $3 million to settle claims that it miscalculated returns of investors who funded its consumer loans.
-
Over the past decade about 1,200 people with criminal records have asked the government to let them work at a bank—with more than 40% of requests rejected or unresolved. The banking industry wants to change that.
-
Weekends are the worst for former Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn, who is likely to find out this week whether he will face additional months behind bars. Alone in his cell, he isn’t allowed to leave for the 30 minutes of fresh air he gets on weekdays or see his family. “It’s a torture,” says his wife, Carole.
|
|
|
|
Officials at the Federal Reserve are set to meet April 30-May 1. PHOTO: ANDREW HARRER/BLOOMBERG NEWS
|
|
|
-
Federal Reserve officials are starting to talk about the conditions under which they would cut interest rates, including a scenario where inflation drifts lower even if the economic growth doesn’t falter.
-
A gauge of U.S. home building and approvals for new projects declined in March, continuing a recent weak stretch for new housing construction.
-
A month after severe March flooding swept the Midwest, the Missouri River is still running high, complicating recovery for many communities in the region.
|
|
|
|