More Pain, Slow Gain as Europe's New Bank CEOs Expect Grim Years

Europe’s biggest investment banks are telling investors that it will take years for their overhauls to bear fruit.

John Cryan, Deutsche Bank AG’s co-chief executive officer since July, said on Thursday the next two years will be tough as plans to shed workers and businesses and revamp technology hurt results. He echoed remarks by Tidjane Thiam, Credit Suisse Group AG’s new CEO, who laid out his reorganization plan last week. Rising charges for misconduct and restructuring forced Barclays Plc to cut its profitability target for 2016.

More than seven years after the financial crisis, Europe’s biggest securities firms are still shaking up their businesses to cope with stricter regulation and fines for misleading clients and manipulating markets. The three banks have yet to dispel investor doubts about their growth prospects in the face of increasing capital requirements and competition from U.S. rivals.  Read more

Yuan Rises Most Since 2005 as PBOC Mulls Easing Capital Controls

The yuan surged the most since China scrapped a dollar peg in 2005 as the central bank said it will consider a trial program in the Shanghai free trade zone allowing domestic individual investors to directly buy overseas assets.

The Chinese currency rose 0.62 percent, the most since July 2005, to close at 6.3175 a dollar in Shanghai, according to China Foreign Exchange Trade System prices. The offshore yuan in Hong Kong climbed 0.51 percent to 6.3260 as of 4:41 p.m. local time. The People’s Bank of China earlier strengthened its daily onshore reference rate by 0.16 percent to 6.3495.  Read more

Oil Producers Curb Megaproject Ambitions to Focus on U.S. Shale

Big U.S. oil companies are starting to think small.

A stubborn 16-month crude rout with no end in sight is driving the largest U.S. oil producers away from costly, high-risk megaprojects long touted as the industry’s future and toward safer shale operations that generate the cash needed to satisfy anxious investors.

Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips and Hess Corp. have all either delayed or abandoned projects that range from the deep seas of the Gulf of Mexico to Canada’s oil sands and the U.S. Arctic. At the same time, Exxon and Chevron both announced plans to substantially increase U.S. crude production, largely as a result of their shale operations.  Read more

Did Russian Airstrikes Force U.S. to Include Iran in Syria Talks?

State Department spokesman John Kirby said Thursday Russia’s military intervention in Syria had not compelled the administration’s shift in policy on letting Iran participate in multilateral talks on ending the conflict.

“Is the U.S. forced to include Iran in the process?” Kirby was asked at his daily briefing, one day before widely anticipated talks in Vienna to which Iran has been invited for the first time.  Read more

Senate passes budget and debt deal, sends measure to Obama

In a rare late-night session, the Senate gave final approval to an ambitious budget and debt deal early Friday, sending it to President Barack Obama to sign.

The final vote on passage was 64-35, as Democrats joined forces with Republican defense hawks over the objections of GOP presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio, all of whom voted against the deal. The bill is aimed at averting a debt default, avoiding a partial government shutdown and setting spending priorities for the next two years.

Earlier in Friday's session, the Senate voted 63-35 to end debate on the measure. The vote to approve the bill was taken just after 3 a.m. EDT.  Read more

China's Easing of Birth Limit a Boon to Couples, Companies Read more: China's Easing of Birth Limit a Boon to Couples, Companies

China's decision to abolish its one-child policy is a boon not only to couples but to sellers of goods from formula to diapers to toys. And it might help to defuse economic stresses caused by an aging population.
The impact of the surprise change announced Thursday is expected to be gradual. But with incomes rising in the world's most populous country, even a small uptick in births could translate to higher demand from Chinese that ripples around the world.  Read more

Moldovan Parliament Dismisses Govt, Bringing Instability

The Moldovan government lost a no-confidence vote Thursday and was dismissed by Parliament, plunging the impoverished East European country into uncertainty.
Sixty-five lawmakers in the 101-seat legislature voted against the government of Prime Minister Valeriu Strelet, who was appointed July 30. Parliament now has three months to approve a new government or a new election will be held.
After the vote Thursday, Democratic Party leader Marian Lupu said he wanted to form another pro-European government.
Tensions within the pro-European ruling coalition have grown since the Oct. 15 arrest of Vlad Filat, the prime minister from 2009 to 2013, over a massive bank fraud. Filat was arrested on charges of taking bribes of $260 million, allegedly linked to a fraud in which up to $1.5 billion went missing from three Moldovan banks ahead of the November 2014 parliamentary election.  Read more