Unknown election outcome is stocks’ big fear
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A handful of toss-up U.S. Senate races this week could hold the key to whether the stock market glides through the year-end in a typical post-midterm election rally or gets hit with a fresh bout of volatility.
East German town shows ‘flourishing landscapes’ within reach at last
SONNEBERG Germany (Reuters) – Once hemmed in by the Iron Curtain, the eastern German town of Sonneberg has undergone something of an economic miracle, proving that the long, painful transition from communism can bear fruit at last.
How the wheels came off for Sanofi’s CEO
PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) – Chris Viehbacher speaks plainly. “We had somewhat of a mess in Brazil,” he told financial analysts in August 2013, “so that’s why I decided to change management.”
Ryanair hikes profit forecast on surge in winter bookings
DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ryanair hiked its annual profit forecast almost 20 percent on Monday on a surge in winter bookings and said it would slash fares by up to 10 percent in the new year to steal more market share from struggling higher-cost rivals.
Toyota says Oct China auto sales up 27.1 percent year/year
BEIJING (Reuters) – Toyota Motor Corp and its two Chinese joint ventures sold about 104,700 vehicles in China in October, up 27.1 percent from a year earlier, the Japanese automaker said on Monday.
MetLife to meet skeptical regulators in bid to escape rules
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – MetLife, the largest U.S. insurer, will make a final plea on Monday to a group of U.S. regulators determined to subject it to tougher oversight as they probe which firms could pose a risk to the larger financial system.
China October services growth slips to nine-month low, property weighs
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s services sector grew at its slowest pace in nine months in October as a cooling property sector weighed on demand, a survey showed on Monday, adding to signs of fragility in the world’s second-largest economy.
Cheaper tomorrow? Bank of Japan battles entrenched ‘deflation mindset’
TOKYO (Reuters) – Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda does not need to convince Japanese people like Kazue Shibata that deflation brings problems, but getting them to believe that higher prices will make things better is proving to be a harder sell….
Japan economy minister calls for fiscal stimulus if third-quarter GDP data weak
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese Economy Minister Akira Amari said on Monday that the government should deploy fresh fiscal stimulus to prop up the economy if third-quarter preliminary gross domestic data due on Nov. 17 turns out weak, public broadcaster NHK…
Daimler opens Beijing R&D center to tune Mercedes-Benz to Chinese tastes: exec
BEIJING (Reuters) – Daimler AG has opened a research and development (R&D) center in Beijing tasked with further tuning its Mercedes-Benz brand to wealthy Chinese tastes and closing the sales gap with Audi AG and BMW AG .
