5 September 2019 FT — Articles to Read

5 September 2019

 

Question: According to MSN: Money, who are the top five largest retailers in the U.S.?

 

Lagarde urges rich nations to spend more – Pg. 2

  • Telling MEPs that “central banks are not the only game in town”, ….urged richer Eurozone governments with low deficits to bolster their crisis-fighting capacities by spending during downturns
  • In remarks aimed at rich economies such as Germany and the Netherlands, …
  • Other major central banks, including in the US, have also moved to loosen monetary policy. This has prompted some economists to warn that central banks are running out of tools to fight recessions as interest rates are already at record low levels
  • The eurozone’s attempts to create a common budgetary instrument for crisis times – pooling money in a central pot to help out troubled economies – have been beset by divisions
  • Ms Lagarde, who, if she wins approval by MEPs, is due to take charge of the ECB on November 1, signaled that she intended to continue Mr Draghi’s policies

 

Spain’s 50-year bond caps recovery as crisis era fades – Pg. 19

  • Spain’s 10-year borrowing costs – along with those of its neighbor Portugal – have sunk to within a whisker of zero, carried by a mighty global bond rally which has seen the volume of negative-yielding debt around the world mushroom to some $17tn
  • Today, a sale of new 50-year Spanish bonds is expected to fetch a yield of roughly 1.5%, if it prices in line with the secondary market
  • For investors who remember the height of the crisis, when Spain’s 10-year yield spiked above 7%, membership of the sub-zero club would cap a stunning victory
  • …the collapse in borrowing costs chiefly reflects a scramble for any relatively stable asset that yields more than zero

 

Answer: #5: Walgreens Boots Alliance; #4: Costco; #3: The Kroger Co.; #2: Amazon.com; #1: Walmart