Labour

Corona Capital: Record Dow, Basketball, GoCompare

25 Nov 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Vaccine optimism shunts the blue-chip Dow Jones index through 30,000; U.S. college basketball gets back on the court; and UK publisher Future snaps up the bargain-hunting website.

Review: “Industry” shows banking is due a facelift

13 Nov 2020

The new BBC and HBO series follows graduate recruits navigating the pressures of a fictional investment bank. It overstates the responsibility juniors can have. But its portrayal of an old-fashioned work style rings true. To lure talented youngsters, the industry needs a shakeup.

Corona Capital: Warren Buffett, Burger boost

9 Nov 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Rising share prices take the sting out of Berkshire Hathaway’s Covid-19 profit hit; and McDonald’s reports a good quarter for American nugget-lovers.

Uber victory saves its model not its valuation

4 Nov 2020

California voters approved measures that keep the ride-sharing firm from treating drivers as employees but require it to pay healthcare and other perks. Uber avoided punishing costs. But its expensive fight underscores how much the environment for the shared economy has changed.

Only a twin-track approach will rescue UK economy

2 Nov 2020

Finance minister Rishi Sunak will spend more to soften the impact of a new lockdown and the Bank of England is likely to loosen policy again. It won’t stop insolvencies or economic scarring. Retraining workers of all ages and encouraging productivity-boosting investment is vital.

Corona Capital: Gilead Sciences, Virtual Santa

23 Oct 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Remdesivir gets formal approval; Santa goes missing from Macy’s.

U.S. airline staff now need aid more than carriers

22 Oct 2020

Southwest and American’s losses continued last quarter. But they both fortified cash resources enough to fund the status quo for at least a year. Meantime, employees are the losers from the financial and political squeeze. Fresh government help needs to more clearly benefit them.

Corona Capital: Quibi

22 Oct 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Video streaming company Quibi’s failure is in spite of – not because of – the Covid-19 pandemic.

Corona Capital: U.S. state budget woes

20 Oct 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Some conservative U.S. states are hurting as much as liberal New York.

Corona Capital: Bankers, Virus vices, Student digs

8 Oct 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Japan’s Mizuho tries to get its employees to take it easy; smokers and gamblers struggle to kick the habit during lockdown; UK landlord Unite Group finds even student property is not immune to Covid-19.

European Union will be bond market’s new behemoth

7 Oct 2020

The need to fund pandemic aid schemes worth nearly 1 trillion euros will make the EU one of the region’s largest issuers. ECB bond buying and investors’ hunger for safe assets mean that is no problem. And the scale of issuance will make its debt more liquid, a prized quality.

Corona Capital: Donald Trump, Kenzo Takada

5 Oct 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: U.S. President Donald Trump’s fight with the coronavirus could lead to a less fiercely contested election result; the death of Japanese designer Kenzo Takada comes at a bad time for the global fashion industry.

Rishi Sunak’s UK economic safety net has a tear

24 Sep 2020

The finance minister’s new job retention scheme will avoid unemployment surging when furloughs wind up yet costs less than the old arrangement. That’s helpful. But his plan does too little for low-skilled service workers whose roles may disappear forever, and who need training.

Corona Capital: Coca-Cola, Viral inequality

22 Sep 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Coca-Cola, once an icon of temperance, is diving into the hard seltzer market; and California is considering using the disparity in numbers of Covid cases between neighborhoods to steer its response.

Corona Capital: Millionaire tax, Rent the Runway

18 Sep 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: New Jersey taxes the rich to help close a budget gap; and high fashion has trouble competing against sweats.

Corona Capital: Peloton, New York City

11 Sep 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Peloton is on a tear with earnings exceeding expectations but it may burn out soon; more than 150 business leaders write to Mayor Bill de Blasio over the Big Apple’s deteriorating conditions.

UK job market is heading for rude awakening

8 Sep 2020

Finance minister Rishi Sunak is scheduled to wind up a government furlough scheme in October. This could see unemployment nearly treble to its highest since the mid-1980s, KPMG forecasts. Grocers like Tesco are hiring, but the pay is relatively low. That will stunt recovery.

Home working will delay not kill office recovery

26 Aug 2020

Some big firms have declared remote working to be new normal. Such fervour is making big city property a buyers’ market, with shorter and cheaper leases and less new construction. But there are still good reasons to work in offices – more spacious ones than in pre-Covid days.

German union will get half its four-day-week wish

26 Aug 2020

IG Metall wants to save jobs by cutting workers’ hours, but without proportional pay cuts. Shorter workweeks make sense for employers, staff and the economy. The per-hour wage hike only suits employees. Dire growth prospects give bosses the upper hand in negotiations.

Seoul’s Green New Deal plants seeds for recovery

17 Jul 2020

Tackling climate change is at the centre of President Moon Jae-in's $133 bln stimulus plan. The country has a dismal environmental record, and previous green initiatives have disappointed. But the pandemic gives Moon a mandate to try again. Sceptics should give him a chance.