(Bloomberg) -- Stocks fell in Europe and Asia along with U.S. equity futures as investors took in worsening American coronavirus figures and assessed the impact of the pandemic on corporate profits and dividends. The dollar climbed with Treasuries.Banks led the decline in the Stoxx Europe 600 index after lenders including HSBC Holdings Plc and Standard Chartered Plc halted dividends and share buybacks. Futures on the S&P 500 Index slid as much as 3.6% after President Donald Trump warned of a “painful” two weeks ahead, with the country grappling to get the outbreak under control and New York City’s death toll now topping 1,000.Stocks in Japan hit session lows in the final hour of trading, closing down almost 4%. Hong Kong shares also dropped. Chinese equities outperformed as a private reading on the country’s manufacturing sector beat expectations, rebounding in March.Stocks are beginning the new quarter with more declines, hot on the...
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Here’s another factor to add to the gyrations in the gold price over the past few weeks: The biggest players in the market may be losing their buying appetite.Russia’s central bank, one of the world’s largest gold buyers in recent years, is halting all purchases of the metal. It’s not alone: Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, whose central banks have also been reliable consumers of late, have also slowed down. Rolling three-month additions to official sector gold holdings (those held by central banks and international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund) in January amounted to just 67 metric tons, the slowest pace since August 2018. The official sector owns about a fifth of the gold that was ever mined, and was the biggest buyer last year after jewelry consumers. The last time it turned a net seller, in the 1990s and early 2000s, gold prices cratered. Should history repeat itself, the current spike in the market would...
Driving is one of the most dangerous work activities people can do and that danger increases significantly when adverse weather conditions (like heavy snow, heatwaves, fog and so on) occur. ...
Telematics has transformed fleet management from an art to a science. With the near-real-time data provided by solutions, such as AT&T Fleet Management, fleet managers now have tools to accurately manage the lifecycles of their trucks. ...
Many fleets are adopting electric or hybrid vehicles to meet sustainability targets and environmental regulations. From lower battery prices to increased charger availability, here are six electric vehicle trends expected in 2020. ...
Popular video-conferencing company Zoom Video Communications (ZM) is facing a privacy suit for allegedly disclosing personal data to third parties without full user consent. Shares pulled back 3.6% in trading on March 31. The complaint states that Zoom's “wholly inadequate program design and security measures have resulted, and will continue to result, in unauthorized disclosure of its users’ personal information." Robert Cullen of Sacramento alleges that Zoom violated California’s Consumer Privacy Act. He is looking to represent a class of users harmed by the breach, and is seeking damages under the act and punitive damages.Indeed, tech publication Motherboard recently disclosed that Zoom’s iOS app was sharing data with social media giant Facebook (FB). However Zoom was quick to respond by removing the code responsible.“Zoom takes its users’ privacy extremely seriously. We originally implemented the ‘Login with Facebook’ feature using the Facebook SDK in order to provide our users with another convenient...
