Month: December 2019

(Bloomberg Opinion) — It’s been my habit, as the year draws in the day, to offer my predictions for the coming year, but only after doing what every commentator should do — assessing my predictions for the year just ending. So before I get to my predictions for 2020, in the second half of this column, let’s see how I did in 2019.Let’s put one of last year’s prediction right up top:“The Washington Nationals will overcome the loss of superstar Bryce Harper in free agency and win the World Series over the Houston Astros.”Nailed it precisely! If you need end-of-the-year …read more […]

American Action Forum Director of Fiscal Policy Gordon Gray told Yahoo Finance’s YFi PM on Friday that with low interest rates, soaring debt is not sustainable for the U.S. economy. …read more […]

About 96 million Americans expect to get a tax refund in 2020, but most of them don’t understand how they work, according to a survey. …read more […]

President Trump’s proposed social security change could end federal benefits for people with disabilities. Here are answers to common questions. …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Should American investors, $6 trillion richer after the stock market’s best year in six, take shelter now, convinced a reckoning is at hand and the good times won’t last? As far as earnings, the economy and equities themselves are concerned, the answer is no.Or at least, not necessarily. Past performance isn’t always indicative of future results. But if you’re looking at the size of this year’s gains and deciding they somehow doom 2020 to being a disaster, history suggests a more nuanced approach is called for.Good stretches in stocks are not usually followed by bad ones. When the …read more […]

Our American health care system has more pain points than we’re always able to identify. …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — The Turkish central bank raised reserve requirement ratios for foreign currency deposits and participation funds by 200 basis points in a step that will mop up foreign currency liquidity from the market.Reserve requirement ratios for foreign currency deposits at notice, with no fixed term and for maturities ranging from one month to a year, were raised to 19% from 17%, according to a ruling published by the nation’s official gazette on Saturday. Ratios were raised to 15% from 13% for foreign currency deposits dated more than a year.Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak previously hinted that policy makers …read more […]

It’s a bullish start to the day, as the holidays deliver some much-needed relief. Holding on through the mid-afternoon will be key, however. …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Australia is in the grip of another heatwave with temperatures forecast to soar over the weekend, exacerbating deadly wildfires that have ravaged the nation for months.Severe heat will spread across the southeast of the country over the next few days, building to “extreme” conditions in some areas, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. Parts of western Sydney are expected to reach 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) by New Year’s Eve.The intense weather could worsen blazes that have already burnt out more than 6 million acres of forest and bush land — and area larger than New Jersey …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Don Imus, a U.S. talk-radio host famed for his verbal grenades and jocular interviews with prominent figures in the media, politics and sports, has died. He was 79.Imus died Friday morning at the Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in College Station, Texas, according to a statement from publicist Matthew Hiltzik. With a weekday morning show on radio and cable television for more than 40 years, Imus had a career that spanned generations of on-air formats.From his early days in New York as a song-spinning disc jockey who often asked female callers if they were naked, Imus thrived …read more […]

Low crude prices have left the U.S. oil industry has been teetering on the edge, and even more bankruptcies are on the horizon in 2020 …read more […]

Dec.27 — Gene Munster, Loup Ventures managing partner, discusses his top tech predictions for 2020 with Bloomberg’s Taylor Riggs on “Bloomberg Technology.” …read more […]