Special purpose acquisition companies, or Spacs, have taken Wall Street by storm this year. Spacs are shell companies that raise money by listing on the stock exchange. They have no business plan other than to acquire a company that will eventually go public. Spacs have raised more than $55bn this year, but as the FT’s Ortenca Aliaj explains, they may not be the best return on investment.
Over the past 12 months Covid-19 has curtailed countless business activities, but not money laundering. The UN estimates some $1.6tn is laundered every year, and authorities say lockdown measures have presented criminals with even greater opportunities...
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Despite the coronavirus pandemic, in 2020, the world’s five wealthiest individuals saw their collective worth increase by more than $250bn.
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Covid-19 has led to an ecommerce surge in grocery sales. But grocers are struggling to make any money from online home deliveries.
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Covid-19 won’t mark a turning point for globalisation itself, reveals new research from UBS, as it’s been in retreat for the better part of 15 years.
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Cash is on the decline, and the coronavirus could well hasten its demise. During lockdowns, consumers shifted to online retail and were encouraged not to use cash, to prevent the spread of the virus.
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UBS Research argues the Covid-19 pandemic could act as a catalyst to increased life expectancy over the long-term, thanks to improvements in health tech, a policy pivot on obesity and a positive shift in consumer attitudes towards health.
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The tech evolution enabling business model revolutions. 5G could cover up to sixty percent of the global population, and reach up to one and a half billion subscribers within five years.
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Scores of electric car start-ups have been launched over the past few years, but many may have failed to recognise the size of the challenges involved.
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ESG investing has gone from niche to mainstream in twenty years. Meanwhile, a growing consciousness of the plight facing the planet has had little impact on key indicators for its future.
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In China, the use of texting to shop, hail cabs or buy groceries is the norm.
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Do companies like Apple and Amazon pay a fair amount of tax? Some think not.
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We are on the cusp of a new agriculture revolution – and investor appetite is strong.
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Uber. Lyft. Snap. These US tech groups floated with multibillion-dollar valuations, yet all of them made losses last year, one-offs excluded.
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UBS Evidence Lab developed a simulation model for a fleet of taxis in NYC which concluded that the global market could be worth more than two trillion dollars by the end of 2030.
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Rogue traders can cost banks billions. Now, some are using artificial intelligence programmes to flag suspicious behaviour, looking at everything from how traders phrase their emails to the times they use their computers.
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50 years since man first set foot on the moon, the business opportunity presented by space travel has morphed from science-fiction to reality.
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The rise of financialisation has been a driving force in the global economy for the last few decades.
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The worldwide AI race is on. China’s openly targeting global leadership by 2030, and it’s well on the way. AI's fuelled by data, and that gives China a competitive advantage.
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The US dollar is a symbol of American strength. But America’s share of global economic power is waning, and many countries resent the dollar’s dominance as a reserve currency.
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Tesla's ramping up production of the Model 3. But is the electric vehicle evolutionary, or revolutionary?
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Robots are on the march, sparking much debate about what to do with the workers they’ll replace.
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A full-blown trade war between the US and China could mean global GDP decelerates by more than 100 basis points, and major global equity indices tumble by more than 20 percent.
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The Financial Conduct Authority has won praise around the world with a so-called sandbox, where UK fintech companies can test products with temporary authorisation.
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A world order of peaceful co-operation feels like a distant dream. Democracy and global capitalism are increasingly under threat and nativist sentiment is spreading.
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UBS estimates global online food ordering could leap from $35bn dollars today to $365bn by 2030. It’s thanks to a convergence of the on-demand and sharing economies, and a combination of industrial, economic and demographic factors.
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Last year, including share purchases, more than $62bn was deployed by activist investors on their campaigns, double the amount spent in 2016. At the same time, activism is changing.
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Regulatory reforms are set to revolutionise China’s Financial Services industry, opening up numerous opportunities for international investors.
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Fake news is now a political weapon. Tech platforms have been used to manipulate elections and political outcomes, not just in the US but in Europe and developing countries too.
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The fall of the US dollar has been a big market story in 2018, and despite a strong recovery in the second quarter of the year market commentators say this could be a long-term trend.
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On paper, India is a demographic diamond in the rough. In the next decade, the ratio of its population at working age is set to surpass China’s.
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Former US vice-president Al Gore is on a mission to prove the business case for sustainable investment.
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Switzerland has long been a global economic hub. Now it’s embracing the potential of cryptocurrencies and digital tokens. Last year, four of the biggest initial coin offerings - when start-ups sell tokens to investors – were based in Switzerland.
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Following the financial crisis, central banks bought trillions of dollars worth of financial assets – mostly bonds - to pump up their economies.
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In 2017 initial coin offerings, the latest tech craze, raised more than $6bn. But there is little regulation for these digital tokens, and they can be risky investments.
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There’s a macro-micro divide in emerging markets. The IMF and BIS are warning against rising corporate debt, yet P/E ratios are soaring.
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The rise of cryptocurrencies, contactless cards and mobile payments has led to predictions that we are at the dawn of a cashless society.
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Some of the world’s most important central bankers are leaving their posts, and their successors will have to deal with fast-growing technological innovations such as cryptocurrencies.
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Global eSports revenues are predicted to hit $1.5bn by 2020. Fans are young, passionate, and given they’re 38% female, a marketer’s dream. In 2017, the finals of 'League of Legends’, owned by China’s Tencent, had a total of 1.2 billion views.
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In an effort to stamp out unethical behaviour and cut costs, banks have cut staff and – in many cases – robots are taking their places.
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With consumption rising, the only way humanity can maintain or improve its standard of living is to do more with less. That requires innovation and productivity. Diversity is absolutely essential for this.
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Nasdaq’s technology pairs buyers and sellers of financial assets at lightning speed. Now it is exploring ways to enable trade beyond its traditional markets - from ticket sales to container space.
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In the US and Asia, capex has been driving improvements in corporate performance. Now, after 6 sluggish years, a positive trend has emerged in Europe as well.
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Just over a year ago the renminbi passed a significant milestone when the IMF included it in its Special Drawing Rights currency basket, along with the dollar, pound, euro and yen.
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Robo-taxis are coming. Singapore will be testing vehicles as early as next year, and ultimately they could prove significantly cheaper and more popular than current mass-transit systems.
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By 2021 women will be in charge of $18tn worth of the world’s wealth. Their control is rising more quickly than men, but what is behind this growth?
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These are uncertain times for global trade, and not just because of Donald Trump’s protectionist rhetoric.
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Asia's R&D spend is on track to exceed Europe and the US combined by 2020. But which countries are innovating, what are the implications and are investors pricing in the potential?
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Many of the core ideas behind Adam Smith’s vision of capitalism are being ignored.
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By 2025, cross-border data flows could be worth $20tn, more than current global trade in goods.
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There’s been a boom in passive investment since the turn of the millennium, channeling the flow of capital away from mutual funds into hedge funds and sector specialists.
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For the past three decades western multinationals have been outsourcing production to low-cost countries such as China.
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The ECB’s quantitative easing programme is still expanding and has now reached more than €2tn.
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2017 promised to be a strong year for the US economy, driven by the Trump trade. But things have gone off the boil and the dollar has remained weak.
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The drive towards a cashless society may eventually eliminate cash-based crimes, but there are myriad ways our digital life can be exploited by criminals and even governments.
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Since the global financial crisis, major central banks have printed money and bought assets worth $12tn. But can we now return monetary policy to something like normal?
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22 fintech companies around the world are now worth more than $1bn and bankers are becoming worried about these upstarts, especially since new legislation in Europe may force them to share precious customer data with their fintech rivals.
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More and more governments are aiming to phase out cash, ostensibly to curb tax avoidance and criminal activity, while some countries are making leaps and bounds towards a cashless future without a backwards glance.
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Electric Vehicles are going mainstream, but when will they become profitable for manufacturers, and which sectors and firms are set to benefit the most?
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The cryptocurrency that was invented to disrupt traditional banking through its decentralised model is under increasing strain as it grows in popularity.
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As the process of Brexit continues, the UK’s neighbours are eyeing up the business they can take from London, and the City’s banking sector is the real prize.
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What if the traditional approach of treating labour as a cost, rather than an asset, was turned on its head?
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Unprecedented bond defaults have economists worried about the levels of Chinese debt.
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If the US put tariffs on Chinese goods, the impact would be felt way beyond the borders of both countries. China is the world’s biggest exporter, but it’s also the second biggest importer, with many of those imports coming from other Asian countries.
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Nearly a decade of low interest rates coupled with tax advantages have encouraged many companies to opt for debt to underpin their growth. But could this era be coming to an end?
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A number of governments, central banks and even some economists now advocate a switch to all-digital currencies. With the rapid rise of mobile payments, the long-term survival of cash seems precarious.
Watch videoCovid-19 has led to an ecommerce surge in grocery sales. But grocers are struggling to make any money from online home deliveries. For many years, retailers have been daunted by the capital spending and technical challenges of offering online food shopping at scale. But help could be at hand in the form of new technologies, combined with agreements between retailers and food delivery apps.
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