A bright banner at NATO’s lavish new headquarters here proclaims the core conviction of the trans-Atlantic alliance: “We are together. We are strong.” But the words seem a bit hollow these days, as President Trump escalates his attacks on America’s traditional European partners. Trump’s “America First” policies have shaken many of the nations that looked to Washington as their ally ...

The UK Labour Party’s plan to set the Bank of England a productivity target must rank among the worst ideas ever conceived for a central bank. It runs against pretty much everything economists believe should be the role of a monetary authority. And it would amount to an outright admission of defeat by elected politicians, whose task it is to ...

It certainly appears dovish that the European Central Bank (ECB) expects to reinvest even more of its maturing holdings next year, as Bloomberg News reported. It’s even more so if, as President Mario Draghi has suggested, officials relax the rules on how much time they can take to make reinvestments — more flexibility here gives them room to smooth ructions ...

The government must be ecstatic, and the prime minister’s tailor even happier. Greece has secured a much more generous than expected deal that should allow it to put its bailout behind it and let Alexis Tsipras put on the tie he promised to forgo until the country’s debt woes were over. But there remains one sticking point: whether the country ...

When European Union (EU) heads meet at the end of this month, they are likely to issue a warning to bureaucracies and firms to step up preparations for a no-deal Brexit, also known as a ‘hard’ or ‘cliff-edge’ Brexit, because that’s where things appear to be heading in the talks between the EU and the UK. At this point, it’s ...

There are few places for investors to hide when a global trade war is about to erupt and the US Treasury yield curve threatens to invert. Japan may be one. The nation’s stock market has been relatively calm this year, with the Topix index down less than 2 percent in dollar terms. This is noteworthy considering a third of revenue ...

The Permian basin is the center of shale’s world, whether it fascinates investors or, as today, repels them. The recent selloff has obscured that. The Permian’s denizens are currently victims of their own success. Production of oil and gas has outrun the pipeline capacity to get it all to market, leading to steep discounts being taken on some of it. ...

Bloomberg The speed of the instant payment highway has regulators in Norway thinking about the guardrails. The central bank is stepping up efforts to improve the country’s banking infrastructure as the spreading use of instant payments drives credit risk higher at banks. The problem lies in the fact that customers get their money before it’s actually transferred to their banks. ...

Bloomberg Investors have seen the peak of the US 10-year Treasury yield this year as brewing trade tensions and a stronger dollar curb its advance, according to Morgan Stanley. “3.12 percent was it,” Morgan Stanley global head of interest-rate strategy Matthew Hornbach wrote in a note to clients. “We suggest investors buy 10-year Treasury notes outright,” he said, with the ...

Bloomberg The Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s new Chief Executive Officer Matt Comyn has embarked on a massive overhaul of the scandal-plagued lender, announcing plans to spin off its wealth management and mortgage-broking businesses. The asset management, wealth advisory and Aussie Home Loans units will be placed into a new company known as CFS Group to be listed on the Australian ...