Facebook insists that people can trust it to manage its giant social network in a way that doesn’t undermine democracy. I say verify: Let’s send in an army of scientists to study its role in the upcoming 2018 elections. There’s been too little research into how Facebook influenced the last election, even though there’s plenty of reason to think it ...

The UK government has all but approved Rupert Murdoch’s bid to take full control of Sky Plc. That’s good news for the satellite broadcaster’s shareholders. It’s also a sign that even the most controversial foreign offers for British companies have a fighting chance of success. UK Culture Secretary Matt Hancock said he will clear the bid by Murdoch’s 21st Century ...

America is easing open the gates for Chinese acquirers. A key (and opaque) US national security panel gave a real estate firm the all-clear to purchase Genworth Financial Inc., an insurer specializing in long-term care, after the Beijing-based company gave assurances on data privacy. The weekend nod from the Com­mit­tee on For­eign In­vest­ment in the US for China Oceanwide Holdings ...

One reason the US and China can’t figure out how to negotiate on trade may be that the Americans are making two sets of demands that are antithetical to each other, without even realizing it. On one side are threatened sanctions targeting the Made in China 2025 program of technology development and those against ZTE Corp. The headline tariffs, sometimes ...

It’s time the cryptocurrency community got its act together. In this relatively new industry, hacks and frauds have been greeted with a shrug and largely dismissed as part of the process of building a superior financial system. True believers are convinced that Bitcoin and its siblings will overthrow fiat currencies and the existing structures to which they’re attached. At their ...

The meetings of the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank (ECB) this week are likely to show that these systemically important institutions continue to gradually move away from the policy approach they adopted to contain the trauma of the global financial crisis from 2010 to 2017. Yet the two institutions are making this shift at different speeds, and that ...

Bloomberg The meeting between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un was met with a collective shrug by global markets, which appear to be more fixated on a host of macro events and data due in a few days. The S&P 500 Index rose slightly early on Tuesday, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped and yields on 10-year Treasuries pushed ...

Bloomberg Insiders at tech heavyweights led by Facebook Inc.’s Mark Zuckerberg are selling stock at the fastest pace in six years, cashing in on buoyant equity markets. Senior executives and directors of Facebook, Amazon.com Inc., Netflix Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc. have disposed of $4.58 billion of stock this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. They’re on track ...

Bloomberg Whatever Mario Draghi says about the European Central Bank’s bond-buying program this week, he’s not likely to provide much more clarity about his plans for interest rates. The ECB president and his colleagues will discuss, and may announce, an end to asset purchases when they meet on Thursday. But they’ve so far brushed off questions on how they might ...

Bloomberg Berlin-based Solarisbank AG wants to reach a break-even on a monthly basis by the end of next year, CEO Roland Folz said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “Until then, we do not plan any further rounds of financing to keep all options open for our shareholders, including a profitable ‘keep it up’, additional investments or also an IPO,” ...