Opinion

There’s no way to dress up the terrible 12 months Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has faced since the aborted debut of its fintech division. But let’s imagine for a moment what might have happened had Ant Group Co’s dual listings gone ahead, if only to consider where the Chinese e-commerce giant’s problems truly lie. In a parallel universe, where founder ...

Inflation is so 2021. Walmart Inc has already been preparing quietly for the day prices drop so that it can beat rivals to the punch and hold on to all the customers it has gained during the pandemic. Other retailers should take notice. “We’re out there asking suppliers even now, ‘Do any of you want to get aggressive and swim ...

It looks as though the White House may have finally figured out the obvious: It’s time to roll out Covid-19 booster shots to everyone, ASAP. Medical specialists are still debating the extent to which boosters are strictly necessary, given that one- and two-dose vaccine regimens seem to be protecting people against life-threatening disease. And there’s an ethical debate about whether ...

The premise that the dollar is the world’s safe haven is a constant in this ever-changing world. It’s certainly proving true this year. The US Dollar Index, known as the DXY and measuring the dollar’s value against the world’s major currencies, is at its highest since July 2020 and looks poised to surge even more, fueled by eyewateringly high US ...

After the red-hot US consumer price index reading of 6.2%, debate around what the Federal Reserve should do about inflation has reached a fever pitch. There are two prevailing schools of thought: The Fed should do nothing. The Fed should speed up the pace at which it gradually tightens monetary policy. Some of those who side with view No. 1 ...

Two of the world’s richest men, fighting over a near-bankrupt Indian retailer, have made so much noise that its board has woken up super cranky. In less than a week, the three independent directors of Future Retail Ltd have shot off two letters to the country’s competition authority, alleging that Amazon.com had deliberately misled the regulator about the true nature ...

There’s an old joke about a traveller asking for directions on a country road. “If I was going there,” the local guide eventually concludes, “I wouldn’t start from here.” That’s the situation President Joe Biden was expected to face in working out how to re-establish a dialogue on trade with China’s President Xi Jinping in their virtual summit. If you ...

It’s not often you hear someone brag about buying coffee with “money” — unless you’re moving among Bitcoin circles. Being able to use the cryptocurrency at chains like Starbucks Corp and Pizza Hut is being touted as a payments revolution by the looks of various selfies and videos coming out of El Salvador. President Nayib Bukele established Bitcoin as legal ...

That’s another old chestnut ticked off global business’s to-do list. After General Electric Co and Johnson & Johnson decided to break themselves up, oil major Royal Dutch Shell Plc is also taking an obvious long-standing idea from the shelf and turning it into action. Plans to scrap its Anglo-Dutch structure to coalesce around a UK domicile underscore the tremendous pressure ...

The recent gubernatorial election in Virginia and the British government’s campaign against “woke” cultural institutions provide the latest evidence that White nationalism is becoming the unabashedly central ideology of the traditional parties of the right on both sides of the Atlantic. Confoundingly at a time of widespread economic distress, Republicans in the United States and the Conservatives in the United ...