Opinion

  Markets are never perfect in their predictive abilities but they tend to be forward-looking in how they trade to anticipate what will happen next. Take last week’s interest-rate increase by the Federal Reserve, its third since December 2015, and the bond market. Bond yields have been rising for some time. In what some investors are calling a generational bottom …

  Immigration is the topic of the day. The political right, after once embracing a laissez-faire policy toward immigration — President Ronald Reagan signed an amnesty for undocumented immigrants and President George W Bush tried unsuccessfully to do the same — appears to want to choke off the inflow of newcomers. Even legal immigration is being targeted for reduction. This …

  The UK government will soon invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to begin divorce proceedings from the European Union. The Scottish government is seeking to hold a second independence referendum before Brexit talks wind up. An otherwise uneventful Bank of England meeting had one interest-rate dissenter with others potentially sympathetic as inflation stirs. But if you look at …

  When Donald Trump announced that he would nominate Wall Street lawyer Jay Clayton to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, he cited the need to “undo many regulations which have stifled investment in American business.” At Clayton’s confirmation hearing this week, senators should ask exactly what that means. Scrutiny of Clayton has so far focused on his close ties …

  Having made rookie mistakes, Trump must be thinking to change his tack on policies. Just two months old, Trump presidency is in disarray. Trump’s first policy setback came after his executive order banning travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries was blocked by US courts. Even the revamped travel ban failed to convince US judges that it was not a Muslim …

  Want to switch on the TV? Wait for the entire family to gather in the evening. That’s one of the strategies that Philippine Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi says his countrymen use to squeeze the most juice out of electricity. When President Rodrigo Duterte gets a moment from his drugs war, a busy economic agenda is crying out for attention. …

  It’s never easy for American businesses to make it in China. Cultural differences, government interference and the sheer cost of competing in a market that dwarfs the US have frustrated companies ranging from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to Uber Technologies Inc. Those stumbles aren’t dissuading Airbnb Inc., however. This week the home-sharing pioneer announced that it’s changing its local brand …

  Silicon Valley technology executives tend to be control freaks. Snapchat’s founders made sure they didn’t have to listen to stockholders when deciding how to run the company. When Marissa Mayer was a senior Google executive, she instructed her staff to test 41 shades of blue to find just the right color for a website toolbar. Jack Dorsey made sure …

  There was bound to be a political commotion when the Trump administration released its 2018 budget. After all, it isn’t every day that the White House proposes deep cuts in agency spending: for 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency would be down 31 percent; the State Department, 29 percent; the Department of Education, 14 percent; and the Department of Transportation, …

  America, one; Europe, nil. In Asia, at least, US financial institutions are climbing up the investment banking league tables while their euro-area counterparts sink. But Wall Street should not start celebrating now. How long their current reign lasts will depend to a large degree on how long fixed income, currencies and commodities business remains robust. Deutsche Bank AG, weighed …