Opinion

  India’s slow-moving banking crisis continues to drag on, as ponderous and unstoppable as the state-controlled banking sector itself. A recent study found that the gross “non-performing assets” of state banks rose 56% in 2016, and 135% in the last two years. They now account for 11% of all state bank loans. These are hardly reassuring numbers. Yet the government—which, …

  An aging, fading, military-controlled Thai economy is on the cusp of its long-delayed infrastructure revolution, but you wouldn’t know it from the share prices of the big four in the nation’s construction industry. Ch. Karnchang Pcl, the largest by market value, fell to a four-month low last Friday after tepid results at its power and transportation units. While rising …

  Perhaps even more than in the typical debate over tech company IPOs, opinions are split on whether Snapchat’s shares are worth buying in its initial public offering and whether it will prove a fit and lasting public company. The answer to the first question will come on Wednesday, when Snapchat is expected to close its first stock sale to …

  One of the most startling allegations in a January report by US intelligence agencies about Russian hacking was this sentence: “Russia has sought to influence elections across Europe.” This warning of a campaign far broader than the US got little attention in America. We may be missing the forest for the trees in the Russia story: The Kremlin’s attempt …

  Standard Chartered Plc’s shares soared over the past year on hopes that CEO Bill Winters was turning around the troubled emerging markets lender. From Friday’s disappointing earnings, it appears investors had run ahead of themselves. There’s still no sign of a return to dividends, and the growth outlook is far from strong. While StanChart swung to a pretax profit …

  To adapt the Bard: “O, wonder! … O brave new world.” Or seven of them, as it happens. Researchers revealed on Wednesday that they’ve uncovered these intriguing planets swirling outside the solar system, all of them rocky and Earth-sized. Three seem temperate enough to support life. And all are orbiting a small, dim star just 40 light-years away. The …

  Anti-Brexit campaigner and many European leaders had warned Britain of huge economic loss after it quits EU. But the other side of the coin is that even European Union will lose on multiple fronts due to Brexit. EU would not just be losing a vital component, but also one of its richest countries, with its biggest defense budget and …

  Losing 4.3 billion barrels of reserves could be just what Exxon Mobil Corp. needed. There’s no denying that having almost one in five barrels of oil equivalent of your proved reserves slip off the books, as Exxon announced this week, isn’t the company’s finest hour. Coming just after Exxon took a $2 billion asset impairment, it looks like newly …

  JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s market value has surged by about 60 percent in the past 12 months to $326 billion, making it the largest U.S. lender by that measure. But when executives, shareholders and analysts gather for the bank’s investor day next week, they may have other yardsticks on their minds. The New York-based bank has yet to meet …

  This should be a good time to be an American Internet company in Taiwan. The new president, Tsai Ing-wen, has pledged to build an Asian Silicon Valley on the island. And the new American president, Donald Trump has threatened a trade war with Taiwan’s rival in mainland China. The stars would appear to be aligned. So it’s surprising that …