Opinion

After the worst of the pandemic lockdowns in the spring, as the weather heated up and more people ventured outdoors to hit the golf links or hiking trails, Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc was in a prime position to benefit. The chain notched two quarters of booming comparable sales growth, with e-commerce serving as a key driver. But undergirding the booming ...

Mark Zuckerberg always knew. In 2012, when Instagram was two years old, with 13 employees and no obvious path to profitability, Zuckerberg knew that the fast-growing photo app was a potential threat to Facebook Inc’s social media dominance. “Instagram can hurt us,” he wrote in an email. In an internal discussion about whether to buy Instagram — and other startups ...

In 1920, 14.7% of American farmers were Black. A century later, only 1.4% are — and they earn less money, receive less government support, and occupy smaller farms on average than do their white counterparts. Of the many ailments afflicting rural America in 2020, these racial disparities are some of the most enduring and under-discussed. Is that about to change? ...

Of all the nominees President-elect Joe Biden has so far put forward, Neera Tanden is the one most likely to lose a confirmation battle. She has harshly attacked some Republican senators whose votes she may now need to become the head of the Office of Management and Budget. After the Senate voted to put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, ...

“Perfect miss.” That was the first reaction to the November jobs report I saw on Twitter. And it turned out to be exactly right in the eyes of the $20.4 trillion US Treasury market. The benchmark 10-year yield extended its climb, increasing 6 basis points on the session to 0.97%, breaking through to its highest level since March. Certainly, the ...

After a year-long pause, the euro zone seems ready to resume talks over the completion of a “banking union”. The project — which includes creating a single deposit insurance scheme for all the bloc’s lenders — would go a long way towards boosting the resilience of Europe’s financial system. For all the good intentions, however, the zeitgeist in the monetary ...

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is visiting Brussels for last-ditch talks with Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, on Britain’s future trading relationship with the European Union. In truth, with countless deadlines already broken and forgotten, there’s no last ditch. Regardless of what happens this week, Brexit promises a perpetual supply of new ditches — extending as ...

Republican senators are threatening to refuse to confirm President-elect Joe Biden’s choices for his cabinet. They appear to be especially unhappy about the selection of Neera Tanden to head the Office of Management and Budget, in part because she posted a number of tweets that were sharply critical of them. But they might choose to make the confirmation process a ...

The third rail of Indian politics has always been agriculture. While the economy has been partly liberalised since opening up to the world in 1991, the process has largely bypassed the three-fifths of Indians who depend for their livelihoods, directly or indirectly, on farming. In September, the government finally introduced a much-needed set of changes to how agriculture is organised ...

Judging by the sounds emerging from embassies and trade ministries, you’d think one of China’s most important economic relationships was on the rocks. But currency markets are predicting it’s on the verge of another boom. The Australian dollar hit its highest level in more than two years, capping a 29% rally from its nadir in late March. The moves come ...