Opinion

In wealthy Western countries with lots of older people, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 has killed roughly 1% of those infected with it, meaning 99% survive. Meanwhile, two new vaccines have so far been found to be about 95% effective in preventing symptoms of the disease. Lots of people seem to have trouble thinking through percentages like these. While I ...

Now that Asia has stitched together the world’s biggest trading bloc, US financial and tech firms ought to be more than a little worried. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, will bind the 10 economies of Southeast Asia with China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, creating a prototype of what my colleague David Fickling describes as “a ...

For Chinese technology companies, January can’t come soon enough. Giants from Huawei Technologies Co. to TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd can have no doubt left: There will be no let-up in the Trump administration’s efforts to entrench its China policy before leaving office. That’s undermining hopes that a change of US president might lead to an easing in the technology cold ...

It may seem strange to be worried about inflation in the midst of a global recession, a pandemic and huge political ructions in the US. How fast this happens depends on how quickly the developed world recovers over the next few months, but pressures are building. As has been the case for many years, global inflation has “Made in Asia” ...

Britain believes it has chosen the ideal moment to throw its weight behind a financial innovation that might help save the world. As part of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s blueprint to fight the climate emergency, the UK is exploring the creation of a London-based international market in carbon offsets, carbon credits and derivatives linked to emissions-cutting investments. The plan sounds ...

The last two US presidents repeatedly stretched the powers of their office to set policies that Congress had refused to enact. Instead of following their example, President-elect Joe Biden should work with Congress to bring the branches of the federal government to a better balance. President Barack Obama’s most controversial executive actions were his unilateral decisions to grant work permits ...

China’s next move to open up its commodities markets may be a step change. As of Thursday, overseas investors will be able to trade copper futures on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange. It’s not the first such product: A yuan-denominated crude oil contract, launched in March 2018, has been modestly successful. A subsequent push to let foreigners trade iron ore ...

The junk bond market’s magic number is 4.56. First, the average yield for the Bloomberg Barclays US corporate high-yield index plunged the most in seven months to 4.56% on November 9, easily breaking the previous all-time low of 4.83% set in June 2014. Then, data compiled by Refinitiv Lipper found that investors poured $4.56 billion into US high-yield bond funds ...

Another Indian bank has failed, the third collapse of a major deposit-taking institution in 15 months and the first since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. But instead of allowing a zombie lender to linger after a half-baked rescue, the central bank has wisely decided to put Lakshmi Vilas Bank Ltd out of its misery. Better still, it’s called upon ...

If you wanted a demonstration of how the world’s largest free trade area is likely to fall short of expectations, you could do worse than look at the customs sheds at Shanghai’s Pudong airport. As final preparations for signing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership pact (RCEP) were being made earlier this month, several metric tons of Australian lobster were being ...