Opinion

As Sergio Ermotti prepares to stand down from the top job at UBS Group AG, he’s providing valedictory proof of the company’s wisdom in retreating from risky trading and lending businesses. The Swiss banking giant isn’t problem free. Pressure on its profit margins is persisting and an attempt to seek growth in Asia amid heightened geopolitical tension will keep his ...

Ant Group’s imminent initial public offering promises to make a lot of people rich, including founder Jack Ma and existing shareholders of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Yet the real benefit to Alibaba is not in the value of its affiliate’s stock, which could fetch a valuation of $200 billion upon listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai, but in the ongoing ...

When the discussion turns to which countries have responded best to Covid-19 — and if nothing else, the pandemic frees up a lot of time for this debate — those most often mentioned are Taiwan, New Zealand and Vietnam. I would like to make a more surprising nomination: the UK Covid-19 is a potential scourge to billions around the globe, ...

After months of hype, the world finally has human trial data from a front-running vaccine collaboration between the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc. Spoiler alert, it’s good news. The data, published in The Lancet , showed that the vaccine produced an encouraging immune response. Just as crucially, perhaps, no significant safety issues emerged. Investors took these developments as a ...

Tesla Inc’s march to a $275 billion market capitalization has been pretty galling for Germany, the birthplace of the automobile. But the pain is felt most acutely at Daimler AG, which used to be a large Tesla shareholder. Had the owner of the luxury Mercedes-Benz brand kept hold of the almost 5 million shares it offloaded in 2014, they would ...

After days of bad-tempered talks, the European Union’s 27 members have agreed a 750 billion-euro ($859 billion) Covid-19 recovery fund that looks like a historic step toward more joint stimulus across the bloc — even if it’s not yet a “Hamilton moment.” While the unusually united Franco-German duo of Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel couldn’t avoid watering down their original ...

Some conservative legal thinkers speak of a “Lost Constitution” or “Constitution in Exile.” By that they mean the Constitution as it was understood before President Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal helped form the modern regulatory state. Their Constitution in Exile would invalidate key parts of contemporary government. Some conservatives want to revive the long-dead “nondelegation doctrine,” which was once taken ...

The debate about stock buybacks — the practice of companies buying their own shares — goes to the heart of modern capitalism. What should companies do with the profits they earn? Should firms distribute these often colossal sums to the underlying shareholders? Or should they plow their earnings back into the company to develop new products and technologies that sustain ...

Winter is coming, but which one? UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson acknowledged last week that there are two possible scenarios: a mild season on the coronavirus front or a viral blizzard. He’d like Britons to start investing, spending and moving around as if the end of 2020 will be benign. He has promised that the government will, however, be ready ...

I n the midst of a devastating pandemic, President Donald Trump is destroying the CDC’s ability to discharge its most vital responsibility: to maintain active surveillance of diseases by gathering, analysing and reporting data. Even by this president’s low standards, this is unconscionable. With Covid-19 surging out of control and healthcare workers in many states struggling to keep up with ...