Opinion

The Federal Reserve’s first attempt to stabilise the US economy in the face of the threat from the coronavirus seems to have failed. On March 3, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decided to cut the so-called fed funds interest rate by 50 basis points, from a range of 1.5% to 1.75% to a new range of 1% to 1.25%. ...

When a financial crisis erupted in the US a little more than a decade ago, the impact rapidly spread to all corners of the globe and idled factories in far-distant China. The Covid-19 outbreak has had a similar impact, with manufacturing brought to a halt from a disaster that started in China and escalated worldwide. One example is Hon Hai ...

The coronavirus epidemic has forced governments to make difficult choices. One of the hardest — and perhaps most symbolic — is whether to shut down schools to contain the contagion. Any generalised lockdown would inevitably take a toll on the children and their working parents. The limited evidence we have, however, shows that this measure can be effective in slowing ...

Healthcare stocks took their own victory lap on Joe Biden’s Super Tuesday comeback in the Democratic presidential primary. Shares of health insurers, providers, and drugmakers all outperformed the broader market on March 04. It’s not an entirely unreasonable move. The former vice president’s health policies would be substantially less disruptive to the industry than Bernie Sanders’s “Medicare for All” single-payer ...

The coronavirus outbreak has been turning a lot of us into amateur epidemiologists. Just listen to Mick Mulvaney, the former real estate developer and member of Congress from South Carolina who is now acting White House chief of staff. “The flu kills people,” he said. “This is not Ebola. It’s not Sars, it’s not Mers. It’s not a death sentence, ...

Europe’s lenders are staring at yet another possible crisis, this time not of their own making, and the brutal reality is that the European Central Bank can do very little to help them. That’s bad news for the real economy too. The economic hit from the rapid spread of the coronavirus will probably mean another spate of loans turning bad, ...

Even Richard Branson couldn’t provide the spark needed to save struggling Flybe. The UK’s largest domestic airline collapsed into administration on March 05 after failing to secure a last-ditch bailout from the government. There is no doubt that the coronavirus played a part in Flybe’s demise. The spread of the deadly disease is having a devastating effect travel and tourism. ...

Throughout the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign and at many points during the Brexit debates that followed, a free trade deal with the US was dangled by Brexiters as the prize that beckoned if only they’d hold their nerve. That prize may soon be there for the taking, but the closer it gets, the less impressive it looks. The Boris Johnson’s ...

Intu Properties Plc is in an almighty pickle. The owner of the Lakeside and Trafford Centre shopping malls has said that it had been unable to raise between 1 billion pounds ($1.3 billion) and 1.5 billion pounds of equity. That’s not surprising. Even before the outbreak of the new coronavirus, tapping shareholders looked like a long shot. Intu has 4.5 ...

Standard Chartered Plc investors should be careful what they wish for. Shares in the emerging markets lender rose on March 3 after Bloomberg News reported that Chairman Jose Vinals has informally approached banking executives to gauge interest in replacing Chief Executive Officer Bill Winters, who’s about to complete five years at the Asia-focused bank. StanChart responded to the story by ...