Opinion

Almost all of Asia’s central bankers have said the economic risks from the Wuhan coronavirus are significant. Then why aren’t they all taking action? In a slew of interest-rate meetings, policymakers have been all over the map. Thailand surprised most economists by reducing rates, while the Philippines cut and India held, as anticipated. The Reserve Bank of Australia acknowledged the ...

I can’t remember the last time I bought a pen. Why would I? The globe is covered with a great sloshing tide of writing implements that ebb and flow between restaurants and hotel lobbies, briefcases and bodegas. Pens trickle out of my purse into the world, and from the world back into my purse. The exception to this “Tide of ...

Not too long ago, tech enthusiasts were telling us that by 2020, we’d see self-driving cars hit the mainstream, with some 10 million on the roads. That turned out to be a wild overestimation. The actual number of vehicles in testing is thousands of times smaller, and they’re still driving mostly in controlled conditions. Companies have also scaled back their ...

Grant President Trump some bragging rights. After all, most economic news has recently favoured Trump, including the 225,000 payroll jobs created in January. Naturally, he’s going to take credit if he can. Similarly blessed, a Democratic president would surely do the same. In his State of the Union address last week, Trump gushed self-congratulation. “Incomes are soaring, poverty is plummeting,” ...

It seems inconceivable that the coronavirus outbreak, which killed more than 811 people and shut down two-thirds of China’s economy, could be bullish for stocks. Yet Shenzhen’s private sector-heavy ChiNext Index not only brushed away a selloff, but also hit a three-year high on February 6. The most obvious explanation? This epidemic is giving policymakers the opportunity to correct past ...

Bernard Arnault, the boss of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, exceeded even his own incredibly low yield expectations in his company’s giant bond sale— which included the biggest corporate issue in euros since 2016. The luxury giant raised 7.5 billion euros ($8.3 billion) and 1.55 billion pounds ($2 billion), over a range of maturities from two to 11 years, ...

Boeing deserves blame for many things, but dragging US economic growth below 3% isn’t one of them. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Fox Business that Boeing Co. is a big reason the US won’t see the 3% expansion in gross domestic product that the Trump administration had been predicting for 2020. The Max crisis will shave 50 basis points ...

Acute fiscal stress is building in India’s states and municipalities, including the urban authority that manages the richest city, Mumbai. This matters. Local bodies hold the key to lasting solutions for a broader crisis of financial resources. The federal government’s chronic deficits dominate discussions about India’s precarious public finances. It’s time to flip this New Delhi-centric approach. State government accounts ...

Allow me to let you in on a little secret: Twitter Inc. isn’t a big user of its own product. That’s right, while the company’s main account @twitter has 57.1 million followers, it follows just one other, which doesn’t make it a very engaged account holder. And its tweet frequency is relatively low — even I have sent more tweets ...

In ousting Chief Executive Officer Tidjane Thiam, Credit Suisse Group AG is taking only a first step in rehabilitating its battered reputation. A spying scandal, embarrassing revelations on how the bank is run and a public spat at the top of the company have seriously tarnished a 163-year-old Swiss banking franchise whose clients depend on its discretion. The exit of ...