Opinion

Three months ago, Tesla Inc. notched up a $9 billion gain in market capitalisation in the immediate aftermath of reporting a $143 million quarterly profit. On January 29, it reaped $12 billion on $105 million. Don’t forget the $50 billion it racked up in between those dates, of course. Tesla’s market cap has more than doubled to more than $100 ...

3M Co.’s messy quarter does little to inspire faith in the company or the industrial economy at large. The maker of Post-it notes, Scotch tape and wound dressings announced a pair of charges – $134 million for a restructuring plan and $214 million for litigation related to PFAS chemicals – that pulled its fourth-quarter earnings per share below analysts’ estimates. ...

Slap a tariff on steel and you’re sure to roil markets. But behind the big headlines on trade sanctions are developments that might be just as momentous for the global economy: About 135 of the world’s countries are negotiating a radical change to the rules about where and how much multinational companies pay in taxes. The topic was the subject ...

As the Wuhan coronavirus spreads to America, it now seems quite possible the United States will face some considerable logistical challenges. Even if the virus turns out not to be very deadly, or mutates into a safer form, the public will not know that for some time. In the meantime, a mix of justifiable risk-aversion and perhaps panic will strain ...

When the world’s competition police reflect on big tech’s dealmaking over the past 15 years, you could forgive them for wondering what might have been. If Facebook Inc. hadn’t acquired WhatsApp or Instagram, or if Google hadn’t bought YouTube or DoubleClick, would there be stronger competition for the two Silicon Valley firms? It certainly seems that regulators, particularly in the ...

Samsung Electronics Co.’s earnings report and outlook reflect doom and gloom. Many are surprised. Positive signs from chip rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and smartphone stalwart Apple Inc. had fed the belief that the South Korean giant would put the worst behind it. The key takeaway here is that a rising tide doesn’t lift all boats. On the surface, as ...

Lots of companies talk a good game about cutting planet-heating greenhouse emissions but their disclosures and targets have tended to focus on the emissions over which they have direct control and which are easiest to measure. That’s fine in an industry such as cement, where the bulk of carbon pollution occurs during the production process. From an environmental perspective these ...

When Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on a spinning wheel, the rest of the kingdom went to sleep along with her. Not so in China. As an epidemic rages, many provinces have extended their Lunar New Year holiday by weeks, but financial markets – from commodities and stock exchanges to bond clearing houses – will resume operating on Monday. The ...

There are two key takeaways from the earnings that Apple Inc. reported: IPhones still matter, and wearables are big. On the surface, it would appear that investors can bet on the continuing success of Apple Watch and the surging popularity of AirPods Pro to take up the slack left by declining iPhone revenue. From there, money from services including music, ...

What is missing in this campaign, as I have written before and no doubt will write again, is an informative and honest discussion of the role of government in American life. We don’t want to admit that government worth having is worth paying for, through taxes — with the well-known exceptions of recessions and wars, when deficits are often inevitable ...