Opinion

At the center of the increasingly bitter dispute between the US and Turkey is a demand by an irate President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that American prosecutors free a Turkish-Iranian gold dealer who’s about to go on trial on money-laundering and fraud charges. The confrontation sharpened, as Erdogan protested in Ankara that the businessman, Reza Zarrab, was being squeezed as a …

If you are adding to your long-term holdings of stocks and other risk assets at current market valuations, you are likely to be betting — knowingly or not — on a combination of three drivers of future returns; or you are planning to sell your holdings to someone who is or will be making that bet. Understanding the importance of …

Being sophisticated in the age of output curbs by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) can prove a disadvantage, as the operator of the world’s biggest oil refining complex is discovering. Reliance Industries Ltd’s (RIL) 1.24 million barrel-a-day facility in Gujarat features highly advanced units designed to process the globe’s heaviest types of crude, which have historically been cheaper …

The US solar industry is threatened by one of President Donald Trump’s more destructive impulses: his eagerness to punish supposedly unfair trade practices. By next month, the US International Trade Commission, having unanimously ruled that American solar-panel makers are harmed by competition from Asian and other rivals, will recommend what tariffs or other import penalties the president should impose. The …

The drama around President Donald Trump and Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal has grabbed the oil world’s attention. This gaze should shift west. Rising tensions in northern Iraq could have a much more immediate impact on oil flows that could lead prices higher, and squeeze producers and refiners. The collapse of so-called IS in Iraq ought to be a …

Central bank sleuths are on the case. What explains the ‘mystery,’ to use Janet Yellen’s word, behind low inflation and strong employment? It’s a question that requires global detective work, a point amplified by the Federal Reserve minutes this week when someone (who may have been Yellen) remarked on the global nature of the challenge. Inflation and wages remain stubbornly …

India’s slowdown—recently confirmed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which sharply reduced its estimate of growth during the current financial year—has set off a couple of energetic and oddly contradictory responses from the government in New Delhi. On the one hand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has aggressively defended his record, comparing it positively to the stagnation presided over by the …

With eyes wide open, Mike Pence eagerly auditioned for the role as Donald Trump’s poodle. Now comfortably leashed, he deserves the degradations that he seems too sycophantic to recognize as such. He did Trump’s adolescent bidding with last Sunday’s pre-planned virtue pageant of scripted indignation — his flight from the predictable sight of players kneeling during the national anthem at …

India is an emerging market standout. The country was one of only a handful of large economies marked down in forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) this week. India’s GDP is expected to rise 6.7% this year, compared with a previous projection of 7.2%. Next year’s estimate was also lowered. Midway through their term, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his …

The state of the union is strong in China. The nation not only holds $1.1 trillion of US debt, it’s also able to issue bonds, in dollars, at the same price as Treasuries. The Ministry of Finance announcement this week that it plans to sell $2 billion of dollar bonds marks China’s first offering in that currency since 2004. The …