Opinion

A sharp rebound in Chinese internet stocks over the past six weeks would have you believe that companies just turned in another quarter of stellar growth. Instead, what they did was to deliver the spending pragmatism that shows management understands the new era that’s upon us. Revenue for a basket of Chinese companies – from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to ...

Many efforts to minimise climate change are far removed from people’s everyday lives. It’s the responsibility of unseen others to reduce power-plant emissions or regrow carbon-absorbing forests. But there is one significant way almost everyone can help, and that is by wasting less food. Americans in particular consume only about half as much of what’s in their refrigerators as they ...

The German government’s 54 billion-euro ($60 billion) climate deal, approved after about 20 hours of overnight negotiations, is a typical product of the reluctant coalition run by Chancellor Angela Merkel: It achieves a balance of interests and little more. If German voters want a more ambitious plan, and there are indications that they do, they’ll have to wait until after ...

As Britain appears to be careering towards a no-deal Brexit, Next Plc Chief Executive Simon Wolfson is trying to reassure investors that the company should come out largely unscathed. That sounds overly optimistic, but Next has less to fear than most retailers. Wolfson, a Conservative Party peer and well-known Brexit supporter, says that as long as Britain’s ports operate effectively, ...

The continuing debate about the future of banking since the 2008 financial crisis has intensified recently on reports that banks are cutting jobs and slashing pay. While the outlook for bankers is precarious, the same can’t be said for the banks. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has featured prominently in the chatter about cutbacks, and not just because of its pre-eminence ...

September is not even finished and already the S&P 500 Index is up 20% for the year. This is a remarkable achievement, given that earnings growth has stalled and the bond market is pricing in almost a 40% chance of a recession over the next 12 months. That just shows the degree to which lower interest rates have supported stocks. ...

For those who think that the luckiest country is the one with no government, Spain must be some sort of model. Spaniards will go to the polls on November 10 for the fourth time in four years after the country’s political parties failed to compromise on a workable majority. With Madrid’s star in the ascendancy in the European Union, and ...

For the umpteenth time, Deutsche Bank AG is ensnared in an alleged regulatory blunder. Except this time, the stakes are greater than its own integrity: Confidence in its regulator, the European Central Bank, is on the line too. The ECB is considering whether to probe Germany’s biggest bank for trading in its riskiest debt without the regulator’s approval, according to ...

To anyone who has followed the decade-long saga of Britain’s ambitious high-speed-rail project, known as HS2, the recent news that it’s at least five years behind schedule and 20 billion pounds ($25 billion) over budget shouldn’t come as a surprise. It should serve as a cautionary tale for policy makers dreaming of big projects at public expense. Understand at the ...

Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president-elect, has promised to run a “geopolitical Commission” in the next five years. A recent study by the European Council on Foreign Relations, the international think tank, shows that this is what Europeans want, too — but von der Leyen’s vision of the European Union’s global role isn’t necessarily aligned with theirs. Von ...