Every president since Jimmy Carter has dreamed of signing a peace agreement at Camp David. That’s a forgivable vanity, even for our current narcissist-in-chief. But it nearly led President Trump to make an unwise deal on Afghanistan with a Taliban that continues to use terror as its chief weapon. Trump’s closest Republican allies, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have ...
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UK banks face a Corbyn battering
Lloyds Banking Group Plc is within touching distance of putting behind it a scandal that has cost a breathtaking 21.8 billion pounds ($27 billion). But any celebration would be premature: The lender is, in effect, one of the biggest bets on Brexit Britain. On September 9, Lloyds said it would suspend a share buyback after setting aside an additional 1.8 ...
Read More »SoftBank, WeWork are as bad as each other
SoftBank Group Corp. is having second thoughts about whether WeWork Cos Inc. should go public just yet. Having valued the heavily loss-making office space provider at up to $47 billion, Masayoshi Son’s affiliates are doubtless reluctant to write down their more than $10 billion investment – something they’d have to consider once there’s an observable price for the shares. WeWork, ...
Read More »Fed is set to cut interest rates multiple times
The Federal Reserve is set to lower its target for the federal funds rate by another 25 basis points while leaving the door open for further reductions. When does this cycle end? When the Fed either stabilizes the economy with something on the order of 75 basis points of rate cuts or the economy slips into recession and rates head ...
Read More »India’s big lenders: Going subprime isn’t the answer
Any financing that’s secured by collateral — steel mills, textile factories, power plants, roads or land — is in trouble in India. A multiyear investment slowdown has decimated credit quality. Now, the problem is spreading. The near-recession in the consumer economy means unsecured lending could be the next domino to fall. With business collateral losing its sheen, India’s top three ...
Read More »This phone isn’t just about the folding stuff
With Samsung Electronics Co. finally launching its troubled Galaxy Fold, success for the $1,980 luxury handset may be measured not in how many it ships, but how many competitors decide to develop their own. Pre-release enthusiasm for the device turned to exasperation in April when review units were found to have a severe defect related to the folding screen design. ...
Read More »Hold your tears at T-Mobile’s Sprint pity party
T-Mobile US Inc. is trying to make the case that Sprint Corp. is on its deathbed, and that T-Mobile alone can save it. That’s rich coming from the company that happily helped put Sprint there. It’s also a misleading prognosis for Sprint. A Sprint pity party is one way T-Mobile is defending against a multi-state lawsuit that seeks to prevent ...
Read More »Trump’s diplomacy in China no substitute for clear policy
As we move into the fall, there’s one overriding foreign-policy priority for America: Find a strategy to deal with a rising China that protects US interests but doesn’t subvert the global economy. China is the challenge of our time, and risks of getting it wrong are enormous. Huawei, the Shenzen-based communications powerhouse, argues in a slick new YouTube video that ...
Read More »People can’t save Google, Facebook
The scrutiny of giant technology companies and the inevitable anxiety that follows are now so commonplace that they have become rote. Once terms like “techlash†become household words, it’s easy to become numb. The attorneys general of 48 US states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico announced an antitrust probe into Google parent firm Alphabet. For those in need ...
Read More »In the bond market, Italy has a golden opportunity
The new Italian government coalition of the Democratic Party and the Five Star Movement has been gifted a golden opportunity. The sharp drop in its sovereign bond yields means it can get ahead of its borrowing requirements for this year. Italian yields have fallen to record lows recently as investors have welcomed an administration that’s somewhat less antagonistic to the ...
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