Opinion

India’s economic numbers have for some time looked better than the facts warranted, feeding an overconfidence in New Delhi about the country’s prospects. Thankfully, that’s begun to change. The Reserve Bank of India, the International Monetary Fund, investment banks and ratings agencies have all recently cut their estimates of 2019 growth sharply. While some believe India’s official statistics may overstate ...

Investors celebrating Meituan Dianping’s first quarterly profit have as much reason to cheer how the company got there as the numbers themselves. Surging revenue, market-share gains against rivals such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and success in controlling expenses all helped the Chinese food delivery and bookings provider post net income of 877.4 million yuan ($124 million) versus the 1.57 ...

In July 2019, more migrants drowned in the Mediterranean than in July 2015, at the height of the refugee crisis — and that despite a dramatically reduced number of arrivals. The 238 deaths are at least partly on the conscience of European politicians; the European Union badly needs a reasonable policy towards the nongovernmental organisations whose rescue ships provide pretty ...

We’ve been here before: one of those portentous moments when corporate America promises to be more socially “responsible.” These episodes are, it seems, a permanent feature of modern capitalism. Just this week, the Business Roundtable, a group representing the leaders of major corporations, issued a “statement on the purpose of a corporation” that was widely hailed as rejecting the notion ...

India is belatedly acknowledging that something’s gone wrong with what was once billed as the world’s fastest-growing economy. That’s the good news. The bad news is that New Delhi still doesn’t have a cohesive strategy to reverse the slowdown. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman did offer a stimulus package. The highlight was the rollback of a tax surcharge on overseas investors ...

Look at some of the headline numbers in Kohl’s Corp.’s second-quarter earnings report, and you’d surmise that things are pretty grim for the department-store chain. Look at the text of the press release, though, and you’ll find bread crumbs of information that suggest it is turning the corner on its near-term problems. Kohl’s comparable sales fell 2.9 percent from a ...

Don’t expect Asia to take many leads from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s signal that further US interest rate cuts are coming. That’s not because the Fed chief’s comments at Jackson Hole weren’t clear, but because Asia is already well on its way towards significant relaxing of monetary policy. India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Australia, Indonesia and South Korea cut rates ...

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is barrelling through Europe’s capitals with nothing concrete to say on Brexit beyond an unappealing offer of “new deal or no deal.” With Angela Merkel offering a response so cryptic that Germany was still explaining it a day later, France’s Emmanuel Macron was on hand to clarify: The European Union’s red lines, including upholding the ...

Utilities are, by design, a bit of a snooze. We feel no excitement at the miracle of instantaneous light, television and coffee grinding, expecting these things simply to happen when we want them to — which, virtually all the time, they do. Similarly, investors own utilities for their steady dividends funded by all of us unthinking bill-payers. This mundane arrangement ...

When snack makers start to lament that Indians can’t afford to spend 5 rupees (7 cents) on biscuits, it’s time to stop arguing over how much of the nation’s slowdown is cyclical and what part is structural. Considering its glaring income, wealth and consumption inequalities, India is a surprisingly calm society. However, when purchasing power dries up to the extent ...