Opinion

I’ll confess, despite the best efforts of Netflix, my exposure to Norwegian comedy is very limited. That said, the finale to the one show I’ve vaguely followed – “What to Do With All Our Oil Stocks?” – has a pleasing subtlety to it; a knowing wink; the faintest tug of a leg-pull. Roughly 16 months ago, Norway’s central bank advised ...

Bloomberg Theresa May’s government declared Brexit talks are “deadlocked” as ministers urged the European Union to make a last minute concession to stop the deal being thrown out by Parliament this week. May’s office said on Monday that she spoke to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker by telephone late on Sunday, but the prime minister is not planning to travel ...

If nothing else, the latest US trade deficit — $621 billion in 2018 for goods and services — should give President Trump a lesson in the economics of trade. Trump has insisted that a successful policy requires a trade surplus (good) and the absence of a deficit (bad). That’s wrong, as many economists have argued. The economists are right. Not ...

The securities industry just rained on China’s bull-market parade. Stocks took their biggest tumble of the year last week as traders took a rare sell rating from the nation’s largest brokerage as a sign that the government thinks the rally has gone too far. Citic Securities Co. advised clients that People’s Insurance Co. (Group) of China Ltd., a $65 billion ...

When Mike Ashley offers you a lifeline, it’s worth taking. That is the message from Debenhams Plc’s profit warning. The department store chain said it would no longer meet the estimate it published less than two months ago for full-year pre-tax profit of 8 million pounds ($10.5 million). It did not specify a new target. The market capitalisation says everything ...

The European Central Bank (ECB) surprised financial markets with moves to loosen monetary policy. The prospects for growth in the euro zone have dimmed lately, and policy was going to be tweaked at some point unless things picked up. But a change wasn’t expected so soon. ECB President Mario Draghi and his colleagues are apparently worried. They have reason to ...

Trade talks between the US and China seem to be hurtling towards a predictable conclusion — the signing of a shallow deal that doesn’t solve the real issues dividing the world’s two largest economies. The coup de grace will likely come later this month in another high-profile summit between presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. It’s time to admit the ...

Vodafone Group Plc’s new boss needed some luck. The financing markets appear to be favuoring Nick Read as the UK mobile phone giant prepares to splash out on buying a huge chunk of John Malone’s European cable empire. Read unveiled a 4 billion-euro ($4.5 billion) financing package for the purchase, which should help the company create a converged mobile, broadband ...

Microsoft has unveiled the results of a survey of business leaders on the topic of artificial intelligence. The findings are surprising: German and Russian entrepreneurs and executives appear to come out ahead of those from the US and other advanced European economies when it comes to adopting the technology. Mostly, however, this and several other studies confirm a frustrating problem: ...

The latest pitched battle between Corporate America and its critics involves stock buybacks: Large companies’ purchases of their own shares on the stock market. The aim is to raise share prices and satisfy investors. But the practice has triggered outrage from critics, who argue that the buybacks discourage productive investment, higher wages and worker retraining. Big business is accused of ...