Opinion

President Trump has been insisting for so long that any investigation of his personal finances would cross a “red line” that people may have overlooked the outrageousness of his claim. But this self-declared immunity is about to change. We’re entering a new phase of the Trump-Russia investigation, where the president’s efforts to contain the probe are failing. Information he tried ...

For many people, it probably sounds a little rich to hear the European Union (EU) accuse Silicon Valley of being a graveyard of innovation. But that’s where we are in 2019. Regulators are hitting the likes of Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. with a flurry of antitrust fines and data-privacy probes, implying that they regard tech billionaires as more ...

As global retailers struggle to keep Chinese consumers shopping, Japan’s oldest cosmetics brand is flourishing there. Almost to a fault. Last week, Shiseido Co. posted an 8.9 percent rise in 2018 sales to 1.049 trillion yen ($9.51 billion) and a 34.7 percent climb in operating profit to 108.4 billion yen. Yet fourth-quarter operating profit slid 29 percent compared with a ...

Rarely has a multibillion-dollar scandal been quite so boring. For years, the UK has measured inflation using rival indicators, notably the Retail Prices Index (RPI) and the Consumer Prices Index. Each has its place. CPI is used by the Bank of England to guide monetary policy, for instance, while RPI is used as the reference rate for inflation-protected government bonds. ...

Olly Robbins has become the one thing a British civil servant must never be: the news. The government’s most senior Brexit negotiator, the ultimate safe pair of hands, was overheard by an ITV journalist in a Brussels bar this week openly contradicting Theresa May’s policy on at least three fronts. He may, though, have done everyone a favour by bringing ...

Size alone wasn’t enough to shield Amundi SA from the market turmoil that prompted investors to pull money from the asset management industry as a whole in the fourth quarter. But bulk is helping Europe’s biggest fund manager weather the storm better than its competitors. Net outflows of 6.5 billion euros ($7.4 billion) in the final three months of last ...

Taxes on rich Americans are probably going up if Democrats win both the presidency and Congress anytime soon. Whether it’s to provide revenue for more government spending on health care or the environment, or simply to reduce inequality, it seems likely that the well-off will pay more. The idea receives wide support. Exactly which type of taxes would go up, ...

The “Green New Deal” is upon us, and the question is what to make of it. The Democratic proposal mandates that, within a decade, virtually all fossil fuels — which represent about four-fifths of the nation’s energy supply — shall be replaced with clean fuels that don’t worsen global warming. Just how is this task to be accomplished? The main ...

This is a moment in retail when virtually everything needs a makeover: Supply chains must be sped up, stores need to be more experiential, and marketing has to become more personalised, all to suit an increasingly digital world. So it only makes sense that the old rules of mall leasing need updating, too. One place where that’s happening is at ...

General Electric Co. can’t live with a fixation on market share, but it can’t live without it, either. The embattled conglomerate, having long run its business with the goal of being the No. 1 or No. 2 player in each of its industries, saw its lead in the gas turbine market shrink in 2018. GE captured 33 percent of orders ...