Opinion

Apple Inc. doesn’t want investors to fixate any longer on the iPhone, the world-changing product that delivers about two-thirds of the company’s revenue. Nope. It’s over it. The iPhone is bo-ring. Not coincidentally, the iPhone is boring because sales are going in reverse. As the company predicted, Apple said that iPhone revenue dropped 14.9 percent in its fiscal first quarter ...

After two years under rhetorical assault from the president, US alliances have somehow held up. This year, however, the constraints on Trump’s anti-alliance instincts are falling away, and a mix of internal and external pressures are endangering several key alliances at once. This trend is most visible with respect to Nato. The transatlantic alliance has been a target of Donald ...

At the start of every year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) publishes its annual “The Budget and Economic Outlook,” a tome full of statistics, tables and charts. Frankly, it’s easy to get swamped by the numbers. To make sense of the report, I’ve selected five takeaways that capture the main points. (1) The US economy is in the midst of ...

All Caterpillar Inc. said was that demand in China would be flat this year. That only scrapes the surface. The US industrial bellwether blamed China for the 4 percent slide in its Asia-Pacific sales for the fourth quarter. The mainland market constitutes 10 percent to 15 percent of the company’s construction-segment sales and 5 percent to 10 percent of the ...

On January 29, the UK sent a resounding message to the European Union: “We demand that you give us what we want.” Don’t expect the audience to be receptive. Parliament was considering changes to Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, which it rejected by a spectacular margin two weeks ago. One measure that carried the day, and which May supported, ...

Policy decisions about climate change are among the toughest a government can make: Any change in direction is practically guaranteed to displease the stakeholders. A commission set up by the German government to work out how the country will phase out coal called for ending the fuel’s use by 2038. Energy companies, labor unions and environmentalists are all unhappy. The ...

Foreign firms eager for a $119 billion slice of China’s insurance market might just want to give Anbang Insurance Group Co.’s assets a closer look. You’d be forgiven for wanting to steer clear of a firm that’s become the face of China’s toxic debt binge. But the timing could be right: It’s been almost a year since Beijing seized temporary ...

Like Nadia Comaneci at the 1976 Olympics, Mario Draghi might have hoped for a perfect 10 from anyone judging his performance as president of the European Central Bank. But an incipient slowdown in the euro zone risks spoiling his routine just months before he bows out. The ECB’s decision to end its net asset purchases at the end of 2018 ...

Stock and bond markets are flashing warning signs of a US recession just over the horizon, and President Donald Trump is having none of it: Investors may be gloomy about the vanishing gap between short- and long-term US Treasury yields, the dreaded yield-curve inversion that tends to forecast recessions, but the president is focusing on the bright side. The US ...

Italy’s Five Star Movement has risen to global prominence more for the colorful oddness of its founder, the comedian Beppe Grillo, than for the seriousness of its populist policies. But one of its proposals has attracted genuine interest from across the world: The idea of a “citizens’ income.” This concept could in theory appeal to both the left and the ...