Opinion

Liquidity is getting tight in Asia. Leave aside Japan, where the printing presses are still pumping out yen. In rest of the region, central banks’ supply of currency plus bank reserves has shrunk 7 percent in real terms since the dollar began surging in April. This is the steepest contraction in base money since the 11 percent fall between January ...

Last week showed you all you need to know about how traders and investors instinctively react when markets get choppy. They’re dazed, confused and quick to cast blame. Consider when the S&P 500 Index capped a two-day decline of 3.5 percent to close near the lowest level since May. “The stock market has a debt problem,” a Bloomberg News article ...

The fight between Italy and Brussels over Rome’s budget is blamed widely on Italy’s populist leaders, Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio. The two deputy prime ministers have insisted that Rome should run much higher budget deficits over the next three years, in a bid to fulfill their electoral pledges and kick-start growth. A different government would almost certainly have ...

The French presidential cycle goes something like this: euphoria, then disappointment — and then disillusionment, as the pace of reform slows down and popular unrest builds up. The violent clashes at this weekend’s protests show just how accelerated the decline can be once opposition takes root. Emmanuel Macron was supposed to be different. He came to power in 2017 through ...

Two years ago, Thomas Cook Group Plc was Santa Claus, rewarding shareholders with the first dividend in five years. Now it has turned into the Grinch, with an ugly profit warning on Tuesday, and a decision to ditch the payout. The shares fell as much as 33 percent. It’s clearly a very difficult time as the company struggles to cope ...

Who says there is no consensus on Brexit? Maybe not in Westminster, where the UK’s fractious parliament sits; but get a group of business leaders in a room, and suddenly everything looks much clearer: Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal to quit the European Union is workable, but a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn would, however, be a whole other category ...

Prospects for a trade deal between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the upcoming Group of 20 meeting in Argentina are quite likely to founder on the question of China’s industrial strategies: While Beijing may be willing to buy more American goods to mollify Trump, it almost certainly won’t stop supporting sectors it sees as key ...

It’s only when the tide goes out that you find out who’s been swimming in the nude, billionaire investor Warren Buffett famously opined. And as the bull market in global stocks starts to ebb, asset management companies will find themselves dangerously exposed — with medium-sized firms the most at risk of finding themselves naked and shivering on the beach. Investment ...

A new report warns Congress that the US could struggle to win, or might even lose, a war against China or Russia, because America’s military has “failed to keep pace with changing security challenges.” Why? One reason, according to the bipartisan National Defense Strategy Commission, is that military planners have to deal with a budget that shifts unpredictably from one ...

China’s falling stock market has prompted a flurry of activity to prop up prices. From delaying forced sales of pledged stock to turning on the credit engine again, authorities see the declines as emblematic of concerns over the economy. Investors have pulled about 3.2 trillion yuan ($460 billion) out of the market this year, according to net capital data from ...