Opinion

Did the global economy dodge an economic bullet? The US and the European Union agreed to step back from the brink of imposing mutually punishing tariffs. The agreement — if there really is one — contemplates a future agreement to resolve trade differences. Like Brexit, this is an unformed plan to somehow resolve thorny differences at an undetermined date in ...

China Tower Corp’s Hong Kong IPO looks like a pretty straightforward affair. The business is about as vanilla as it gets: The company builds and runs towers on which telecom operators hang their transmission equipment. It collects rent in return. No need to wrestle with GMV, MAU or ARPU. There’s a reason why fund managers and index compilers treat global ...

The recent strong second-quarter gross domestic product report brings up the question of whether it can be sustained in a way it wasn’t the last time GDP growth was this robust four years ago. The economy in 2014 had some things going for it that the current economy lacks — a federal funds rate firmly anchored at zero and an ...

When she started learning to play chess, my younger daughter was aghast that the pieces could’t always go where she wanted them to; she still ignores, for the most part, her opponent’s moves, figuring it’s enough for a victory to make good ones of her own. For two years, UK Prime Minister Theresa May has exhibited the same behavior. She ...

Since April, the yuan has fallen by almost 8 percent against the US dollar. This has led many analysts and politicians to speculate that China is intentionally trying to devalue its currency to offset the effect of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. It almost certainly isn’t. In theory, the price of the yuan is set by a basket of more than ...

President Donald Trump promised last week that the second-quarter gross domestic product number would be unthinkable. The number was, instead, what everyone expected, and that could pose a problem. The Commerce Department reported later that the second-quarter GDP rose an annualized 4.1 percent, just slightly less than forecasts for 4.2 percent. The biggest issue is that the number indicates that ...

President Trump has threatened to take away the security clearances of former high-ranking intelligence officials who’ve criticized his policies. Intended as punishment for the likes of former FBI director James Comey, former director of national intelligence James Clapper and former CIA and NSA head Michael Hayden, the idea is petty even by this president’s standards. Fortunately, it’s also largely pointless. ...

The plunge of Facebook and Twitter shares in the last two days shows that both companies are hostages to investors’ unrealistic perceptions of how quickly they should grow even as they purge bots and trolls. Moving to eliminate all fake and malicious accounts, as well as making new ones very hard to register, would be scary given these inflated expectations. ...

Singapore’s banks should watch the fallout from the island’s healthcare-data breach. This could get ugly for them. The National Electronic Health Record project is taking a pause after hackers stole data on 1.5 million patients including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who was “specifically and repeatedly” targeted. Immediate repercussions for banks have already become obvious, with the Monetary Authority of ...

BP Plc’s return to the Permian basin comes via a splashy $10.5 billion deal. But the oil major is trying its utmost not to make waves — and with good reason. BP is buying the Permian position, along with assets in the Eagle Ford and Haynesville basins, from BHP Billiton Ltd. BP left the Permian back in 2010 in the ...