Opinion

  It’s the time of year when US public health officials are practically begging people to go out and get a flu vaccine. This year, their message is particularly urgent: Protect yourself now because the country might be in for a bad flu season that coincides with a resurgence in Covid cases. Last week, I took their advice and got ...

Reality has undone Trussonomics in a few short weeks. Incoming Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt has wasted no time putting his predecessor Kwasi Kwarteng’s tax cuts to the sword. While it’s never a good look for your economic policies to be dictated by swings in the financial markets, a full 180-degree switch was required to draw a line under ...

  Adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, have a bad reputation with homebuyers who have long viewed them as a dangerous financial trap. But with rates on fixed-rate mortgages more than doubling in the past year, some borrowers are taking a second look. The idea of paying less now in exchange for the risk of paying more later seems reasonable if you ...

  The UK takeover regime isn’t kind to private equity buyers. It got even tougher after Kraft Foods Inc.’s bitter acquisition of rival confectioner Cadbury in 2010. But are its rules too restrictive? If the leveraged finance market bounces back, UK stocks should be a prime hunting ground for the private equity industry. Yet local M&A rules are often seen ...

  Russia’s efforts to use natural-gas exports as a geopolitical weapon present Europe with a challenge: When faced with such a clear and present threat, can it muster the solidarity required of a true union? Policymakers might be coalescing around what they see as an adequate plan. They should be more ambitious: Europe needs a permanent solution to its chronic ...

The midterms are coming, and with them, the pressure is building on President Joe Biden to let everyone know whether he is running in 2024. In a normal presidential election cycle, we would be about to hit the two-year mark in the “invisible primary.” That’s the period before voters get involved, in which candidates seek the support of key party ...

  Shareholders and chiefs of America’s big banks should get some thank you cards over to Jerome Powell. The Federal Reserve’s interest rate increases have delivered a huge boost to revenue for Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. so far this year without – as yet – causing any problems for borrowers. Okay, the residential ...

  Expectations of how much central banks will push interest rates higher to get inflation under control have increased to such an extent that some are starting to talk about overkill. Markets now think that benchmark rates in the US will top out at about 4.7% (from 3.25% now), 3% in the euro zone (from 1.25%), and 5.8% in the ...

  If the Federal Reserve was hoping for some sign that inflation is subsiding, it was cruelly disabused by the latest figures for consumer prices. The headline rate fell back slightly in September, from 8.3% to 8.2%, but the more telling measure of core inflation, which excludes the cost of food and energy, reached the highest rate in 40 years, ...

  The single biggest thing at stake in next month’s midterm elections has attracted only a sliver of the attention dedicated to subjects such as Dr Oz’s dog experiments, girls’ high school sports or Hunter Biden’s drug habit. The most important issue in this campaign is the Republican plan to reduce spending on popular social programs and jeopardize the full ...