Opinion

White House officials, back in December, widely criticized the Joint Committee on Taxation’s estimate of the cost of the soon-to-be passed tax cut. But if the first three months are any guide, the tax cut will end up being considerably more generous, not less, to corporate America than the committee and others forecast. How much? At least $300 billion, and ...

Say “equities trading,” and HSBC Holdings Plc won’t be the first bank to come to mind. Or the second or third. It doesn’t even reach the top 10. Yet its recent efforts to bulk up in this area make a lot of sense. Never mind that investment banks globally are struggling in equities as automation and regulation eat into wafer-thin ...

An auction of two is one drop-out from being no auction at all. Just look at Sky Plc. The British satellite broadcaster has rival suitors in Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. and Comcast Corp., with a potential backup in the form of Walt Disney Co. But there’s still no guarantee that a bidding war will ensure Sky fetches a full price. ...

The European Union faces another existential crisis, and the European Central Bank (ECB) will need to do whatever it takes to staunch it again. So far, it’s showed little inclination. By letting the turmoil continue, it risks creating a full-blown conflagration. Investors are taking fright at the threat that Italy could leave the euro. Yields on the country’ two-year bonds ...

Here we go again. The gyrations in India’s biggest state-run oil explorer, whose stock was down more than 11.5 percent at one point last week, are a reminder that a nightmare investors thought was over might be resuming. In early 2009, when global oil prices had collapsed from their pre-financial-crisis high, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. caused a flutter by accusing ...

Brokers tired of dwindling bonuses may find riches await them in Vietnam. Local securities companies have been making some high-profile hires in recent months. Mike Lynch, formerly a managing director at CIMB Group Holdings Bhd. in New York, moved to Ho Chi Minh City just over a year ago to head institutional equity sales at Saigon Securities Inc., the biggest ...

Will Ethiopia become “the China of Africa”? The question often comes up in an economic context: Ethiopia’s growth rate is expected to be 8.5 percent this year, topping China’s projected 6.5 percent. Over the past decade, Ethiopia has averaged about 10 percent growth. Behind those flashy numbers, however, is an undervalued common feature: Both countries feel secure about their pasts ...

President Trump’s education in global trade continues. Not long ago, he declared that trade wars ‘are good and easy to win.’ He knows better now. The administration’s performance in its latest trade talks with China has been ineffectual, instructive and (yes) humiliating. Let’s be clear. China is the one major country where an aggressive American trade policy is warranted — ...

You may have reasonable expectations of what you can expect from your investments during the coming years and decades. But regardless of what your risk-adjusted return expectations are, the first rule of economics cannot be denied: There is no free lunch. I was reminded of this by a report that the League of California Cities wanted the state’s big public ...

Electric cars topped the 1 million sales milestone in 2017, a 57 percent increase over 2016. Chinese consumers alone purchased more than half a million electric cars. And Bloomberg New Energy Finance expects more than half of all new cars sold, and a third of the total light vehicles on the road, to be electric by the year 2040. But ...