Opinion

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had two priorities heading into a hearing at the European Parliament on Tuesday. First, he had to avoid a serious gaffe that could be replayed again and again as a soundbite on the evening news. Second, he had to convince lawmakers that Facebook Inc. is doing enough to counter fake news, foreign interventions into elections and ...

The grid operator that delivers power to most of Texas set an all-time peak electricity demand record this week for the month of May. Hot weather, a healthy economy and a growing population have all given Electric Reliability Council of Texas Inc. reason to expect record-breaking summer usage. The main driver of warm-weather peaks is air conditioning. Joshua Rhodes of ...

Nord Stream 2, the planned Russian natural gas pipeline to Germany across the floor of the Baltic Sea, is the latest front in the growing conflict between Europe and the US. The Wall Street Journal reported that President Donald Trump is demanding that Germany drop Nord Stream 2 as one of the conditions of a trade deal with Europe that ...

Marks & Spencer Group Plc rebranded itself as Markle & Sparkle over the weekend, in honor of the royal wedding. But with so much work in progress, for investors, any celebrations are likely to fall flat. The company will step up the pace of store closures when it announces its annual earnings, Bloomberg News reported. Although the amount of capacity ...

US financial markets seem unfazed by a sequence of negative developments on the trade front. The May 17 date set by Paul Ryan, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, for Congress to approve a revised North American Free Trade Agreement has passed with no resolution. The European Union, a major US ally, resents the June 1 deadline President Donald ...

Questions remain about just how many more US exports China’s promised to buy to avert a trade war: US officials have floated the figure of $200 billion annually, which would cut the bilateral trade deficit in half. Even if that were true, however – and Chinese officials have denied it – that massive buying spree wouldn’t bring down the overall ...

Consistency in central banking is usually a virtue. But Brazil is proving that it’s not the highest virtue. One of the big features of monetary policy in the post-2008 era has been an increase in transparency among central banks, which were too secretive in the bad old days. Key to this transparency has been forward guidance, a clear telegraphing of ...

The sight of Meghan Markle’s mother carrying what looked like a Burberry outfit was enough to ignite speculation she’ll wear the brand to her daughter’s wedding. The British luxury group could certainly do with some Markle sparkle. Organic sales increased by an anemic 2 percent in the three months through March, trailing growth at rivals like LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis ...

Two and a half months after an inconclusive general election, Italy looks as if it will soon have a government — a populist coalition between two anti-establishment parties, the Five Star Movement and the League. Having won a clear popular mandate, the two parties must be given a chance to govern. But the program they have in mind is extravagantly ...

Macroeconomics is getting interesting again. For the past five years, monetary policy was simple and boring — the economy was recovering steadily, but not yet at full employment, and inflation remained muted, so the Federal Reserve simply had to keep interest rates low and not interfere with a good thing. But now this happy era of tranquility may be ending. ...