Opinion

Services, services, services, services. That’s the mantra that you’ll surely hear most as Xiaomi Corp. tries to convince investors that a hardware company with razor-thin margins is worth $100 billion. “We pioneered an amazing, innovative business model underpinned by courage and trust,” founder Lei Jun said in an open letter accompanying its offer document in which he reiterated a pledge ...

Emmanuel Macron’s youthful energy stands in sharp contrast with France’s biggest banks, whose shares have, in the main, languished since his election as president. Societe Generale SA, once the poster child for French expertise in derivatives, has the most work to do to restore investor confidence. A more energetic approach to succession planning and to pruning underperforming businesses — with ...

The biggest short-term threat to the US economy comes from President Donald Trump’s dangerous maneuvers on trade, not the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy. But knowing this doesn’t much help the Fed do its job, which is getting more complicated for reasons closer to home: The outlook for inflation is shifting, and Fed officials are wondering how to respond. At their ...

European Union bureaucrats have come up with an ingenious mechanism for getting maverick governments, mostly in Eastern Europe, into line. The EU wants the power to cut off funding to countries it sees as weakening the rule of law. At the same time, if the bureaucrats get their way, the affected governments would be forced to provide financing for the ...

After a two-day ‘informal summit’ between Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi, China and India agreed to avoid military disputes on their contested Himalayan border. Left unresolved was a much bigger issue: what China is doing in Pakistan. Fifty years ago, Pakistan’s foreign minister gave a box of mangoes to Mao Zedong, little realizing that this gesture would secure a special ...

The Microsoft antitrust trial, which will have its 20th anniversary this fall, began with the legal equivalent of shock and awe. To the surprise of everyone in the courtroom, the government’s trial lawyer, David Boies, decided to use video clips of Bill Gates’s deposition as part of his opening statement. A Justice Department lawyer would touch a laptop button, and ...

Most of economics is pretty healthy as a discipline. But one branch has really been thrown for a loop — business cycle theory. The financial crisis of 2008 and Great Recession taught macroeconomists that they didn’t really understand the sources of recessions. The long, grinding stagnation that followed demonstrated that economies sometimes don’t bounce back as quickly or automatically as ...

The 10-year US bond yield breaking through the 3 percent danger level worries India, as it does every emerging market. Still, the price that sends policy makers in New Delhi and Mumbai into paroxysm isn’t that of global capital, but of a commodity: oil. With Brent crude flirting with $75 a barrel, the panic is already beginning to show. Crucial ...

The pound saw it coming, and now it’s pretty much confirmed — Britain’s economic growth has slowed. And that’s probably killed the Bank of England’s rate hiking cycle before it even got started. Weaker than expected purchasing managers surveys published last week have turned out to be the last straw before the May 10 policy decision. These reports are the ...

Australia’s miracle economy has delivered 26 years of uninterrupted growth, a record among developed nations. So how come its financial sector is riven with scandal and deceit? In truth, the two things are connected. Imagine you had two teenage children. Both have a habit of taking your credit card to spend on clothes and going out, but do it stealthily ...