Opinion

The prevailing view of earnings estimates is, to be blunt, dim. Many investors believe that companies and analysts conspire to keep estimates low to produce a “surprise” that drives the stock price higher. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the practice is widespread. The 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average met or beat the so-called consensus earnings estimate an average …

There’s a nice Annette Idler item at the Monkey Cage on what’s at stake in Venezuela that answered some questions I’ve been thinking about as a non-specialist. Call me naive or a foolish optimist, but I suspect that the most likely end to the North Korea “crisis” is that it will fizzle out. Yes, Donald Trump is capable of irrational …

With figures ranging from 33-year old Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg to 90-year-old Nobel Prize-winning economist Vernon Smith endorsing a universal basic income, the idea may soon enter the US political mainstream. But Americans are being sold on a dangerous version of the UBI, designed as a resource rent rather than a product of social consensus. Smith recently penned …

Google is scrambling to distance itself from one of its engineers, who has gained infamy for publishing a 10-page criticism of the company’s “authoritarian” approach to achieving gender diversity. If the goal was to confirm the author’s thesis, Team Google is doing a great job. Titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” the anonymous memo sets out a well-intentioned goal: Find non-discriminatory …

Intervening 10 years ago to contain the damage from the banking system’s excessive risk-taking in mortgage-backed securities, the European Central Bank initiated what has proven to be an exceptional and prolonged involvement in markets by central banks. Much has changed since then, yet too much remains the same. The risk of unsettling financial instability, while lower, has morphed and migrated …

The North Korean nuclear threat is a “hinge” moment for the US and China, and for the new international order both nations say they want. If Washington and Beijing manage to stay together in dealing with Pyongyang, the door opens on a new era in which China will play a larger and more responsible role in global affairs, commensurate with …

President Donald Trump endorsed a plan to change the way the US immigration system operates. Half of the plan is very good. The other half is bad and counterproductive. The plan, known as the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act, was developed by Republican senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia. It would do two …

It’s customary for companies reporting a horror-show result to blame the general trading environment, rather than anything within control of management. Commodities trader Noble Group Ltd. is no exception. In declaring that it had been holed below the waterline with a $1.9 billion net loss over the June quarter, the company declared the problem was not with the crew, but …

Ten years after risky mortgages helped spark a global financial crisis, lenders and policymakers have lost none of their talent for helping people make big-ticket purchases they couldn’t otherwise afford. True, 100 percent mortgages are rare now, let alone the 125 percent loan-to-value deals offered by Northern Rock. Fibbing about your income to get a loan is more difficult, though …

The Trump administration has taken on three ambitious statistical projects: tracking down cases of voter registration fraud, identifying racism in college admissions and developing an algorithm for “extreme vetting” of visa applications. These would all be very tricky even for a trained professional. I doubt the president’s people are up to the task. Let’s start with voter fraud. It’s actually …