Opinion

It’s time for markets to grow up. An important element in the current volatility tantrum is the return of inflation. Last Friday’s US payroll report kicked it off, and the struggle at this week’s 10-year and 30-year US Treasury auctions suggests fixed-income investors don’t spy an end to the rout. This means the next key event for them is U.S. ...

In her final hours in charge at the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen raised an issue central to the health of the US financial system: Can banks grow too big and complex to manage? Wells Fargo, the case in point, certainly makes you wonder. And it isn’t alone. The world’s biggest financial institutions run myriad lines of business, with hundreds of ...

China is eroding American dominance in many arenas — just not the one that’s been fixating the world for the past week. With global capital markets in turmoil, China has been largely absent from the conversation. Plenty of players are in the mix, from the Federal Reserve, to inflation, to volati ity, to earnings, to stretched valuations. But China has ...

Nowhere did Tuesday’s launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket echo as powerfully as in Russia. The private US company continues to produce technical feats on which the Russian space industry has given up: First the consistent reuse of rockets, and now the successful launch of a rocket with as many as 27 engines. The Soviet Union tried something similar in ...

While equity markets were braving a cold, bleak meltdown in Hong Kong, the bond market was basking in sunshine — or at least trying to keep itself warm in the not-so-bright glow of Sunshine 100 China Holdings Ltd.’s $165 million dollar bonds. Amid the carnage, and with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. warning of more pain ahead, the stressed Chinese builder, ...

So I saw the Amazon list. And what’s really interesting is that without my saying more, you know exactly what list I mean. Not the list of Amazon’s best-sellers or best deals. The list of cities that are finalists for HQ2, the fabled El Dorado sought by local politicians across the country — the second Amazon.com Inc. headquarters that carries ...

Donald Trump is a man more of words than actions. Still, his administration’s recent rhetoric in three areas — currency, trade and taxation — is raising hackles across the European Union. Unity among EU member states is key to addressing the first two challenges in a way that safeguards the European economy. On the third, however, the EU should view ...

The market’s worst defence could be its too-good offence. The stock market plunged on Monday, extending a slide that started last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank as much as 1,500 points before recovering to close just down 1,175. The S&P 500 Index dropped more than 4%. This, of course, wasn’t what was supposed to happen for a specific ...

Whenever there’s a sharp global sell-off sparked by US equities, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. comes out warning of more volatility and pain ahead. In July, when there was a brief dip and the Cboe Volatility Index jumped, the venerable investment bank said selling from risk-parity funds, which buy government bonds to hedge against stock portfolios, could lead to more offloading ...

Jerome Powell takes over as chair of the Federal Reserve just as new figures show earnings and inflation edging up. It’s good news that the recovery is helping wages to rise faster and bringing inflation closer to the Fed’s target of 2 percent — but as last week’s big drop in equity prices suggests, it also complicates Powell’s job. Though ...