Opinion

In China, the cars are becoming smarter. Last week, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Foxconn Technology Co. Ltd. led a $348 million fundraising round for Guangzhou Xiaopeng Motors Technology Co. Ltd., a three-year-old startup developing internet-connected, electric cars. The investment might seem an odd one for online retailer Alibaba. But it’s part of a larger vision for transportation that includes ...

I have some bad news, and some probably-not-terrible news about Apple Inc. The bad news was Apple didn’t have a terrific holiday season for its most important product. Apple said that it sold 1.2 percent fewer iPhones in the three months ended December 30 than it did in the same period of 2016. Analysts had expected those unit sales to ...

The fintech dating game is on in Paris. Entrepreneurs in Europe’s financial-technology sector are pushing low-cost payments solutions to steal market share from banks, hoping the challenge they pose will spur the lenders to buy them or seek partnerships with them. Many startups are eyeing deals or potential backing in Paris to meet the top executives of French finance, from ...

There is an acute struggle dividing US voters that isn’t about Democrats versus Republicans or differences on issues. It’s about the public’s optimistic view of the economy during the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency and the simultaneously pessimistic view of Trump himself. The contrast is striking. Polls show overwhelming satisfaction with the state of the economy, the most since ...

Last week, China said it plans to build a ‘Polar Silk Road’ that will open shipping lanes across the largely pristine region at the top of the world. It’s an ambitious idea for a country that lacks an Arctic border, and it has raised concerns around the world about China’s ultimate intentions and its capacity for environmental stewardship. Although these ...

Is it a blip, a correction or the end of days? Stock markets in Asia tumbled on Monday, extending the biggest global selloff in two years. Equity investors are fretting as Treasury yields approach 3 percent. On Friday, 10-year returns touched 2.85%, and the dollar rallied 0.9 percent. Some context, however. While the MSCI Asia ex-Japan Index’s 7.5% return in ...

Political dysfunction is unquestionably aggravating the UK’s Brexit nightmare. But the resignation of Prime Minister Theresa May, as some in her own party are calling for, would only make matters worse. The Tories will never agree about the European Union. What they need to do is get their divisions under some kind of control. At the moment, the increasingly assertive ...

India remains a land of missed opportunities. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi came into office in 2014, he raised hopes that he would reform administration, fix regulations, super-charge the economy and reinvigorate private investment. One can debate how much he’s accomplished on those fronts. But his record on one issue—fiscal restraint—had seemed impeccable. Helped by low crude oil prices, which ...

The best news Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan had for shareholders is that, if you take out the whole banking part, there’s a really good business there. Deutsche Bank’s asset-management business, which accounts for about one-tenth of the company’s revenue, was the only unit to report a return on equity of more than 2 percent for 2017. Across the firm, ...

Almost every report, news account and comment on the 148,000 rise in payroll hiring in December characterized the increase as weak, mediocre or somehow disappointing. None described it as strong or solid. As a result, fears of more interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve receded. Yet all of these responses to that data were backward, and it has taken ...