Opinion

Houses are made of bricks and mortar, but a builder’s key raw material is land. Once, its value roughly tracked house prices. But that relationship has broken down, much to the benefit of the large homebuilders. In conversations with analysts and investors, developers like Taylor Wimpey Plc, Crest Nicholson Holdings Plc and Redrow Plc have continually alighted on the same ...

Soon, Japanese banks may no longer be the cheapest in the world. The yield-curve control undertaken by the nation’s central bank has done lasting damage. Data compiled by Bloomberg on financial institutions with a market capitalization of $10 billion or more show those from Japan are the biggest value traps, trading at just 0.69 times book, despite having an average ...

Americans have never been more addicted to devices. Thanks to the mobile revolution initiated by the iPhone, the US alone is home to 238 million mobile phones and 140 million tablets that are rarely shut down. And their numbers are growing, thanks to a perpetual upgrade cycle and demand for new features. For environmentalists, it’s a looming electronic nightmare in ...

Wal-Mart joined other companies in announcing an employee wage hike and bonus program. Citing “the opportunities tax reform creates for us,” the retailer said that the measures “will benefit the company’s more than one million US hourly associates.” Interest in this announcement extends well beyond the company itself. The move raises relevant questions for those seeking to predict the future ...

Global pharmaceutical companies have bemoaned for years India’s capricious policies on prices and patents. Now the government needs billions of dollars for its “Make in India” program, why can’t the industry get a fairer deal? When it comes to intellectual property, it’s now understood—and grudgingly accepted—that India’s use of compulsory licensing won’t go away. Ever since New Delhi used this ...

For more than 100 years, the Middle East has been defined by oil exploration, production and its boundaries. Now the region is getting repurposed by its aspiration to grow beyond fossil fuel. The shake-up in Saudi Arabia is also much about becoming a 21st-century economy. None of the region’s petrostates has moved further from its oilfield roots than Dubai, which ...

Was there ever really an Asian contender apart from Hong Kong to host Saudi Arabian Oil Co.’s IPO? Unlikely. The challenge for the world’s largest oil company, if it lists in the territory, will be keeping investors interested once trading starts. Saudi Arabia has shortlisted the city, along with London and New York, for the international portion of a potential ...

Wal-Mart has just announced higher wages and one-time bonuses for most of its workers — linking the news to the corporate tax cuts signed last month by President Donald Trump. It joins a growing list of companies saying “Thank you” to the president by raising their employees’ pay. The White House is crowing (its celebration only slightly dimmed by Wal-Mart’s ...

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this week released its list of climate events that have had the greatest economic impact on the US from 1980 to 2017. At $306 billion, last year’s sustained costs due to weather disasters was 43 percent higher than in 2005, which had hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. Hurricane Harvey alone caused $125 billion in ...

Behavioural economics has always met with a bit more resistance than it deserved. This is true even though a number of behavioural researchers have won the Nobel—Daniel Kahneman, Robert Shiller and Richard Thaler just last year. Despite this and other forms of official recognition at the highest levels, there continue to be some economists who have an almost instinctive aversion ...