Opinion

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has announced the end of Libor — the London interbank offered rate, one of the world’s most important interest-rate benchmarks. This is no minor technical adjustment. The change will have far-reaching effects in global financial markets. It’s a good move — and the timing is right. Libor is used to set payments on more than …

France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, vowed to attract more foreign investment and to push for greater European integration. His government’s decision to block an Italian takeover of France’s STX shipyard has broken both promises in one fell swoop. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said recently that France would temporarily nationalize the yard —blocking a deal that would have seen Italy’s …

The ousting of Pakistan’s prime minister by the country’s top court dramatically raises the risk profile for investors and businesses in the tumultuous, but fast-growing South Asian economy. The Supreme Court’s disqualification of Nawaz Sharif after a graft probe, prompting his resignation, poses big challenges to the country’s credit profile. As the stock market dipped on Friday, the court’s dramatic …

Britain’s biggest telecoms provider, BT Group Plc, has been having a terrible time of it lately. Its shares are the fourth-worst performer on the FTSE 100 so far this year, and the worst among European industry peers. On Friday, it reported financial first-quarter results that reveal how hard it will be to change investors’ minds about its prospects. While the …

Facebook has warned for months that its runaway train of revenue growth is running out of steam. The company showed on Wednesday that it is laying new track as fast as it can. Facebook continues to be one of the fastest growing and most profitable tech companies in the world. Revenue rose 45% in the second quarter, the company said …

In January 1988, in Ronald Reagan’s final State of the Union address, he noisily dropped on a table next to the podium in the House chamber three recent continuing resolutions, each more than a thousand pages long. Each was evidence of Congress’ disregard of the 1974 Budget Act. Reagan fumed: “…budget deadlines delayed or missed completely, monstrous continuing resolutions that …

When Moody’s Investors Service polled market participants in Hong Kong recently, 70% picked India’s banking system as the most vulnerable among seven countries in South and Southeast Asia. I wonder what remaining 30% were smoking. As another earnings season rolls on, the weaknesses of Indian lenders are once again obvious. What’s not as apparent, though, is an quadrifurcation of Indian …

Greece returned to the private debt market this week for the first time in years, raising 3 billion euros at a relatively affordable interest rate of 4.6 percent. That’s encouraging news — but it doesn’t mean the euro zone’s most flattened economy is on course for sustained growth. The economy is showing signs of life, growing a bit in the …

Like the rage of Achilles, Donald Trump’s tweets are sudden, explosive and freighted with tragedy. Yesterday brought the most foreboding yet. “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow……” And then: nothing. For a full nine minutes, the world was left to ponder what those ominous six …

By any measure, the April 2016 decision by Uber Technologies Inc. to sell its China operations to rival Didi Chuxing was a defeat. The brief but spectacular battle between the two ride-hailing behemoths had cost Uber at least $2 billion and earned it little more than the enmity of the Chinese government. The only silver lining seemed to be that …