Opinion

Why so surprised, bank investors? Shares of two of the largest US lenders, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp., tumbled recently to their lowest levels in at least four months after executives said second-quarter trading revenue is poised to fall at least 10 percent from the same period a year ago. Rival Wall Street banks with large ...

The laptop ban is coming. Can anyone doubt it? The latest signal came on Fox News Sunday, when Chris Wallace interviewed President Donald Trump’s secretary of homeland security, John Kelly. “Are you going to ban laptops in the cabins on all international flights into and out of the US?” Wallace asked. “I might,” Kelly replied, flashing the small, satisfied smile ...

I am not a big or even a little fan of President Donald Trump. Many of his policies strike me as undesirable, some in the extreme. His background and temperament have not prepared him for the presidency. He is largely ignorant of many issues he must face. And yet, for all this, the idea of impeaching him and removing him ...

Tidjane Thiam got away with a fine of half a million dollars, or just 0.009 percent of what he paid the Americans late last year. Yet the Credit Suisse Group AG CEO won’t be fooled by Singapore’s apparent leniency. Tuesday’s gentle rap concludes a two-year investigation by the city-state into banks that, knowingly or otherwise, helped facilitate an elaborate scheme ...

The Federal Reserve will almost certainly take steps to start reducing its $4.5 trillion balance sheet later this year. The central bankers made that clear in the minutes from their meeting. At first blush, this seems as if it would be bad for longer-term debt, which is yielding much less than it has historically in large part because of the ...

The effects of this month’s global ransomware attack seem to be fading, fortunately. But a crucial question the incident raised is only getting more urgent. When it comes to online security, the U.S. government’s priorities — preventing terrorism and protecting cyberspace — are in permanent tension. Is there a way to resolve it? The National Security Agency (NSA) routinely seeks out ...

Germany wants good relations with both Russia and the English-speaking world, but it can’t really trust either, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Such admissions don’t advance her re-election campaign as some claim, but her aim is much broader than that anyhow. Merkel’s remarks that “the time when we could fully rely on others is pretty much gone” and that ...

Investors with a macro view of the global economy will undoubtedly take into account population growth. Even though the pace of the expansion has peaked (1962-3), the overall number of people continues to grow, led by emerging markets. Estimates have put the total at 8.4 billion by mid-2030, and 9.6 billion by mid-2050. Contributing to this statistic is that people ...

For decades, Nestle SA has tried to get its infant milk powder into the hands of China’s new mothers with promises of brighter, healthier babies. Now it’s trying to do the same for the elderly. Last week, the company launched “Nestle YIYANG Fuel for brainTM senior milk powder,” a formula designed to help China’s seniors “refuel their brains and start ...

When in the Senate chamber, Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, sits by choice at the desk used by the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan. New York’s scholar-senator would have recognized that Sasse has published a book of political philosophy in the form of a guide to parenting. Moynihan understood that politics is downstream from culture, which flows through families. Sasse, a ...