Opinion

  A major factor behind the soaring growth of risky wealth-management products in China is that investors typically think the government stands behind them. Lately, nervous regulators have been emphasizing that this isn’t so. But they’ll have to do a lot more to change expectations in a state-dominated economy. Wealth management products are short-term, high-yielding investments that are issued by ...

  Disputes between Mexico and the United States over the North American Free Trade Agreement are not new. In March 2009, after years of litigation, the US government abruptly suspended a pilot program that allowed Mexican truck drivers to deliver goods across the border. Mexico retaliated, imposing tariffs as high as 45 percent on $2.4 billion worth of US goods ...

  Not-for-profit industries are hardly associated by most investors with rising returns. Not so in China, whose private-school sector has become initial public offering gold in Hong Kong. Two of the city’s five biggest IPOs so far this year have been of Chinese nonprofit school operators: China Yuhua Education Corp., which made its trading debut this week, and Wisdom Education ...

  After months of uncertainty and some false starts, President Donald Trump seems to have picked someone to be the head of his Council of Economic Advisers. That someone is Kevin Hassett, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank. This is a great move, for a number of reasons. First, along with the hiring of H.R. ...

  Everything China has, India wants — except perhaps its communist rulers. Right now, the object of the southern neighbour’s envy is oil. Or, to be precise, very large energy gorillas. Beijing possesses three, and New Delhi none. So the latter wants to merge its smaller companies into bigger groups. There’s only one problem with the plan: shareholders. When China ...

  In another year or another administration, the absence of a cabinet official at a press conference would merit no comment. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s decision not to attend Friday’s release of the department’s annual human rights report, however, is a small but telling sign of a more profound and dangerous shift: President Donald Trump’s apathy for the values ...

  Russia might be Achilles heel of Trump foreign policy. During his campaign, and after taking oath of office for president of United States, Trump was accused of having something to do with Russia. Trump always lambasted the report of Russian interventions in US presidential elections. The Republican billionaire disparaged those who accused Putin directing Russian hacking. The intelligence report ...

  Rise of the machines! Attack of the clones! This is a common outcry from the financial industry and investors alike in reaction to the rapid rise of ‘passive’ index funds and exchange-traded funds, which now have about $5 trillion in assets in the United States. Investors have an understandable tendency to see passive investing as a bunch of robotic ...

  This must be “copy your competitor” week for corporations. McDonald’s Corp., at its annual investor day, unveiled plans to roll out mobile ordering and delivery to all its US locations. In a bid to win over lapsed customers, it’s embracing the same digital tools Starbucks Corp. and Domino’s Pizza Inc. have used to grow sales. Recently I warned Target ...

  On March 29, Samsung Electronics Co. will unveil its new Galaxy S8 phone. When you release a new product, you want to show off its cool new features. But Samsung’s launch stands to be overshadowed by not one but two reputational fires the company is fighting simultaneously. And “fire” isn’t just a metaphor: One of the company’s problems is ...