Opinion

  It’s a new year, and for many investors that means it’s time to rebalance that old portfolio. Portfolio rebalancing is one of the most cherished wisdoms in investing. The markets can whipsaw investments in a portfolio over time, and rebalancing brings it back into, well, balance. Rebalancing is also a backdoor way to buy low and sell high because ...

  CIA Director John Brennan’s biggest concern the past few years hasn’t been Russian hacking, or even the wars in the Middle East, but what he calls “modernization” of the agency. In an effort to improve performance of this notoriously siloed organization, Brennan moved to fuse operations (the agency’s vaunted spies) and analysis (its less glamorous but no less essential ...

  It’s been two years since the European Central Bank decided to combat the region’s economic woes by expanding the supply of money, buying bonds and slashing interest rates to nothing. The moves effectively debased the euro, prompting a chorus of investors and strategists to opine that the shared currency would soon tumble to parity with the dollar for the ...

On Tuesday, UK Prime Minister Theresa May set out her fullest account yet of her aims in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations. Greater clarity was overdue, and welcome — but with it comes a clearer understanding of the enormous hazards Britain faces as this process moves forward. May said, “What I am proposing cannot mean membership of the single market.” That ...

  World is waiting to see where the mutual admiration between President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will proceed to. Will this wooing translate into a long-term courtship? Trump called Putin smart guy. The Republican said, “if Putin likes me, it’s an asset.” Trump also initially out-rightly rejected the intelligence agencies’ findings about Russian hacking and called it ...

  A report published in the journal Space Weather this week makes for sobering reading. In four scenarios envisaging the economic impact of a solar storm, the mildest triggers a daily loss to the US economy of $6.2 billion, or 15 percent of daily output; the worst case sees a cost of $41.5 billion, wiping out every dollar the world’s ...

  Goldman Sachs Group Inc. slimmed down in 2016 — and not just because the Trump administration was recruiting. The New York-based bank reported fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday that beat Wall Street expectations, helped in part by cost-saving measures that included lowering headcount by 500 positions. The decline brought reductions for the year to 2,400, or 7 percent of staff ...

  The Venetian Republic and the British Empire built their economies on ocean trade. Dwindling naval power heralded their decline and fall. It’s a thought that should provoke a shiver of recognition in Hong Kong and Singapore, given the way their airborne fleets are falling victim to a new Great Power struggle. Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. will cut jobs and ...

    If you’re worried about climate change, it’s scary to think that the incoming Trump administration could reverse gains made in recent years. But a recent conversation with departing Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz convinced me that the progress is probably irreversible. “There’s no question that we are moving to a lower-carbon economy,” Moniz said in an interview in his ...

  The Indian government’s abrupt decision to withdraw high-value notes from circulation has hurt a great many people and sectors of the economy. But the institution that’s been injured the most is the Reserve Bank of India. Since demonetization was announced on Nov. 8, India’s austere and technocratic central bank has become the butt of online jokes. Soft-spoken Governor Urjit ...