Opinion

  The gathering tsunami of soaring energy costs finally forced Germany to act to quiet the grousing from the rest of the European Union. Chancellor Olaf Scholz is ready to drop his opposition to joint borrowing at the EU level to cushion the blow of the crisis, Bloomberg News reports. While this doesn’t look like a “Hamiltonian leap” toward federalized ...

  Last week was cruel for traders and investors who were hoping that financial markets would leave behind what has been a painful triple whammy this year caused by tightening financial conditions. After a strong bounce in both stocks and bonds early in the week offered some hope, the markets yanked it back, essentially erasing investors’ gains as investment portfolios ...

  A new set of restrictions on Chinese access to US semiconductor technology may arguably have commercial and geopolitical merit, but the timing couldn’t be worse. Shares of chip-industry leaders from Lam Research Corp. to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. plunged across the globe after the Biden administration announced stricter rules. These new measures are a natural evolution of Washington tightening ...

It won’t take much to push highly indebted Italy into a debt crisis, as it is already flirting with bond yields close to unsustainable levels. The big risk is of a buyer’s strike, akin to the recent UK gilt market meltdown. What happens next month will be crucial for the nation’s economic future. A lot of things have to come ...

  Where have Asia’s rebels gone? It’s striking how conventional the region’s response has been to the spike in inflation and worrisome slides in currencies. Unlike a generation ago, today’s challenges haven’t forced a retreat from the orthodox. The radical center is holding. Whenever Asia is under financial duress, it’s tempting to reach for comparisons with the collapse of the ...

  If it feels like the winter holiday season starts earlier every year, that’s because it does. It’s not just the pumpkin spice lattes and Christmas knits taking over your Instagram feed. This week, Target Corp. kicked off its deal days. Next week, Amazon.com Inc.’s second prime day of the year takes place. Retailers are right to be out of ...

  Yet again, trouble at a big European bank, this time Credit Suisse Group AG, is roiling markets. Concerns about the cost of an expected restructuring have sent its share price gyrating wildly, leading both executives and analysts to appeal for calm and emphasize that the bank is among the best capitalized of its peers. If only that comparison were ...

To hear many people talk, the fate of the planet hangs in the balance depending on the outcome of the second-round vote in Brazil’s election. On one side is Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the leftist who all but halted the logging of the Amazon in his term as president from 2003 to 2010. On the other is Jair Bolsonaro, ...

  College students and nutrition don’t always go together. Spend time on campus and sooner or later somebody will brag about a finals week fueled on cheap ramen, or weekends spent subsisting on leftover pizza. Similar diets in young schoolchildren would be cause for alarm; When they occur in college, outsiders and students alike tend to laugh them off or ...

  Here is the pitfall of working at a multinational. Calamities elsewhere, such as bad business decisions made thousands of miles away, can lead to major overhauls across the board, sapping growth prospects everywhere and denting employee morale. This is especially true now at Credit Suisse Group AG, whose new management team promised to unveil an emergency strategy review later ...