Opinion

Under securities law, a publicly disclosed half-truth is worse than no truth at all, according to an appeals court opinion filed this week involving Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. The decision has an intuitive moral appeal. But it’s not at all clear that it makes sense from the standpoint of investors, who might be misled just as thoroughly by failure to disclose ...

  Because Brexit isn’t risky enough, apparently, Britain’s Conservative government has decided to embark on another project fraught with potential for failure. For many years, the country has been arguing furiously about a big expansion of London’s Heathrow airport. Having once opposed the idea, the Tories say they are now in favour. Prime Minister Theresa May is right: Heathrow needs ...

  She never talks about her goal of becoming the first woman president in US history. People talk. And she rarely speaks of breaking the highest and hardest glass ceiling holding women down. Her supporters say so. But she did announce her choice of an Election Night venue symbolic of this ambition: the enormous Javits Center in New York constructed ...

  Here’s a little diversion to pass the time as you endure Washington’s policy debates. Listen for phrases like “All we have to do” or “We need just a small tweak” or “There’s a really simple fix.” Then watch to see what happens. Whatever that person is proposing will prove to be really, really costly—politically or fiscally or both. On ...

The move from active investing to passive has been a hot topic lately. Fund flows show that investors are voting with their feet. The news media has been all over the story. The Wall Street Journal has done a big spread on it; Bloomberg has covered it extensively as well. Bill Miller, the legendary stock picker at Legg Mason Capital ...

  No one likes to admit defeat. But global policymakers, who continue to insist that there’s more they can do to revive growth and inflation, are starting to sound like Monty Python’s Black Knight, the limbless and mortally wounded warrior who threatens to bleed on his victorious opponent. The truth is that governments and central banks have very few weapons ...

  When America fights its wars in the Middle East, it has a nasty habit of recruiting local forces as proxies and then jettisoning them when the going gets tough or regional politics intervene. This pattern of “seduction and abandonment” is one of our least endearing characteristics. It’s one reason the U.S. is mistrusted in the Middle East. We don’t ...

  To borrow a phrase from Vermont’s favourite socialist, I too am sick and tired of hearing about Hillary Clinton’s damn e-mails. As we all found out on Friday afternoon, the FBI is reviewing some messages involving a close Clinton aide to see if they contained classified information. The agency’s director, James Comey, said so in a vague letter to ...

  House Republicans are digging in for four years of nonstop investigations of Hillary Clinton if she is elected, and promising rejection of any legislation she proposes. As Paul Waldman at the Plum Line put it, they’ve already prepared to treat her presidency as illegitimate, just as they did with Barack Obama. Some of this is what political scientists might ...

  At last, the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is set to be formally signed today. The deal went through a roller-coaster. Opposition from many corners — essentially from Belgian’s Wallonia region — to the agreement threw up daunting challenges for the EU. It put at stake the bloc’s credibility as a union. Now that the deal is ...