The sheer nastiness of Donald Trump-Hillary Clinton TV debates and the deft verbal fencing of French presidential candidates are still fresh in watchers’ memory. No wonder many were disappointed by Sunday’s ‘TV duel’ between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Social Democratic Party leader Martin Schulz, which Merkel won, according to polls. To many, the tame debate looked more like a …

Nothing makes a tech company quake in its boots so much as the sight of Apple Inc. marching into its territory. It’s a big deal for Western Digital Corp. not only to have Apple throw its hat in the ring of the Toshiba Corp. chip fight, but to have that name brandished like a weapon. Foxconn Technology Group, long a …

When you ask someone in the financial industry how his job creates value, he’ll often answer that it enhances liquidity. Why are high-frequency trading and other forms of algorithmic trading good for markets? Liquidity, we’re told. What’s the potential harm from the Volcker Rule, which prohibits banks from engaging in proprietary trading? It could decrease liquidity. There are endless academic …