Bloomberg Its last day may have been a washout, but the first quarter just took its place among the best of the lengthening bull run for US stocks. Even with a 0.2 percent decline, the S&P 500 Index surged 5.5 percent in the three months ended March 31, the biggest advance since shares jumped 6.5 percent at the end …

  Bloomberg Puente Hnos SA, the largest local brokerage in Argentina, is weighing selling shares of its UK holding company in Buenos Aires before the end of the year. The company is still considering an initial public offering in New York or London, Federico Tomasevich, Puente’s global chairman, said in an interview. Selling the securities in Argentina is preferred because …

  It isn’t often that economics raises the most profound questions of human existence, but recent work of economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton (husband and wife, both of Princeton University) comes close. You may recall that a few years ago, Case and Deaton reported the startling finding that the death rates of non-Hispanic whites aged 50 to 54 had …