For the past six years, there’s been no number more filled with dread for gold bulls than $1,350 an ounce. Barring a few brief spikes, the metal has struggled to break through that level ever since it came off its run-up to $1,900 between 2011 and 2013. This matters, because an asset that has few fundamental factors driving its performance ...

Say this for Facebook Inc.: It doesn’t lack ambition. The company unveiled plans to issue a digital currency, called Libra, sometime next year. Using a blockchain-like data system, and anchored by a basket of low-risk financial assets, its ambition is to be bitcoin without the problems. Or, as Facebook modestly puts it, “a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that ...

On June 19, as most investors expected, the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged for now, but said the case for cuts later in the year is stronger than before. That judgment looks reasonable, all things considered. Right now, the US economy is at or close to full employment, growing at a satisfactory rate, with inflation close to the Fed’s ...