The European Central Bank (ECB) has become the Schroedinger’s cat of global monetary policy. It has managed to be both awake and asleep at the same time. Three senior policy makers signaled concerns over euro-area growth in recent days. At last, officials are finally alive to the risks that the bloc’s situation has become serious. Terrible industrial sales and orders ...

Never mind the mixed signals about the state of global consumers, and never mind Amazon.com Inc.’s growing might. Walmart Inc.’s run of booming comparable sales growth continues unabated. The big-box giant reported that its US comparable sales rose 4.2 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, better than analysts had expected. It was its biggest growth on this ...

Singapore’s largest bank had only the briefest of honeymoons with an improving global economy. Rising global interest rates, amplified by US president Donald Trump’s late-cycle fiscal expansion, boosted DBS Group Holdings Ltd.’s loan profitability. But only up to a point. In the past three months, the two to four rate increases CEO Piyush Gupta expected from the Federal Reserve in ...