Warren Buffett may have won his decade-long bet against hedge funds, but can his advice to investors to use only low-cost index funds beat the red-hot record of wealth managers? Readers of the 2017 Capgemini World Wealth Report, released on Thursday, will be shaking their heads. High-net-worth individuals reported an average 24 percent return last year on assets managed by …

With Puerto Rico sweltering in the dark, restoring electricity as soon as possible is vital to averting a humanitarian disaster. The island’s long-term recovery, however, will depend not only on repairing its battered grid but on reforming its feckless power company. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, the biggest public utility in the US, is notorious for its mismanagement and …

As she builds her new coalition government, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be mindful of the need to counter nationalism at home and the imperative of finding a consensus on integration in the euro zone. But the election also exposed a demographic rift that could present an even bigger challenge to Germany’s leaders: between a graying population that backed the …