Christine Lagarde sounded mildly optimistic as she talked about the euro region’s economy last week. The disappointing data gives her a reality check. The situation remains fragile and the European Central Bank (ECB) is still far from its inflation target. The newly installed ECB president would be wise to return to her earlier caution. The monetary union expanded by a ...

Remember Aibo, the computerised dog Sony Corp. started selling in 1999 as the first personal robot? Hiro Mizuno, the chief investment officer of Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), does. So he asked Sony’s computer science lab unit to build him a cyberhound using artificial intelligence to help oversee the external fund managers who manage GPIF’s $1.6 trillion in assets. ...

When even LVMH misses estimates, it’s not a good look for the luxury sector. While the owner of the Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior brands still delivered 8% growth in organic sales in the final quarter of the year, this was slightly below the consensus of analysts’ estimates of 8.7%. Organic sales from the fashion and leather goods division rose ...