He’s making a list and checking it twice, but can’t find a takeover target that’s nice. Warren Buffett is the jolly man of the stock market. However, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has also been a bit of a Scrooge this year, as he continues to pass up acquisitions and instead hoard his money. The billionaire has ...

China has a mounting debt problem. Not just over-leveraged companies, but a rapid build-up on household balance sheets that is hitting records. You can blame youth for a borrowing binge that, if left unchecked, could be China’s next credit bubble. Household debt hit levels of 57% of gross domestic product in the third quarter, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Matthew ...

After the financial crisis, Europe’s political leaders put together a complex set of rules to make it harder for future governments to bail out banks. That system is looking so full of holes that one wonders what the point of it is. Two episodes in a fortnight show that taxpayers are still very much on the hook for the financial ...