A growing number of economists seem convinced that the U.S., European Union and China are all headed for a prolonged period of sluggish growth — secular stagnation, in the words of former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. A close parallel would seem to be 1990s Japan. There, too, the bursting of debt-funded asset price bubbles gave way to multiple rounds …

  BLOOMBERG Stocks advanced as markets took a respite from the steepest selloff in global equities since January before the Federal Reserve’s policy decision. The British pound rebounded from a two-month low, while Spanish and Italian bonds gained for the first time this week. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index climbed from the lowest since February and emerging markets rose for …

  Bloomberg Nobody told China’s soybean meal traders that the commodity frenzy is over. While trading in everything from steel to cotton futures collapsed following steps by the country’s regulators to deflate a speculative bubble in April, the volume of soymeal contracts has continued to expand. The amount of the animal feedstock changing hands in a single day on the …