India’s annual budget made equity investors ecstatic and the bond market morose. Could both of them be right? In her speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman pegged total government expenditure for the current fiscal year at 34.5 trillion rupees ($472 billion). That’s $57 billion more than what analysts had forecast based on a muted April-to-November trend, extrapolated for a bump in ...

One upshot of Covid-19 has been closer coordination between monetary and fiscal powers. This has led to a revolution in macroeconomic policy — one that countries should continue building upon. Just as central banks have been rethinking their frameworks, there is a strong case for governments to similarly reconsider their approach to fiscal policy. Europe now has the perfect opportunity ...

Crowds are easily exploited by their leaders, theorised 19th-century psychologist Gustave Le Bon, whose mantra for guiding the masses was: “Assertion, repetition, contagion.” Today’s financial markets are much the same — but crowd control has its challenges. Easily-shared memes, GIFs and tweets have fuelled a volatile stampede into corners of the stock market, metals and cryptocurrencies, with tech billionaires such ...