Last week showed you all you need to know about how traders and investors instinctively react when markets get choppy. They’re dazed, confused and quick to cast blame. Consider when the S&P 500 Index capped a two-day decline of 3.5 percent to close near the lowest level since May. “The stock market has a debt problem,” a Bloomberg News article ...

The fight between Italy and Brussels over Rome’s budget is blamed widely on Italy’s populist leaders, Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio. The two deputy prime ministers have insisted that Rome should run much higher budget deficits over the next three years, in a bid to fulfill their electoral pledges and kick-start growth. A different government would almost certainly have ...

The French presidential cycle goes something like this: euphoria, then disappointment — and then disillusionment, as the pace of reform slows down and popular unrest builds up. The violent clashes at this weekend’s protests show just how accelerated the decline can be once opposition takes root. Emmanuel Macron was supposed to be different. He came to power in 2017 through ...