As President Trump prepares to head to Asia next month for his most important overseas trip yet, foreign intelligence services are undoubtedly trying to assemble personality profiles to explain this unconventional, risk-taking, domineering president to the leaders he will meet. How will they describe Trump? Probably not with the same hyperbole we sometimes use in our daily news commentary. Foreign …

Don’t celebrate too soon. That was the key message as policy makers and investors left Washington on Sunday after attending the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. For once the mood was upbeat. The IMF bumped up its forecast for global economic growth this year and next. Stocks are surging, credit spreads are tight and market …

Just like in the summer of 2014, fighting in northern Iraq is sending ripples through the oil market. A lot has changed in the meantime. Back then, IS was sweeping all before it; now, the wannabe caliphate’s collapse is allowing old tensions between Baghdad and the region’s Kurds to resurface. A lot has changed in the oil market, too. Brent …