I have been recommending a defensive stance in equities since at least February, and truth be told, that hasn’t worked out so well. The S&P 500 Index has returned 4.3 percent since then, including reinvested dividends. I’m not ready to throw in the towel. What compels me to keep at it is the behavior of stocks at the close of …

President Donald Trump’s threat to exercise a US “military option” in Venezuela was irresponsible not because it was unrealistic, although it was, or because it reinforced that nation’s tottering autocracy, although it did. The lasting damage of Trump’s words may be to the US relationship with Latin America. For the first time in more than a decade, some of the …

In a sense, President Donald Trump threaded a rhetorical needle last week explaining why he will prolong the war in Afghanistan that he had opposed as a candidate. America will no longer fight for girls’ schools and democracy. Instead, it will fight to destroy terrorists. “We will not dictate to the Afghan people how to live, or how to govern …