Bloomberg Dow Chemical Co. and DuPont Co.’s success at converting smart ideas in the laboratory into products used by farmers across the world was nearly their undoing when European Union regulators started poking around their proposed $77 billion merger. The bloc has been pushing to encourage investment in research and development as part of its political agenda, and EU …

  Bloomberg The operator of some of Europe’s largest copper and zinc mines expects President Donald Trump’s plans to spend on US infrastructure to have much less impact on base-metal prices than the needs of burgeoning middle-class populations in emerging markets. That’s because projects in the US and other developed countries simply won’t use enough zinc or copper to have …

  Bloomberg Home prices in 20 US cities climbed in the 12 months through January at the fastest pace since July 2014, while nationwide the increase in property values also accelerated, according to S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller data reported on Tuesday. 20-city property values index rose 5.7 percent from January 2016 (forecast was 5.6 percent) after increasing 5.5 percent in the …