For years, Russia has been the world’s biggest sovereign gold bug: Even while gold prices were in the doldrums, it doggedly kept increasing its reserves. Now that gold is at the highest level since 2013, the tactic appears to be paying off. The US dollar’s dominance as a global reserve currency is commonly thought to result from the dearth of ...

China’s central bank is stretching its arms far and wide to stem convulsions in the real economy. In the process, it’s lending legitimacy to financial firms that have long operated in the shadows. Beijing has invited non-bank financial institutions to play a larger and more formal role in the aftermath of the first regulatory takeover of a commercial lender in ...

The euro area economy is in a real bind, as Mario Draghi admitted at European Central Bank (ECB) summit in Portugal. So he won’t have been too thrilled that his suggestions on how to respond were subject to a rapid and damning response from the world’s most famous Twitter account. “Mario Draghi just announced more stimulus could come, which immediately ...