There has been a ton written over the past few months — some but far from all of it inspired by Amazon.com Inc.’s “second headquarters” search — about the diverging economic fortunes of America’s metropolitan areas. A lot of it has been very interesting and informative. Taken as a whole, though, it can be pretty confusing. Are we, for example, ...

Italy’s populist rulers may have been hoping for some market contagion fear to help them win their budget standoff with Brussels, but so far it’s been a dog that didn’t bark. The economic program of the League and Five Star spooked investors in Italian government bonds, but failed to affect any other member state of the monetary union, barring Greece. ...

Bloomberg If you asked investors a few months ago what they’d remember about this year’s market, it would’ve been the storm of volatility that laid everything low in February. That episode is starting to seem quaint. Maybe nothing out of the ordinary is happening to stocks by historical standards, but try telling that to traders, who instead of relaxing for ...