The Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates untouched was born out of optimism and apprehension. In the end, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) resorted to a studied restraint. And while doing so, they issued an upbeat statement about the improving economic conditions in the US, but didn’t rule out the possibility of hiking the rates should there …

  Eli Lake Watching Donald Trump comment on the hack of the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers brings to mind the Dave Chappelle show. In a recurring bit called “when keeping it real goes wrong,” various people would decide to say what they really felt, only to face disastrous consequences. Trump was revealing a little too much about himself when …

  Just when it seemed that negative yields could not spread any further, they did. Corporate bonds paying negative interest rates now account for about $512 billion of market value, bringing the world close to a total of nearly $10 trillion in securities with yields below zero. Most are government securities. There are numerous explanations for this strange and unexpected …