As Janet Yellen’s tenure comes to an end, it’s worth reflecting on what may be her greatest accomplishment as chair of the Federal Reserve: With calm and dispassionate competence, she kept the central bank at arm’s length from a political system paralyzed by partisan strife. Look at the rest of Washington to see how valuable to the country that distance ...

The UK economy isn’t in recession. So why are some businesses having such a bad time? The number of profit warnings by British firms is at the highest in two years, with retailers and outsourcing firms among the worst-hit, according to accounting firm EY. Carillion Plc imploded this month, while shares of Carpetright Plc and Dignity Plc have seen 50 ...

Have you ever had the wild thought that if you shut your eyes really tight and then opened them again, you’d wake up and find that you were a kid again, and that your whole adult life had been one long dream? No more backaches, no more mortgage payments, just Saturday morning cartoons and Mom and Dad waiting for you ...

What goes up must come down, unless we’re talking about Boeing Co. The plane-maker — now also the biggest US industrial company after doubling its market value over the last year — reported fourth-quarter results last week that were nearly perfect. The recently passed US tax legislation contributed an outsized $1.74 to Boeing’s fourth-quarter earnings per share, equating to a ...

The re-election of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in October was welcomed warmly by stock market investors. The reappointment of Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda to another five-year term starting this April would also be viewed as a reassuring sign of policy continuity. The Japanese tradition of naming economic expansions after Shinto deities dates back to the 1950s. A fitting ...

Bloomberg UK politicians pushing for a post- Brexit trade deal on financial services are trying to stem an exodus of bankers from the City of London. For British banks, the stakes aren’t quite as high. A UK withdrawal with no preferential access to the single market would result in declining tax revenue and the potential loss of 75,000 finance jobs ...

Bloomberg A growing number of big US credit-card issuers are deciding they don’t want to finance a falling knife. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. said they’re halting purchases of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on their credit cards. JPMorgan, enacting the ban, doesn’t want the credit risk associated with the transactions, company spokeswoman Mary Jane ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer John Cryan, seeking to restore morale after massive bonus cuts last year, raised compensation for traders and bankers in 2017. He didn’t get much in return. Trading at Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank slumped 27 percent in the fourth quarter to 886 million euros ($1 billion), while fees from advising on deals and arranging debt ...

Bloomberg After markets closed on her final workday in office, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen delivered a blow to one of the nation’s largest banks: Wells Fargo & Co. won’t be allowed to grow until it cleans up. Fed officials said the San Francisco-based lender’s pattern of consumer abuses and compliance lapses called for an unprecedented sanction. Until Wells Fargo ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England will probably raise its economic growth forecasts next week, setting the scene for a potential interest-rate increase within months. In a survey for Bloomberg, all but one of 17 economists see the BOE lifting its 2018 projection, with the predictions for the next two years most likely to be left unchanged. The central bank will ...