Moody’s Investor’s Service released a very interesting report on Amazon.com Inc. this week. It was distinctly different from the usual Wall Street research, which tends to be glowing about anything related to the company’s founder and chief executive officer, Jeff Bezos. I am a fan of his work and company, so in order to check myself, I seek out opposite ...

European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi is discovering that exiting quantitative easing is harder than introducing it. The more the euro rises, the more downward pressure it puts on inflation, making it harder for the central bank to taper its bond-buying program, which in turn boosts the euro. It’s a vicious circle, driven largely by the improved economic outlook ...

The absurdist political theater surrounding the US government debt ceiling is having another revival. With debt default looming next month, President Donald Trump has agreed to a deal that will grant emergency relief for Hurricane Harvey and raise the ceiling — until December, when another phony fiscal crisis is scheduled. Given the impressive dysfunction of Congress, compounded these days by ...

The recently held Brexit talks between the UK and the European Union didn’t go well. The March 2019 deadline for concluding an agreement is approaching, and progress has been much too slow. Prime Minister Theresa May needs to get a grip on this process. Britain’s government faces two crucial obstacles. It’s in May’s power to break through both. The first ...

China’s ban on initial coin offerings has provided a much-needed pause in the booming market, where people ranging from legitimate entrepreneurs to outright thieves attract money by selling digital tokens. But the move also raises a question: How can any government control a phenomenon that transcends national borders and rules? The Chinese central bank’s decision to outlaw token sales is ...

Debates over immigration are fraught with misconceptions. One of the most common is that the integration of Muslims into Western Europe societies has gone very badly, in large part because terror attacks loom so large in the news. Those attacks are a very real problem, yet they do not reflect the typical reality. A new study from the Bertelsmann Stiftung ...

Bloomberg The head of European listings at Nasdaq Inc. says Britain’s decision to leave the European Union is driving more UK companies to its Nordic market. Nasdaq Nordic now expects up to 15 percent of its initial public offerings and listings in 2018 could be made by companies outside the region. Most of the approaches it’s getting are from UK ...

Reuters Stock markets in the Middle East were mixed in narrow ranges on Sunday, with banks and petrochemicals supporting Saudi Arabia while Qatar edged down to a fresh 18-month closing low. The Saudi index rose 0.2 percent. All but two of the 14 listed petrochemical shares advanced after a pick-up in oil prices at the end of last week, with ...

Bloomberg Oil has denied Saudi Arabia the opportunity to overtake South Africa as the biggest stock market in the Middle East and Africa, even as political turmoil and a faltering economy hold back share prices in Johannesburg. The total market capitalisation of the South African bourse was $489 billion, about $25 billion more than that of Riyadh’s after its main ...

Bloomberg The White House is considering more than a half-dozen candidates to be the next head of the Federal Reserve, including economists and business people, with a goal of filling out a depleted board with expertise ranging from financial regulation to community banking, according to three people familiar with the matter. The breadth of the search goes against the narrative ...