Bloomberg Zurich Insurance Group AG fell in Zurich trading after posting a quarterly profit supported by one-time gains as Chief Executive Officer Mario Greco presses ahead with an overhaul of Switzerland’s largest insurer. Net income for the three months through December amounted to $685 million compared with a loss of $424 million a year earlier due to restructuring costs ...

Of the many puzzles posed by Donald Trump’s administration, the role of the National Security Council (NSC) is among the trickiest. The NSC usually tries to act as an “honest broker” among Cabinet agencies. But how will it function under a headstrong president who sees his role as disruptor and tweeter-in-chief? This challenge falls to national security adviser Michael Flynn, ...

  Dig around on finance corners of the internet and you find people touting the logic of May-December corporate romances. If Apple bought all or parts of Time Warner or Disney, or Amazon hitched up with Macy’s Inc., or Google owned a traditional automaker, it would be a sweeter combination than chocolate and peanut butter. The experienced hand and the ...

  Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe comes to Washington this Friday bearing gifts, reportedly including a proposal to invest billions in U.S. railroads, bridges and highways. The investment is sorely needed, and the offer will no doubt be appreciated. Still, it’s hard not to ask: Has it come to this? President Donald Trump seems to favour a transactional approach to ...

  Silicon Valley’s biggest firms strongly reacted to US President Donald Trump’s travel ban. They argue that tech world needs immigrants’ creativity and energy to stay competitive. About 58 percent of the engineers and other high-skill employees in Silicon Valley were born outside the US. Hence it is nature that tech giants are against the travel ban. Though the tech ...

  When the International Monetary Fund’s board met on Monday to discuss Greece, it was heartening to read that “most Executive Directors” agreed with the staff’s view that the country’s debt, at 179 percent of gross domestic product at the end of 2015, was “unsustainable.” Yet “some directors had different views on the fiscal path and debt sustainability.” This division ...

  The Reserve Bank of India has not exactly covered itself in glory since Nov. 8, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi sprung the news on a startled nation that 86 percent of its currency would be worthless within a few hours. The central bank’s refusal to release up-to-date data about the demonetization, its constant stream of confusing and contradictory orders ...

  President Donald Trump is right about one thing: The US trade deficit with the rest of the world — which topped $500 billion last year — is unhealthy. It puts upward pressure on U.S. unemployment that can only be countered with policies that lead to rising debt. It doesn’t follow, however, that the worst culprits are always the countries ...

  Bloomberg Poor fourth-quarter earnings from two United Arab Emirates companies weighed on stock markets there on Thursday while Kuwait pulled back in another day of volatile trade. Dubai’s index fell 1.2 percent to 3,683 points, retreating from major technical resistance at 3,737-38 points, the peaks in January. Air Arabia slumped 8.6 percent in unusually heavy trade after it made ...

  Bloomberg Japanese equities slid ahead of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Friday meeting with US President Donald Trump, offsetting a rally in Greater China shares to lead Asia stocks lower. “Japanese stocks are consolidating after the yen strengthened, while investors wait for more geopolitical catalysts,” said Nicholas Teo, a trading strategist at KGI Securities Pte. in Singapore. Japan’s Topix fell ...