Having helped carry the African National Congress across the finish line in elections earlier this month, despite South Africans’ impatience with the party’s persistent corruption, President Cyril Ramaphosa will now need to lead his party toward greater reform. It’s the essential first step toward reviving a moribund economy and restoring South Africans’ faith in their future. The ANC’s seemingly robust ...

Exit polls in India have a patchy record. Polling has been off the mark in two of the last four general elections in India, so nobody should assume that the final results, which will begin to be available later this week, will necessarily follow the pattern of the exit polls that were released as voting ended this Sunday. Nevertheless, the ...

Before Terry Gou received a divine message to run for Taiwan’s presidency, the Foxconn founder said that he had stayed awake at night wondering what he could do for today’s youth. That’s an admirable sentiment, but doesn’t much help his own shareholders when they need him most. The company’s major client, accounting for half of sales, is facing the biggest ...

One wouldn’t think Chinese in their 60s worried about the cost of cancer treatment would be a demographic slice that interested high-flying technology companies. However, Ant Financial Services Group, an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., announced a new product targeted especially to them, part of its Xiang Hu Bao platform. For a small monthly fee, participants will be guaranteed ...

Bloomberg US equity futures and European stocks advanced on Tuesday following a mixed session in Asia as the trade-war driven turbulence that has dominated markets this month showed few signs of abating. The dollar strengthened while Treasuries slipped. Contracts on the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq 100 indexes all jumped in the wake of the US decision ...

Bloomberg Indian equities fell, reversing gains that pushed key indexes to a record, as euphoria around exit polls that predicted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s re-election ebbed. The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex dropped 1 percent to 38,969.80 in Mumbai, after rising to a high earlier in the day. The NSE Nifty 50 Index declined by same magnitude. Many investors are of ...

Bloomberg Angela Merkel is preparing for a clash with France as she pushes Germany’s most ambitious bid yet for a top European Union job. The German chancellor is focussed on securing the presidency of the European Commission or the European Central Bank for one of her compatriots, according to officials with knowledge of her thinking. If her Bavarian ally Manfred ...

Bloomberg It is wrong to suggest that the UK should pursue a no deal Brexit merely to end uncertainty for businesses, according to Ben Broadbent, the Bank of England’s deputy governor for monetary policy. In a speech in London, Broadbent said that surveys indicate that firms are most worried about the prospects of a no-deal, no-transition Brexit, and that pursuing ...

Bloomberg Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell agrees that the torrid market in high-risk corporate loans looks a lot like the mortgage industry in the run-up to the subprime crisis, but he says US regulators are watching closely this time around and the financial system is better shielded. In a sweeping analysis of leveraged lending Powell delivered a response to critics ...

Bloomberg In the wake of the economic crisis, Paul Volcker called automated teller machines the last financial innovation that improved society. A decade later, their popularity is slipping. The number of ATMs around the world fell for the first time last year as banks closed branches and redirected resources towards digital payments, consulting firm RBR said in a study released. ...