Emmanuel Macron is trying to be something new in French politics — a president who responds to public concerns without dropping his reforms at the first sign of trouble. Instead he has tried to air public grievances and react without caving into protesters’ demands. For this he deserves credit. To pull France out of the economic troubles that have created ...

Over the next 20 years, what will be the most unexpectedly transformative technology? It’s a question that’s been asked of me more than once recently, and my counterintuitive answer is the automobile — and I am not referring to self-driving vehicles. Often innovation comes most strongly in basic, frequently used services, where the value proposition is already well established. So ...

Standard Chartered Plc Chief Executive Officer Bill Winters is going make a lot of shareholders, including its largest stockholder Temasek Holdings Pte, very happy. Having paid out a $1 billion fine for violating Iran sanctions, the bank had cleared the decks for buybacks to cheer disgruntled shareholders and boost its return on tangible equity. On April 29, the bank delivered. ...

The UK government’s decision to publish a job listing for the next Bank of England (BOE) governor has prompted speculation over who will replace Mark Carney and where he or she should come from. But the issue of when the next bank chief should be expected to step down from the role is just as important. Philip Hammond, Chancellor of ...

Bloomberg European Central Bank policy makers who sounded the alarm about the region’s slowdown last month can now relax a bit as the stimulus they prepped becomes less urgent. It was during the first quarter that officials, led by President Mario Draghi, reactivated plans to aid growth in a moment of embarrassment so soon after concluding bond purchases last year. ...

Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is planning to open a stock-trading brokerage in Mexico as it boosts its presence in Latin America’s second-largest economy. The move will allow the firm to buy and sell stocks locally on behalf of clients, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The new business line, still months away from being up and running, ...

Bloomberg Singapore’s economy will slow in 2019, reflecting a weakening in key trading partners and a further cooling of the electronics sector, the central bank said. The city state is set to expand slightly below the midpoint of a 1.5 percent to 3.5 percent forecast range for this year after growing 3.2 percent in 2018, the Monetary Authority of Singapore ...

Bloomberg The US Treasury Department indicated that the government will need to borrow less than previously estimated as the Federal Reserve slows the reduction of its asset portfolio on its balance sheet. The department expects to issue $30 billion in privately held net marketable debt between April and June, assuming a cash balance of $270 billion at the end of ...

Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc spent 150 years building a financial fortress around Hong Kong that touches nearly every aspect of life in the former British colony. One of the bank’s biggest threats? A pack of upstart virtual lenders, which barely existed two months ago, backed by the likes of Standard Chartered Plc and Chinese internet insurer ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance ...

Bloomberg J Sainsbury Plc got some breathing space from better-than-expected profit after the collapse of a 7.3 billion-pound ($9.5 billion) deal to acquire Walmart Inc’s Asda. The grocer’s shares rose as much as 6.4 percent as the company laid out its Plan B for fighting the UK’s supermarket wars alone. Sainsbury said it will invest in improving its stores, where ...