Last week showed you all you need to know about how traders and investors instinctively react when markets get choppy. They’re dazed, confused and quick to cast blame. Consider when the S&P 500 Index capped a two-day decline of 3.5 percent to close near the lowest level since May. “The stock market has a debt problem,” a Bloomberg News article ...

The fight between Italy and Brussels over Rome’s budget is blamed widely on Italy’s populist leaders, Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio. The two deputy prime ministers have insisted that Rome should run much higher budget deficits over the next three years, in a bid to fulfill their electoral pledges and kick-start growth. A different government would almost certainly have ...

The French presidential cycle goes something like this: euphoria, then disappointment — and then disillusionment, as the pace of reform slows down and popular unrest builds up. The violent clashes at this weekend’s protests show just how accelerated the decline can be once opposition takes root. Emmanuel Macron was supposed to be different. He came to power in 2017 through ...

Two years ago, Thomas Cook Group Plc was Santa Claus, rewarding shareholders with the first dividend in five years. Now it has turned into the Grinch, with an ugly profit warning on Tuesday, and a decision to ditch the payout. The shares fell as much as 33 percent. It’s clearly a very difficult time as the company struggles to cope ...

Who says there is no consensus on Brexit? Maybe not in Westminster, where the UK’s fractious parliament sits; but get a group of business leaders in a room, and suddenly everything looks much clearer: Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal to quit the European Union is workable, but a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn would, however, be a whole other category ...

Bloomberg US stock futures fell as trade tensions with China flared and investors assessed comments from a Federal Reserve official. Treasuries declined. S&P 500 futures dropped after President Donald Trump threatened China with more tariffs days before a sit-down with his counterpart Xi Jinping. Apple looked set to fall deeper into a bear market as Trump suggested levies on mobile ...

Bloomberg Nasdaq Inc. is moving ahead with a plan to list Bitcoin futures, according to two people familiar with the matter, betting on sustained interest despite the cryptocurrency’s dramatic plunge over the past year. Nasdaq has been working to satisfy the concerns of the US’s main swaps regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, before launching the contracts, the people said. ...

Bloomberg The Indian government will push its central bank to ease lending restrictions for some weak banks and review rules governing its functioning at a board meeting next month, people with knowledge of the matter said. The members, including government nominees, will press for some of the weak banks to be removed from the so-called prompt corrective action list, particularly ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Asset Management is preparing for a rough year ahead in financial markets, and is taking to the higher-quality ground of short-dated Treasuries. Escalating trade tensions will likely be “the single most important issue moving global markets” in 2019, as they were in 2018, analysts wrote in a report on the outlook for the coming year. A deeper trade ...

Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc is weighing a plan to simplify its structure as the emerging markets lender looks to control costs across its sprawling network from Zambia to Macau, said people familiar with the matter. The London-based bank, which operates in about 60 markets, is exploring how to free up liquidity and reduce funding expenses within its different legal entities, ...