One under-appreciated factor behind Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi’s success as Indian prime minister has been the tailwind he’s received from low oil prices. Brent crude averaged $99.43 a barrel during his predecessor Manmohan Singh’s second term in office, putting pressure on an economy that’s heavily dependent on imports. It began its precipitous decline from those levels just weeks after ...

It’s time to face facts. Interest-rate arbitrage no longer works — the Hong Kong dollar is being driven more by money flows from China. The city’s currency fell to HK$7.85 per dollar last week — the weak end of its permitted band for the first time since the range was imposed in 2005. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority said it ...

When you consider what we know so far about the tariffs the Trump administration has recently considered imposing on Chinese goods, you might be tempted to think the retail industry shouldn’t be in panic mode. Yes, items such as televisions and dishwashers are on the list of products the US plans to tax. But, so far at least, key products ...

George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan continues to grab the occasional headline with his thesis that formal education is mostly wasted time and money. Caplan’s book, “The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money,” has been highly controversial. I have taken issue with his premise that people pay for college in order to ...

Axis Bank Ltd’s board mustn’t feel even the slightest embarrassment for being so wrong for so long. In fact, it deserves a vote of thanks for helping to create possibly the biggest and juiciest takeover target in the history of Indian banking. Rewind to last July. The Indian lender’s board had just rewarded CEO Shikha Sharma with a fourth term—until ...

The transition from liquidity-powered markets for risk assets to those influenced a lot more by fundamentals was never likely to be smooth, as it involved changes to drivers of investor behavior and market flows. Yet, despite this year’s unsettling spikes in high-frequency, two-way market moves, the right investment strategy is to “look through” the volatility. Given the events in markets ...

LONDON / Reuters Tougher rules introduced after the financial crisis have made it harder for banks to support the economy, a European banking lobby said in a study they hope will stem the flow of new regulation. Banks have been forced to hold far more capital since many of them were bailed out by taxpayers during the 2007-09 financial crisis. ...

Bloomberg India’s state-run Punjab National Bank (PNB) is conducting an internal investigation into an alleged $2 billion fraud and more heads could roll, its chief executive said in an interview. The country’s second-biggest state lender disclosed in February that companies owned by two jewellers defrauded it by raising credit from overseas branches of other Indian banks, using illegal guarantees issued ...

SEOUL / Reuters South Korea’s central bank held interest rates steady, with Governor Lee Ju-yeol taking a cautious stance in the face of high household debt, weak inflation and tightrope-tense trade relations between the United States and China. The Bank of Korea’s monetary policy committee held its base rate steady at 1.50 percent, in line with forecasts from 18 analysts ...

DUBLIN / Reuters Ireland’s central bank raised its forecast for economic growth as domestic activity strengthened and international demand improved, but it said the economy was vulnerable to post-Brexit trade restrictions and changes in European Union tax rules. Ireland’s economy has been the best performing in Europe since 2014 and the central bank sees that momentum continuing, with gross domestic ...