Facebook’s business model is pretty simple. It offers a free service to connect users with loved ones and others of similar interests. In return, it collects data about what its users do online (and, increasingly, offline). It then uses this data to sell targeted advertising. The whole thing works brilliantly. Yet the company — like so many others that profit ...

The omnibus spending bill currently before Congress includes a small but ill-conceived program that deserves to be noticed, then deleted. The EB-5 Regional Center program that gives visas to investors invites abuse and is failing to do what it’s meant to. Since 1990, foreigners who invest $1 million (or, in rural or high-unemployment areas, $500,000) in a new enterprise that ...

US President Donald Trump has finally carried out his threats on trade with China, announcing the start of a process that will lead to sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports and restrictions on Chinese investments. Trump hopes to compel a recalcitrant China to end a range of unfair business practices and open its market wider to US companies, thus reducing the ...

The secret use of Facebook data in the US presidential election has forced governments and consumers to think about how such companies gather and profit from personal information — a major concern overdue for close attention. This scrutiny may be the beginning of the end of the unregulated growth of Silicon Valley. Tech companies and their investors may shudder at ...

Despite sky-high housing prices, Silicon Valley remains the vital center of the US tech industry. Once an industry takes root in a particular place, it’s very hard to pull it away. Which makes it all the more important to understand: Why did Silicon Valley become Silicon Valley in the first place? One prominent theory is that California’s culture encouraged a ...

Bloomberg UBS Group AG is considering small acquisitions to complement its focus on organic growth as it reverses a shrinking of assets following the financial crisis. “Our focus is on organic growth. Of course we look at small acquisitions here and there to complement our portfolio,” Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti told Bloomberg TV on the sidelines of the China ...

Bloomberg 220-year-old Hamburg-based private bank M.M.Warburg & CO, which now uses an online asset manager to also attract private clients with smaller wallets, might expand this offer to semi-institutional customers by the end of the year, according to investment chief Christian Jasperneite. The company’s so-called Warburg Navigator, which was launched last year, accepts private clients with a minimum investment of ...

Bloomberg Europe’s investment banks were upbeat after a spike in volatility at the start of the year promised to revive their battered trading units. Their exuberance had disappeared as quickly as it came. Deutsche Bank AG cautioned that its securities unit was facing headwinds this quarter from a stronger euro and higher funding costs for the business, less than a ...

Bloomberg The Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) biggest private shareholder sold 10 percent of his stake in 2017, capitalising on the thinly traded stock’s mystifying rally. Theo Siegert, a German businessman and professor, held 6,070 shares — or 6.07 percent of the SNB — as of Dec. 31, down from 6,720 a year earlier, the central bank said in its annual ...

Bloomberg For the first time in a decade, the world’s central banks are looking beyond the dollar to build their currency reserves. With US protectionism on the rise, a number of Wall Street strategists say the case for the euro has rarely been better. Existential crises that hobbled the European experiment have receded. A resurgent economy has spurred talk the ...