When it comes to market volatility, don’t discount the influence of U.S. presidents. According to the Presidential Cycle Theory, the highest stock market returns are achieved in the third year of a new administration. Volatility, though, rises in the first year before peaking later on, as new policies work their way through markets. Since Donald Trump was elected in November, ...

In 1950, the year before William F. Buckley burst into the national conversation, the literary critic Lionel Trilling revealed why the nation was ripe for Buckley’s high-spirited romp through its political and cultural controversies. Liberalism, Trilling declared, was “not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition” in mid-century America because conservatism was expressed merely in ‘irritable mental gestures.’ ...

Bloomberg Qatar’s markets received a battering as four of the country’s Middle East neighbors cut ties in a row over its stance on Iran and extremists. The nation’s dollar bonds tumbled and contracts used to bet the Qatari riyal will weaken the most since 2009. More than four times the daily average of shares changed hands on the key stock ...

Bloomberg No news is good news. At least for investors seeking stable returns, it’s better to buy companies that aren’t in the spotlight. To exploit a so-called low-volatility anomaly, the head of quantitative equity management at BNP Paribas SA invests in stocks that seldom get any attention in the media. “People are attracted by companies where they get a lot ...

Bloomberg The World Bank (WB) kept its outlook for the global economy unchanged, forecasting a modest pickup in growth despite uncertainty about monetary policy and the risk of a surge in protectionism. The development lender projects the world economy will grow by 2.7 percent this year and 2.9 percent the next, the same as its January forecast. “Global activity is ...

Bloomberg Ireland’s drive to recoup money from the bank rescue that almost bankrupted the nation is finally gaining pace. The Irish government started the process of selling 25 percent of Allied Irish Banks Plc, (AIB) after spending 21 billion euros ($23.5 billion) bailing out the lender following the 2008 financial crisis. In comments aired on Wednesday, Finance Minister Michael Noonan ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said China has made “huge progress” on market reforms and he would like to increase his firm’s businesses in the nation. The New York-based JPMorgan is hoping to get a corporate bond license in China and would consider another joint venture in Asia’s biggest economy, Dimon said in an interview ...

Bloomberg The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has surprised many with its tolerance for market pain as it squeezes leverage in parts of the financial system. But rest assured, China won’t clamp down so hard it endangers President Xi Jinping’s goal to keep growth above 6.5 per cent, according to economists from Morgan Stanley, Mizuho Securities and Oxford Economics. “Some ...

Bloomberg A month can be a long time in economics. Since the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) last policy decision on May 2, market bets on an interest-rate cut by the end of this year have doubled. While that chance is still only about 20 percent, swaps traders see Australia as one of just two developed economies where cuts are ...

Bloomberg In the era of negative interest rates, Japan’s second-largest bank finds itself having to run just to stand still. Takeshi Kunibe, who took over as chief executive officer at Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. (SMFG) in April, has set a new net-income target of about 700 billion yen ($6.3 billion) in the year ending March 2020. That’s roughly the ...