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Slowing the inexorable rise of Facebook Inc. and Google, the gatekeepers for news consumption online, can be a fool’s errand. For all the noise of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook’s revenue still grew by 37 percent last year, while Google parent Alphabet Inc.’s sales climbed 23 percent. Meanwhile, publishers’ revenue has faced a relentless squeeze as Silicon Valley sucks up ...

Brace yourself: A growing number of hard-up Chinese borrowers aren’t making good on their debts. The pattern is all too familiar. After a record year of defaults in 2018, two big issuers failed to meet their obligations in recent weeks. Coal miner Wintime Energy Co., one of China’s biggest defaulters last year, missed interest payments again this month. Beijing Orient ...

Here we go again: Britain’s parliament is debating Brexit and Prime Minister Theresa May is playing for more time as various factions try to influence the endgame. Her goal is to deliver her divorce deal without dividing her party. So what’s new? For one thing, the time left on the clock. Just 45 days remain until Britain exits on March ...

Gucci’s gaudy creations are moving from cutting-edge to classic. But there are signs that some investors might be starting to look elsewhere for the next big thing. The fashion house’s French parent company, Kering SA, said that Gucci’s organic sales rose 28.1% year-on-year in the last three months of 2018. That’s an impressive performance given that it was being compared ...

Japan’s leaders seem happy to rest the country’s fate on the shoulders of its women. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to get more of them out of the home to compensate for a shrinking workforce. His deputy Taro Aso, on the other hand, had to apologize recently after blaming them for not having enough kids. I can hear women secretly ...

Bloomberg In the wake of last month’s Federal Reserve gathering, traders have been left with as many questions as answers when it comes to the fate of the central bank’s balance sheet. Next week may finally provide some clues on where the runoff goes from here. The holiday-shortened week will be light on economic data but heavy on Fed signals. ...

Bloomberg The debate over the trajectory for corporate profits reached a crescendo this week, with two widely followed Wall Street strategists clashing over whether an earnings recession is imminent. Just days after Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson announced the S&P 500 profits would turn negative for the first six months of 2019, Brian Belski at BMO Capital Markets said such fears ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG has decided that none of the more than $4 billion it promised to spend on consumer relief after the global mortgage crisis will go to distressed US homeowners, according to a report by the monitor of the 2017 settlement. Instead, the consumer-relief money will be spent on originating new loans, according to the February 13 report ...

Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc and BNP Paribas SA are among about a dozen banks likely to be added as co-managers for Saudi Aramco’s landmark international bond sale, people with knowledge of the matter said. Two Japanese lenders — Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., Mizuho Financial Group Inc. — as well as Samba Financial Group and Gulf International Bank BSC are ...

Bloomberg The Italian state lender that’s backing Elliott Management Corp. in a battle for the future of Telecom Italia SpA is considering doubling its stake in the former phone monopoly, people familiar with the matter said. Cassa Depositi e Prestiti SpA was authorized by its board to buy as much as 10 percent of Telecom Italia’s stock if a management ...