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  We are in the throes of another round of what the economist Joseph Schumpeter memorably called “creative destruction.” Two icons of American business – Macy’s and Sears — are struggling. Macy’s plans to close 100 stores to improve profitability, and Sears has sold its Craftsman tools line for roughly $900 million to raise cash. Conceivably, one or both of ...

  Investment bankers in Asia are usually happy to see a spike in Treasury yields. It gives them the perfect excuse to tell clients that if they don’t issue dollar bonds now, the costs will be much higher later. That may help explain why debt sales in the US have uncannily accelerated, even as Bill Gross and Jeffrey Gundlach warn ...

  Donald Trump’s views on vaccines have long been out of sync with science. Childhood vaccines cause autism, he asserted at a debate in 2015, echoing statements he had made in 2014 and 2012. But now the president-elect is poised to do more than just pass along misinformation: He has asked a die-hard “anti-vaxxer” to lead a commission on “vaccination ...

  US Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson seems to be almost at variance with President-elect Donald Trump over key foreign policy issues, which he would face as America’s top diplomat. At his confirmation hearing, the former Exxon Mobil Corp CEO, under intense questioning on US-Russian relations and other foreign issues, called Russia a danger and vowed to protect America’s ...

  There’s a big threat to Germany’s traditional political parties ahead of this year’s general election, and it isn’t immigration or populism. It’s the inflation eating away at Germans’ savings as the European Central Bank keeps interest rates near zero. Germans, from serious economists to tabloid writers, have long decried the ECB’s lax monetary policy. With its stated goal of ...

  An entire library could be filled with books about how the bright minds in Silicon Valley find and fund the next Google or Facebook. But there are four basic steps to startup investing: 1) Persuade people to give you lots of money. 2) Use that money to buy shares in young companies. 3) Cash out those shares in an ...

  The irony of the yuan rally that took bears by surprise last week was that the surge came just days before China announced that its foreign currency reserves shrank by $41 billion in December. The stockpile is now $3 trillion, a decline of more than $1 trillion since its peak in 2014. Authorities have been drawing upon the huge ...

  Bloomberg Google is rolling out a real world application for its most ambitious virtual reality effort: letting shoppers see what they might buy without leaving home. The Alphabet Inc. unit introduced two new retail partnerships, with BMW and Gap Inc., deploying its 3D-scanning project called Tango. The technology uses cameras and sensors in mobile devices to overlay digital images ...

  Bloomberg After a tough 2016, Fitbit Inc. has a plan to keep users hooked to its devices for the new year. Taking cues from the addictive nature of Facebook and other networks where people connect with friends, Fitbit is rolling out new social features on its app, including a news feed where users can share exercise summaries, read health-related ...

  Reuters Facebook Inc’s Instagram is bringing more than 30 advertisers into one of its fastest-growing features, Instagram Stories, in a bid to boost advertising revenue, the company said. The social media company will become a more important player in maintaining Facebook’s growth in advertising revenue in 2017. During the last two earnings calls, Facebook executives said they may soon ...