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  Bloomberg When Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Vice Chairman Charles Munger lamented the mistakes made in the company’s first 50 years under Warren Buffett, he cited the failure to buy Wal-Mart Stores Inc. stock early enough in the retailer’s history. Judging by recent events, Buffett doesn’t think Wal-Mart is such a great idea for his company’s next half-century. Berkshire said last ...

Bloomberg After half a decade of negative interest rates, Denmark’s economy is headed for an economic “boom” and risks running out of the labor resources needed to support sustainable growth, the central bank said on Wednesday. “The Danish economy is in a solid upswing, and as the signs of labor shortage are becoming still clearer, the structural government budget should ...

  Bloomberg Tesla Motors Inc. said it’s voluntarily recalling about 7,000 adapters for electric-vehicle charging after two reports of overheating that resulted in melted plastic on the plugs. The rarely used item is sold through the company’s online store. Two customers reported overheating in November, according to an e-mail the company sent to customers. No damage besides the melted plastic ...

  Bloomberg The US trade deficit widened to a four-month high in October as overseas sales weakened and American companies imported more equipment and consumer goods. The gap grew to $42.6 billion from the prior month’s revised $36.2 billion, Commerce Department figures showed. The 17.8 percent increase from September was the largest since March 2015. The Bloomberg survey median called ...

  TOKYO / AP Global stock markets rose on Wednesday amid optimism about the telecommunications industry and as investors expect more central bank stimulus in the eurozone. KEEPING SCORE: France’s CAC 40 added 0.9 percent to 4,671 while Germany’s DAX was up 1.5 percent at 10,935. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 1.5 percent to 6,884. U.S. shares were set to drift ...

  Reuters Stock markets in the United Arab Emirates outperformed the region on Wednesday while investors booked profits in Saudi Arabian petrochemical shares and Egyptian blue chips. Dubai’s main index closed 1.3 percent higher in healthy volume as some large and mid-sized shares, which had been relatively quiet so far this week, gained. Emaar Properties rose 2.4 percent. A Dubai-based ...

  Cairo/ AFP Egypt has an ambitious three-year reform plan that, with foreign help, can revive its struggling economy, the minister of international cooperation said. In an interview, Sahar Nasr said the “three-year strategy” will lead to a return of investments, boost industrial production and create jobs. It comes as Egypt faces not only falling growth and a currency crisis ...

    Bloomberg Those oil service companies and drillers that are still around will likely survive. That’s the good news, according to Kevin Liang, who helps oversee 10 billion kroner ($1.2 billion) in bonds at Svenska Handelsbanken AB in Oslo. But the bad news is that the debt market for Norway’s battered oil sector is now a very different animal. ...

  Bloomberg Oman, the largest Arab oil producer that’s not an OPEC member, plans to sell between $1.5 billion to $2 billion of bonds internationally in 2017 to plug a deficit caused by low crude prices. “There’s an appetite still and I think even when interest rates are raised there will still be appetite,” Ali Hamdan Al-Raisi, vice president for ...

  Reuters Royal Dutch Shell signed a provisional agreement on Wednesday to develop Iranian oil and gas fields, an Iranian official said, the first deal by the world’s second biggest listed oil firm in Iran since sanctions were lifted. The Anglo-Dutch company confirmed it had signed a memorandum of understanding with National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) on Wednesday “to further ...