WHEN it comes to inflation, the Federal Reserve sometimes resembles a child freshly emerged from an age-inappropriate horror film. To its members, runaway price increases seem to lurk in every oddly shaped shadow. On June 14th America’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate for the third time in six months, even as inflation lingered […]
Read more
THE big investment shift of recent years is from active to passive. Clients have been buying index funds, which passively track a benchmark like the S&P 500 index, and shunning fund managers who actively try to pick the best shares. One reason for the shift is that passive managers charge lower fees than active funds. […]
Read more
JEFF BEZOS does not like sitting still. In his annual letter to Amazon’s shareholders this year, he warned of “stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death.” Competitors are toiling to avoid the same fate but it is hard to keep up. On June 16th Amazon said it would pay $13.7bn […]
Read more
THE proposed sale of 5% of Saudi Aramco is not just likely to be the biggest initial public offering (IPO) of all time. “It’s like Gibraltar selling the rock,” as one expert on Saudi Arabia’s oil policy puts it. The world’s biggest oil company keeps the House of Saud in power, bankrolled 60% of the […]
Read more
THE headquarters of General Motors (GM) tower over the other skyscrapers in Detroit’s city centre, a reminder that the carmaker still rules the American market. Yet GM’s domestic might increasingly contrasts with its position elsewhere in the world. Although most other carmakers see becoming ever bigger everywhere as the answer to the industry’s multiple challenges, […]
Read more
JEFF BEZOS does not like sitting still. In his annual letter to Amazon’s shareholders this year, he warned of “stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death.” Competitors are toiling to avoid the same fate but it is hard to keep up. On June 16th Amazon said it would pay $13.7bn […]
Read more
ONE hundred years ago, Argentina was not the country it is today. Thanks to a belle époque of lavish foreign investment, rapid inward migration and bountiful agricultural exports, its GDP per person in 1917 was comparable to that of Germany and France. Although the first world war brutally interrupted international trade and investment, the country […]
Read morePresident Donald Trump has offered a simple explanation for his wealthy Cabinet choices: Rich people know how to manage money better than poor people do. In a rambling aside at a rally in Iowa on Wednesday night, Trump responded to criticism about his choices for top economic jobs, including billionaire investor Wilbur Ross for Commerce […]
Read moreIn times of organizational crisis, some companies are able to right the ship, while others sink under the pressure. Recently, Uber has been under fire for a bad corporate culture, which promoted, among other things, sexism and other forms of toxic behavior. This led to a four-month investigation and pressure from the board for founder […]
Read moreWal-Mart could step in as a rival bidder for Whole Foods Market, JPMorgan analysts said, as shares of the grocery chain rose above the $42 price offered by Amazon earlier this month. JPMorgan research analysts said in a note Thursday that Wal-Mart could be drawn to Whole Foods for its relatively wealthier customers and strong […]
Read more