Mafia ‘boss of bosses’ Salvatore ‘Toto’ Riina has died in the hospital while serving multiple life sentences as the mastermind of a bloody strategy to assassinate Italian prosecutors and law enforcement trying to bring down the Cosa Nostra, Italian media reported Friday. He was 87. Riina died hours after the Justice Minister had allowed his […]
Read moreMarkets in Europe are expected to open mixed on Friday morning as investors digest further earnings and data. The FTSE 100 is seen down by 16 points at 7,370; the DAX is expected to open higher by 24 points at 13,067; and the CAC 40 is set to start up by 2 points at 5,335, […]
Read moreTalks about forming a new three-way German ruling coalition have been delayed until noon on Friday amid continuing differences over climate, migration and finances, sources familiar with the discussions said. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, the pro-business Free Democrats and the environmentalist Greens decided to halt the talks for several hours after failing to make progress […]
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BUOYANT financial markets meant that global wealth rose by 6.4% in the 12 months to June, the fastest pace since 2012. And the ranks of the rich expanded again, with 2.3m new millionaires added to the total, according to the Credit Suisse Research Institute’s global wealth report. The report underlines the sharp divide between the […]
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ONLY one thing spooks the oil market as much as hot-headed despots in the Middle East, and that is hot-headed hedge-fund managers. For the second time this year, record speculative bets on rising oil prices in American and European futures have made the market vulnerable to a sell-off. “You don’t want to be the last […]
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REVIVING the original Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade deal between 12 countries around the Pacific Rim, is technically impossible. To go into force, members making up at least 85% of their combined GDP had to ratify it. Three days into his presidency, Donald Trump announced that America was out. With 60% of members’ GDP gone, […]
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EUROPE’S largest pension fund, a scheme for Dutch public-sector workers called ABP, is much feted abroad for its efforts in “sustainable” investing. At home, however, where it provides pensions to one in six families and manages nearly one-third of pension wealth, it is suffering a crisis of confidence. By international standards, Dutch pensions are extremely […]
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LAST year nearly 3.7bn passengers took to the sky on commercial jets. Few would have given much thought to exactly why their flight was scheduled at the time it was. Even fewer know about the tussles between regulators and airlines over how landing and take-off slots are allocated. For the past 70 years the business […]
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IN THE first quarter of 2018 thousands of banks will look a little less profitable. A new international accounting standard, IFRS 9, will oblige lenders in more than 120 countries, including the European Union’s members, to increase provisions for credit losses. In America, which has its own standard-setter, IFRS 9 will not be applied—but by […]
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What explains the remarkable strength of corporate profits and the sluggish growth of real wages in recent years? One explanation is that industries are getting less competitive. Work by The Economist found that two-thirds of American industries were more concentrated in the hands of a few firms in 2012 than in 1997. Research by AXA […]
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