Category: Finance

Finance

When to sell your stocks

Watch professionals play poker, and one of the first things to strike you is how often they fold when the

Finance

OPEC heavyweights are cheating on their targets

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, a group that produces 40% of the world’s crude,

Finance

Baby-boomers are loaded. Why are they so stingy?

Baby-boomers were born between 1946 and 1964—and are the luckiest generation in history. Most of the cohort, which numbers 270m

Finance

How the Chinese state aims to calm the property market

Three decades ago much of the housing in China’s cities belonged to state-owned enterprises, which provided homes to workers at

Finance

Brazil, India and Mexico are taking on China’s exports

At last, it seemed time for a manufacturing take-off. Having struggled to compete with China’s industrial might, other emerging markets

Finance

Whoever wins, closed-end funds lose

As one of the leaders of the passive-investing revolution, BlackRock is usually a disruptive force in the financial world. But

Finance

Shrinking populations mean a poorer, more fractious world

If current forecasts are accurate, 2064 will be the first year in centuries when fewer babies are born than people

Finance

Can the rich world escape its baby crisis?

Governments are splurging on handouts to avert demographic catastrophe

Finance

At long last, Europe’s economy is starting to grow

There is only one problem with the chatter about Europe’s “soft landing”: its economy never truly flew. While America’s growth

Finance

How Jim Simons revolutionised investing

Great investors are often known by a signature style. Warren Buffett made it big by investing in companies he thought

Finance

Joe Biden, master oil trader

The president has turned volatility into profit

Finance

Diego Maradona offers central bankers enduring lessons

Speaking in 2005, Mervyn King, then governor of the Bank of England, outlined his “Maradona theory of interest rates”. The

Finance

Narendra Modi’s flagship growth scheme is off to a sluggish start

In the early 1990s India abandoned the principles of swadeshi, or self-sufficiency, that had guided its policies since independence. Subsidies

Finance

The property firm that could break China’s back

Land in Shenzhen, China’s southern technology hub, is scarce. Plots in years past have grabbed sky-high prices. But when Vanke,

Finance

Biden outdoes Trump with ultra-high China tariffs

Just over six years ago, when Donald Trump first announced tariffs on Chinese goods, it was as if a bomb

Finance

How Ukrainian farmers are using the cover of war to escape taxes

Since Russia began its invasion in 2022, Ukraine’s economy has shrunk by a quarter. But the ravages of war are

Finance

America is in the midst of an extraordinary startup boom

Pearls, it is said, represent purity. They may soon stand for something else: business dynamism. In Greenville, South Carolina, two

Finance

What would get China’s consumers spending?

On a regular Tuesday morning, a large crowd has gathered outside a grocery store in Xuchang, a city of 4m

Finance

What Xi Jinping gets wrong about China’s economy

The EU is no stranger to overcapacity. Its economic landscape once featured butter mountains, milk lakes and other landmarks of

Finance

Why the global cocoa market is melting down

BARRY CALLEBAUT, the world’s largest maker of bulk chocolate, is full of beans. Its share price has jumped by 20%

Finance

Against expectations, European banks are thriving

In 2020, when BBVA and Sabadell abandoned merger discussions, it was difficult to find investors with anything positive to say

Finance

Banks, at least, are making money from a turbulent world

Working on a trading desk is perhaps the closest an office job can get to a sport. Focus and reflexes

Finance

Could America and its allies club together to weaken the dollar?

The Plaza Hotel has New York glamour in spades. Sitting at a corner of Central Park, it was the setting

Finance

How Ukrainians are using the cover of war to escape taxes

Since Russia invaded in 2022, Ukraine’s economy has shrunk by a quarter. But the ravages of war are not the

Finance

Russia’s gas business will never recover from the war in Ukraine

When Russia’s leaders stopped most of the country’s gas deliveries to the EU in 2022, they thought themselves smart. Prices

Finance

Hedge funds make billions as India’s options market goes ballistic

Hedge funds take great pains to hide their inner workings. So a recent court case in which Jane Street sued

Finance

What campus protesters get wrong about divestment

One-third of Ivy League graduates end up working in finance or consulting. So perhaps it is unsurprising that campus protesters

Finance

Working from home and the US-Europe divide

When it comes to economic growth, America comfortably beats Europe. Many factors have fed America’s outperformance, from tech innovation to

Finance

Immigration is surging, with big economic consequences

The West faces an unprecedented number of new arrivals

Finance

How American politics has infected investing

The hedge fund’s branding is a clue. 1789 Capital was set up last year and named for the year Congress

Finance

Would America dare to bring down a Chinese bank?

If any politician has the demeanour to ease tensions with Beijing, it is Janet Yellen. America’s treasury secretary comes across

Finance

What China’s central bank and Costco shoppers have in common

Gold has always held an allure. The earliest civilisations used it for jewellery; the first forms of money were forged

Finance

When will Americans see those interest-rate cuts?

Perhaps it was always too good to be true. The big economic story of 2023 was the seemingly painless disinflation

Finance

How to build a global currency

Seventy years ago the Indian rupee was often found a long way from home. After India gained independence from Britain,

Finance

Wanted: a new economics writer

We are hiring a writer on economics, ideally based at first in London. Journalistic experience is not necessary. The ability

Finance

Bitcoin’s price is surging. What happens next?

For a brief moment, everyone who owned bitcoin had made money from it. On March 5th the crypto token rose

Finance

Can Israel afford to wage war?

In the next few weeks, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, hopes to gain final parliamentary approval for an emergency war

Finance

The Economist’s finance and economics internship

The Economist is seeking promising journalists and would-be journalists to apply for the 2024 Marjorie Deane internship. The successful candidate

Finance

What do you do with 191bn frozen euros owned by Russia?

In economic terms, an asset has value because an owner might derive future benefits from it. Some assets, like cryptocurrencies,

Finance

Should you put all your savings into stocks?

Less than two months of 2024 have passed, but the year has already been a pleasing one for stockmarket investors.

Finance

Is working from home about to spark a financial crisis?

In midtown manhattan reminders of commercial property’s difficulties are everywhere. On the west side, near Carnegie Hall, stands 1740 Broadway,

Finance

How the world economy learned to love chaos

Central banks have embarked on austere monetary policy to crush inflation. Worries about the financial system, from bond markets to

Finance

Are NYCB’s troubles the start of another banking panic?

A bank publishes lousy earnings or an “update” on its business. Its share price plunges. Its name is splashed on

Finance

Universities are failing to boost economic growth

Universities have boomed in recent decades. Higher-education institutions across the world now employ on the order of 15m researchers, up

Finance

Evergrande’s liquidation is a new low in China’s property crisis

“Enough is enough,” declared a Hong Kong judge on January 29th of Evergrande, a failing Chinese property behemoth, and its

Finance

Investors may be getting the Federal Reserve wrong, again

The interest-rate market has a dirty secret, which practitioners call “the hairy chart”. Its main body is the Federal Reserve’s

Finance

What economists have learnt from the post-pandemic business cycle

Science advances one funeral at a time, to paraphrase Max Planck. The Nobel prize-winning physicist was arguing that new ideas

Finance

Ted Pick takes charge of Morgan Stanley

WHEN JAMES GORMAN took the helm of Morgan Stanley it was barely afloat. His tenure as the bank’s chief executive

Finance

Bill Ackman provides a lesson in activist investing

As with every skirmish in America’s culture wars, how you view the ousting of Harvard University’s president has much to

Finance

Has Team Transitory really won America’s inflation debate?

In late 2021 Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, called for the retirement of “transitory” as a description for

Finance

Has America really escaped inflation?

At some point American economic growth will disappoint expectations. For now, though, it appears to have ended 2023 much as

Finance

How to get rich in the 21st century

By 2050 there will be a new crop of economic powers—if things go to plan. Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister,

Finance

A jobs bonanza stirs fears the American economy is overheating

The american economy is supposed to be slowing down by now, and that is supposed to be translating into a

Finance

Will America manage a soft landing in 2024?

Could 2024 be a year unlike any in America’s post-war economic history? Never since 1945 has annual inflation, measured by

Finance

Can Egypt be persuaded to accept Gazan refugees?

A dusty, scuffed slab of concrete is the last hope that many Gazans have of escaping the nightmare which will

Finance

Why bitcoin is up by almost 150% this year

Chopping off their heads does not work: cockroaches can live without one for as long as a week. Whacking them

Finance

Sam Bankman-Fried’s downfall is complete

IT TOOK A jury just four hours to deliberate on the seven, complicated charges of financial fraud facing Sam Bankman-Fried,

Finance

Vladimir Putin is running Russia’s economy dangerously hot

The history of inflation in Russia is long and painful. Following the revolution of 1917 the country dealt with years

Finance

Did Hamas make millions trading the October 7th attacks?

In the run-up to its attack on Israel on October 7th, Hamas maintained tight operational security. The timing of the

Finance

Is the world’s most important asset market broken?

In 1790 America’s finances were in a precarious state: debt-servicing costs were higher than revenues and government bonds traded at

Finance

America may soon be in recession, according to a famous rule

For financial markets the Holy Grail is a perfect leading indicator—a gauge that is both simple to monitor and consistently

Finance

An unruly OPEC is causing problems for Russia and Saudi Arabia

The november meeting of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners (opec+) was meant to be a