America’s economy defies gloomy expectations
As the Federal Reserve prepares to cut interest rates, growth is holding up
America is escaping its office crisis
For most people the covid-19 pandemic ended years ago. But not for commercial-property investors and their lenders. Working from home prompted an office slump that lasted far longer than mask mandates and lockdowns. Starting in 2022 aggressive interest-rate rises hurt…
Even as China’s economy suffers, stocks soar. What’s going on?
For Chinese investors, the grass is almost always greener elsewhere. The country’s stockmarket chronically underperforms, meaning that local punters look to bourses in, say, America or Japan, and devise ways of getting cash around China’s capital controls. But this year…
Why you should buy your employer’s shares
It is not hard to see why Jamie Dimon owns a lot of shares in JPMorgan Chase. He is the bank’s boss and its shareholders want his interests to be aligned with theirs. Paying him mostly in stock, rather than…
How Trump’s war on the Federal Reserve could do serious damage
Pity the bond trader without Truth Social on their phone. All it took was one after-dinner missive, fired off by the president on his social network, to turn the White House’s tussle with the Federal Reserve into something more worrying….
Gambling or investing? In America, the line is increasingly blurred
Economists and financiers have compared stockmarkets to gambling since 1936, when Keynes warned of “the capital development of a country becom[ing] a by-product of the activities of a casino”. In 1999 Jack Bogle of Vanguard decried the “Wall Street casino”…
Trump’s interest-rate crusade will be self-defeating
There are two ways, the world’s central bankers learned at this year’s Jackson Hole conference, to tame a horse. You can break the animal with fear, but it will never forget the pain. The kinder way, shown to attendees one…
Assessing the case against Lisa Cook
Criminal investigations do not usually start with tweets. They very rarely start with tweets by government officials asserting someone’s guilt before a charge has even been laid. That, however, is how the case against Lisa Cook, a governor of the…
The Economist’s finance and economics internship
We invite applications for our Marjorie Deane scheme
Trump’s interest-rate crusade will be self-defeating
The president’s threats loomed over this year’s Jackson Hole conference
Trump “fires” Lisa Cook, escalating his war on the Federal Reserve
Donald Trump has not been shy: he wants interest rates down, fast. For months, the president has berated the Federal Reserve for dithering and cutting rates too slowly. In July he flirted with firing Jerome Powell, the Fed’s chair, but…
Trump’s crusade against the Federal Reserve will be self-defeating
Editor’s note: On August 25th, Donald Trump said that he had fired Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s board, alleging “deceitful and possibly criminal conduct in a financial matter”. It is as yet unclear whether Ms Cook or the Fed…
Fear the deficit-populism doom loop
Politicians, particularly in Europe, are in a terrible bind
Where has the worst inflation problem?
The Yiddish phrase “farshlepteh krenk”, untranslatable into English, describes an illness that just won’t go away. That is how some countries’ experience of inflation has felt. The rate of price rises has fallen since 2022, when across the OECD, excluding…
Can China cope with a deindustrialised future?
Amid all the trouble facing China—trade war, covid-19, a property slump—the country’s leaders have remained confident about the source of future economic growth. In their view, the country’s manifest destiny lies in high-tech manufacturing. Their “Made in China 2025” plan,…
The green transition has a surprising new home
Forget about northern Europeans, with their coalition governments and love of cycling
Economists disagree about everything. Don’t they?
When President Donald Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, America’s labour statistician, he achieved something supposedly rare: he got economists to unite. In a survey by the University of Chicago’s Clark Centre for Global Markets, 100% of the discipline’s most prominent practitioners…
Trump’s trade victims are shrugging off his attacks
The “Trump Round” of trade negotiations, as Jamieson Greer, America’s trade representative, calls it, was meant to reassert American primacy. Peter Navarro, a longtime adviser to Donald Trump, even suggested that the president deserved a Nobel prize in economics for…
Who will win from Trump’s tariffs?
One question looms for a manufacturer working out where to build a factory: how big is a potential location’s tariff gap with China? President Donald Trump’s latest levies, which took effect on August 7th, have shaken things up. Despite his…
In praise of complicated investing strategies
Occam’s Razor is a cornerstone of the social sciences, and for financial economists it is almost an article of faith. The principle is named after William of Ockham, a 14th-century monk. It holds that the simplest explanation for any phenomenon…
Why America can’t shake off inflation
The Yiddish phrase “farshlepteh krenk”, untranslatable into English, describes an illness that just won’t go away. That is how some rich countries’ experience of inflation has felt. The rate of price increases has fallen sharply since the acute phase in…
Palantir might be the most overvalued firm of all time
For a few days in March 2000, as the dotcom bubble neared bursting point, Cisco was the world’s most valuable company. Now the seller of networking gear is a cautionary tale, even if it is also an enduring success, with…
To sell Fannie and Freddie, Trump must answer a $7trn question
“Nothing is so permanent”, noted Milton Friedman, “as a temporary government programme”. Friedman died in 2006, a couple of years before Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two enormous government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that provide liquidity to the American mortgage market, were…
Where will win from Trump’s tariffs?
One question looms for a manufacturer working out where to build a factory: how big is a potential location’s tariff gap with China? President Donald Trump’s latest levies, which took effect on August 7th, have shaken things up. Despite his…
What 630,000 paintings say about the world economy
Kandinsky, Monet and Rembrandt were economists as well as artists
Growth-loving authoritarians are failing on their own terms
In Asia, East Africa and the Gulf leaders now face an unpleasant choice
Ivy League universities are on a debt binge
For stewards of elite university endowments, the past year has been difficult. All eight Ivy League colleges lagged behind the S&P 500 index by at least ten percentage points in their most recent fiscal year. Those ensnared in President Donald…
Palantir might be the most over-valued firm of all time
For a few days in March 2000, as the dotcom bubble neared bursting point, Cisco was the world’s most valuable company. Now the seller of networking gear is a cautionary tale, even if it is also an enduring success, with…
America’s housing market is shuddering
For the country’s homeowners, the good times are coming to an end
If America goes after India’s oil trade, China will benefit
WHEN WESTERN countries began boycotting Russian oil in 2022, India saw an opportunity. Some 2.6m barrels a day (b/d) of crude once destined for Europe were available—at a sweet discount. India, which bought next to no oil from Russia in…
An economist’s guide to big life decisions
Forget your trip to the dentist. A new check-up is required
Xi Jinping’s city of the future is coming to life
Xiongan, China’s “city of the future” and a pet project of Xi Jinping, the country’s supreme leader, has become a byword for costly vanity projects. Central-government and provincial planners have spent at least 835bn yuan ($116bn) on the city since…
Want better returns? Forget risk. Focus on fear
A recent study suggests a new paradigm for asset pricing
America’s fertility crash reaches a new low
Even once-fecund states are having fewer children
Buy now, pay later is taking over the world. Good
Buy that burrito, and don’t let anyone judge you
Despite double dissent, Jerome Powell retains his hold on markets
For all the power it wields over the global economy, the Federal Reserve projects remarkable cool. Whereas rate-setters at other central banks frequently disagree with each other over the direction of monetary policy, Fed policymakers tend to stick together. That…
Trump will not let the world move on from tariffs
When President Donald Trump stood outside the White House on April 2nd and revealed his “Liberation Day” tariffs, all hell broke loose. The “reciprocal” levies threatened to break financial markets, as well as scrambling international commerce. Thankfully, Mr Trump quickly…
Japan’s dealmaking machine revs up
The corporate raiders of the private-equity (PE) industry have been memorably compared to invading barbarians. But the industry is more usefully described as a machine, which converts investors’ money into deals, deals into profitable divestments (or “exits”), and exits into…
The trade deal with America shows the limits of the EU’s power
“To be free, you need to be feared,” said Emmanuel Macron, the French president, on July 30th. “We were not feared enough.” He was speaking three days after Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s boss, had agreed a one-sided…
Uncovering the secret food trade that corrupts Iran’s neighbours
Your browser does not support this video. Jul 31st 2025 | Al Aweer and Dubai In the small town of Al Aweer, about 20km east of Dubai’s city centre, lorries full of fruit and vegetables approach, circle and pass each…
The Federal Reserve sees a rare double dissent
For all the power it wields over the global economy, the Federal Reserve projects remarkable cool. Whereas rate-setters at other central banks frequently disagree with each other over the direction of monetary policy, Fed policymakers tend to stick together. That…
A fresh retail-trading frenzy is reshaping financial markets
Investors love an acronym. In recent months they have embraced the TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) trade. They once swooned over the FAANG stocks (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google). During Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis of the 2010s traders fretted over…
Europe averts its Trumpian trade nightmare
EVER SINCE President Donald Trump unveiled his Liberation Day tariffs in April, the world’s biggest trading relationship had been on the rocks. The European Union swung from trying to sweet-talk America into making a deal, to threatening retaliation. On July…
Europe seeks to end its Trumpian trade nightmare
EVER SINCE President Donald Trump unveiled his Liberation Day tariffs in April, the world’s biggest trading relationship had been on the rocks. The European Union swung from trying to sweet-talk America into making a deal, to threatening retaliation. On July…
Who is paying for Donald Trump’s tariffs?
LAST YEAR America charged levies averaging 2% on its imports of goods. Following the launch of President Donald Trump’s trade war, it now has an “effective” tariff of over 16%, the highest since the 1930s (see chart 1). And rates…
Want higher pay? Stay in your job
For years, America’s job market has rewarded the footloose. The surest route to a higher salary, the advice goes, is to string together a series of one- or two-year stints, each paying a bit better than the last. Career gurus…
Why 24/7 trading is a bad idea
Stock exchanges are the quaintest corners of modern finance. At other financial institutions, the typical trading floor features people in t-shirts sitting at ergonomic keyboards, sipping herbal tea and reviewing computer code. Enter New York’s bourse, meanwhile, and you might…
Where will be the Detroit of electric vehicles?
Chongqing’s mountainous, cyberpunk panoramas and sticky summer heat seem worlds away from flat and dry Detroit. But carmakers in the Chinese metropolis cannot stop drawing parallels with the American city. Standing outside one of Chongqing’s sprawling car-assembly plants, a boss…
What economics can teach foreign-policy types
Hegemons should care about even puny countries
Crypto’s big bang will revolutionise finance
Among the strait-laced denizens of Wall Street, crypto’s “use cases” are often discussed with a smirk. Veterans have seen it all before. Digital assets have come and gone, often in style, sending hype-prone investors in memecoins and NFTs on a…
Want higher pay? Don’t change jobs
For years, America’s job market has rewarded the footloose. The surest route to a higher salary, the usual advice goes, is to string together a series of one- or two-year stints, each paying a bit better than the last. Career…
Has Trump damaged the dollar?
Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, American investors have received one shock after another—so it really takes something to get them to jump these days. Announcements that not long ago would have been bombshells, such as the president…
how the economy evades every disaster
After Adolf Hitler’s troops rolled into France in 1940, many feared the imminent destruction of Europe and its economy. British investors did not. In the year following the invasion, London’s stockmarket rose; indeed, by the end of hostilities, British companies…
How far off is dollar doom?
Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, American investors have received one shock after another—so it really takes something to get them to jump these days. Announcements that not long ago would have been bombshells, such as the president…
Our Big Mac index will sadden America’s burger-lovers
America’s import duties just keep rising. On August 1st levies on more than 20 countries, plus the European Union, will take effect unless they negotiate deals in the meantime. On July 14th President Donald Trump said that he would impose…
Stablecoins might cut America’s debt payments. But at what cost?
A TRILLION DOLLARS. That number may keep Scott Bessent, America’s treasury secretary, up at night. Next year his government’s net interest payments will break the 13-figure mark. The combination of a bulging deficit, now worth 7% of GDP, and the…
Americans can still get a 2% mortgage
WHEN ADNAN SABIC began looking for a home in 2023, he was shocked. The hotel executive, whose wife had just given birth to twins, could not believe how mortgage rates had rocketed. Then he found a four-bedroom house listed for…
Trump’s real threat: industry-specific tariffs
When Donald Trump’s tariffs are mentioned, you might recall his “Liberation Day” duties on uninhabited islands, his on-again, off-again threats against Canada, or the curt letters he has sent foreign leaders informing them of imminent rates. These country-level tariffs dominate…
Why is AI so slow to spread? Economics can explain
Businesses are ignoring the street of hundred-dollar bills
Trump’s trade deals try a creative way to hobble China
In the first cold war between America and the Soviet Union, the two superpowers fought each other by proxy. Something similar is happening in America’s trade war with China. After conciliatory talks in Geneva and London, the two sides are…
Japan has been hit by investing fever
It is not difficult to spot the change. Bookshops now dedicate entire sections to financial guides. Trains are plastered with advertisements for investing seminars. Financial influencers command enormous online audiences with tutorials on how to build a portfolio or open…
Jane Street is chucked out of India. Other firms should be nervous
INDIAN REGULATORS speak with a little more flamboyance than their peers. On July 4th the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) accused Jane Street, a trading firm, of perpetrating a “sinister scheme” of manipulation in the country’s manic options…
Want to be a good explorer? Study economics
The battle to reduce risk has shaped centuries of ventures
Don’t invest through the rearview mirror
Markets are supposed to look forward; plenty of investors look back instead
Trump’s trade deals try a creative way to hobble China
In the first cold war between America and the Soviet Union, the two superpowers fought each other by proxy. Something similar is happening in America’s trade war with China. After conciliatory talks in Geneva and London, the two sides are…
How Trump’s trade deals take aim at China
In the first cold war between America and the Soviet Union, the two superpowers fought each other by proxy. Something similar is happening in America’s trade war with China. After conciliatory talks in Geneva and London, the two sides are…
The great dealmaker is conspicuously short of trade deals
Donald Trump issues threats—and grants deadline extensions
How America’s economy is dodging disaster
It is astonishingly dynamic, even under the weight of tariffs
Struggling with the trade war? Amateur football might help
Suzhou is one of China’s most important electronics manufacturing centres. But who cares about that? On June 29th nothing was more important to the city than its team beating nearby Yangzhou in a football match. The fierce rivalry stretches back…
How to strike a trade deal with Donald Trump
Another agreement, another personal triumph. “It is my Great Honor to announce that I have just made a Trade Deal with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” President Donald Trump wrote on July 2nd. “Dealing with General Secretary To Lam, which…
Inside Iran’s war economy
Even before the bombs began to fall, Iran’s economy was in a bad way. Six in ten working-age people were unemployed. Prices had risen by 35% in the past year. Some 18% of the population was living below the World…
India’s Licence Raj offers America important lessons
Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, and Donald Trump, America’s president, do not share many similarities. Nehru was an erudite product of Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge; Donald Trump, for all his expensive education, is ultimately a rough-and-tumble graduate…
Can Trump end America’s $1.8trn student-debt nightmare?
In recent years, America’s student-loan policy has come to resemble an alphabet soup. During the covid-19 pandemic, relief came from the CARES, ARPA and HEROES acts. Repayment plans ranged from the appropriately named (SAVE and PAYE) to the less so…
Xi Jinping wages war on price wars
When firms raise prices, “gouging” their customers, many governments complain. Some cannot resist intervening. But in today’s China, the opposite is happening. In May the state reprimanded carmakers not for raising prices, but for cutting them. “There are no winners…
Xi Jinping’s futile war on price wars
When firms raise prices, “gouging” their customers, many governments complain. Some cannot resist intervening. But in today’s China, the opposite is happening. In May the state reprimanded carmakers not for raising prices, but for cutting them. “There are no winners…
Big, beautiful budgets: not just an American problem
Across the rich world, governments are splashing the cash. What could go wrong?
The dream scenario for prediction markets
If you could invent something to fulfil an economist’s dream, it would look an awful lot like a prediction market. A world where every uncertain future can be priced, hedged and insured against? Kenneth Arrow and Gérard Debreu would approve….
How to escape taxes on your stocks
An investor’s desire to minimise his dues is nothing new. “The avoidance of taxes”, said John Maynard Keynes, “is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward”. What is new is the scale and speed at which the desire…
Jane Street’s sneaky retention tactic
It involves the use of an obscure, French programming language
Why commodities are on a rollercoaster ride
Pity Tommy Norris. And his real-world equivalents
How to make prediction markets more useful
If you could invent something to fulfill an economist’s dream, it would look an awful lot like a prediction market. A world where every uncertain future can be priced, hedged and insured against? Kenneth Arrow and Gérard Debreu would approve….
Politicians slashed migration. Now they face the consequences
Across the West the number of new arrivals is plummeting
Japan’s debts are shrinking. Its troubles may be only starting
Politicians have a yen for handouts
Japan is obsessed with rice. And prices have gone ballistic
A little more than a century ago, in July 1918, the wives of fishermen in Toyama began to protest against the export of rice from their prefecture. The unrest, which was triggered by the staple grain’s surging price, then spread…
Who are the world’s best investors?
The answer is not hedge funds or quant shops or short-sellers
Why today’s graduates are screwed
Pity the ambitious youngster. For decades the path to a nice life was clear: go to university, find a graduate job, then watch the money come in. Today’s hard-working youths, however, seem to have fewer options than before.
America and China have spooked each other
Officials from America and China met for the latest round of trade talks on June 9th-10th in Lancaster House, a mansion near Buckingham Palace. The building was commissioned in 1825 by the “Grand Old” Duke of York, whose military manoeuvres…
The economic lessons from Ukraine’s spectacular drone success
On June 1st Ukraine took military raiding into the 21st century. It did so with little more than ingenuity and 117 drones, which emerged from trucks across Russia—everywhere from Siberia to the Chinese border—and destroyed a dozen or so planes in Vladimir…
European stocks are buoyant. Firms still refuse to list there
It must be tempting to give up. Those tasked with reviving Britain’s stockmarket have long faced a difficult task and a steady drip of bad news, as one firm after another departs for private ownership or America. It will still…
How America and China spooked each other
Officials from America and China met for the latest round of trade talks on June 9th-10th in Lancaster House, a neoclassical mansion near Buckingham Palace. The building was commissioned in 1825 by the “Grand Old” Duke of York, whose military…
Factory work is overrated. Here are the jobs of the future
Trumpian types are unanimous: America needs factories. The president describes how workers have “watched in anguish as foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American dream”….
The rise of the loner consumer
In the grim pandemic years, people got used to staying inside. Outlays on services, including everything from restaurant meals and foreign travel to elective medical care, collapsed. Demand for goods jumped, with a rush for computers and exercise bikes. Such…
Why investors lack a theory of everything
If there was to be some cataclysm, and he could preserve just one sentence for future scientists, Richard Feynman would have made it about atoms. Tell them everything was made of tiny particles in constant motion, thought the great 20th-century…
Trump thinks Americans consume too much. He has a point
Rebalancing the global economy is Donald Trump’s defining cause. China should produce less and consume more, the president thinks; meanwhile, America should produce more by reindustrialising. There is a final logical step to this equation: America should also consume less.
Stanley Fischer mixed rigour and realism, compassion and calm
He looked ridiculous, his wife assured him. Stan Fischer, the number-two official at the IMF, was supposed to be enjoying a holiday on Martha’s Vineyard in July 1998. Instead, he was perched on a sand dune, mobile-phone at his ear,…
Trump’s tariffs have so far caused little inflation
Rarely have economists spoken in such unison. Even before Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs on April 2nd, the median estimate among the 48 who were surveyed by the University of Chicago’s business school was that Mr Trump’s levies would raise…
Stanley Fischer mixed rigour and realism, compassion and cool-headedness
He looked ridiculous, his wife assured him. Stan Fischer, the number-two official at the IMF, was supposed to be enjoying a holiday on Martha’s Vineyard in July 1998. Instead, he was perched on a sand dune, mobile-phone at his ear,…
Who would pay America’s “revenge tax” on foreigners?
Overseas investors at first—then Americans
Will the UAE break OPEC?
We find that the Emiratis are flouting the cartel’s rules on a grand scale
The courts block Trump’s tariffs. Can he circumvent their verdict?
American trade policy is in chaos
How might China win the future? Ask Google’s AI
If China dominates the 21st-century economy, its industrial policy will get a lot of the credit. The state’s efforts to cultivate new industries, breed winners and foster technological advances inspire awe and anger from outside observers. Kyle Chan of Princeton…
India has a chance to cure its investment malaise
At a get-together entitled “Recent Global Events: Opportunities for India”, Narendra Modi, the prime minister, stressed that his government was boosting its own capital spending and called on his country’s business titans to do the same. He asked the assembled…
Trump’s financial watchdogs promise a revolution
After an election, America’s financial agencies experience what is known as the “regulatory pendulum”. Priorities and philosophies change as the new president picks appointees to supervise American markets, banks and other financial institutions. Although the pendulum has swung violently in…
The courts block Trump’s tariffs. Can he circumvent them?
America’s trade policy is in chaos
Shareholders face a big new problem: currency risk
Imagine someone who found secondary-school maths difficult being grilled about logarithms. That is how a lot of equity investors look if you ask them about currency risk. It is not because the question is novel: any client can spot that…
Trump will be unpleasantly surprised by America’s tariff revenues
In the early 20th century, before America had an income tax, tariffs paid many of the government’s bills. President Donald Trump wants to revive that approach. He has repeatedly floated the idea of an “External Revenue Service”, under which Uncle…
Soaring bond yields threaten trouble
Round numbers should not matter in financial markets, but they do. How many people pay attention to where 11-year Treasury bonds are trading? So seeing yields on America’s 30-year government debt stuck above 5% since May 21st has given investors…
America’s scientific prowess is a huge global subsidy
One of the best things about living in Europe is America. Faced with a moribund domestic stockmarket, European investors can redirect their savings into the s&p 500. Residents enjoy the protection of America’s security umbrella without having to foot the…
Will Jamie Dimon build the first trillion-dollar bank?
“Serena Williams, Tom Brady, Stephen Curry.” When it comes to making sure the world’s biggest bank is a lean operation, Jamie Dimon takes athletic inspiration. “Look how they train, what they do to be that good,” says the boss of…
Wall Street and Main Street are split on Trump’s chaos
The president prompted a similar divide last time round
Trump threatens 50% tariffs. How might Europe strike back?
The truce did not last long. On May 23rd President Donald Trump threatened to impose a tariff of 50% on imports from the European Union, more than double the size of his earlier threat of 20%. “Our discussions with them…
What the failure of a superstar student reveals about economics
When the economics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology issues a statement, it is often to celebrate a Nobel Prize. In the past decade, six of its professors have won the award—as many as the next two universities combined….
Trump faces a trillion-dollar tariff disappointment
In the early 20th century, before America introduced an income tax, tariffs paid many of the government’s bills. President Donald Trump wants to revive that approach. He has repeatedly floated the idea of an “External Revenue Service”, under which Uncle…
How the Chinese Communist Party learnt to love villages
It wants people to move to cities. And the countryside
China has got lucky with Trump. Can the rest of the world?
As Scott Bessent, America’s treasury secretary, negotiated with China in Switzerland late into the evening on May 11th, trade negotiators from the rest of the world found themselves at a loose end. Many had arrived in Washington for talks, desperately…
Is the market up or down? Republicans and Democrats disagree
Retail investing suffers from partisanship
Economists are as confused as Trump about taxing the rich
IF YOU want to put a policymaker on the spot, ask them what the top rate of income tax should be. The question befuddles everyone. On May 8th President Donald Trump broke with decades of Republican convention when he reportedly…
What happens when a hegemon falls?
Why economists are turning to a 50-year-old book on the Depression
How Saudi Arabia is cranking up the pressure on its OPEC allies
YOU cannot fault the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries for its communication. On May 3rd it and its allies (OPEC+), which supply 40% of the world’s crude oil, announced that they would crank up output by 411,000 barrels a…
Global turmoil has at least one beneficiary: currency traders
The foreign-exchange market has been reinvigorated by recent events
Why Gen X is the real loser generation
Don’t cry for millennials or Gen Z. Save your pity for those in their 50s
Trump’s trade deal with Britain will worry allies and rivals alike
Few topics inspire quite so much misty-eyed sentiment from British leaders as their country’s relationship with America. On May 8th, however, the emotion went in the other direction. “A lot of people” call Britain “our greatest ally”, said President Donald…
America and China prepare for an Alpine trade clash
SWITZERLAND ALWAYS imagined it would be where the fate of the global trading system was decided. It was in Geneva in 1947 that 23 countries signed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which governed negotiations over the next four…
Warren Buffett’s $348bn question for his successor
SURPRISING PEOPLE at the age of 94 is no mean feat. Warren Buffett has retained that capacity. As Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting on May 3rd drew to a close, Mr Buffett announced that he would be stepping down as…
Buy the dip: the trend that keeps stocks from crashing
Retail investors now play a useful role at times of panic
The $348bn question for Warren Buffett’s successor
SURPRISING PEOPLE at the age of 94 is no mean feat. Warren Buffett has retained that capacity. As Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting on May 3rd drew to a close, Mr Buffett announced that he would be stepping down as…
Warren Buffett has created a $348bn question for his successor
SURPRISING PEOPLE at the age of 94 is no mean feat. Warren Buffett has retained that capacity. As Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting on May 3rd drew to a close, Mr Buffett announced that he would be stepping down as…
Why China has the upper hand in its trade war with America
“HAVE YOU heard of the eye of the storm?” asks a video posted on April 29th by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The centre of a tornado or cyclone can be deceptively calm. But it is actually a “deadly trap”….
The risky world of private assets opens up to retail investors
This was supposed to be the year when initial public offerings (IPOs) came roaring back. Late in 2024 stockmarkets were hitting all-time highs and a cluster of privately owned superstars, with valuations in the tens or hundreds of billions of…
Why economists should like booze
A martini doesn’t just steady the nerves after a rollercoaster week
Don’t blame imports for the fall in America’s GDP
It is a tenet of Donald Trump’s economic philosophy that trade deficits are bad for growth. It can also seem like a cornerstone of GDP releases. On April 30th the Bureau of Economic Analysis said that America’s economy shrank at…
How a mortgage transforms your investment portfolio
As financial decisions go, borrowing several times your annual earnings to buy a risky asset is a pretty big one. Yet for many people, taking out a mortgage to buy a house is something of a no-brainer. It generally involves…
America may be just weeks away from a mighty economic shock
Trade between China and America is already sinking
Vladimir Putin’s money machine is sputtering
After years of resilience, Russia’s economy is slowing down
Trump wants a certain kind of immigrant: the uber-rich
IN HIS LOVE of lucre Donald Trump can be crass. In their pursuit of efficiency, free-marketeers can be, too. Consider the sale of citizenship. Most people dislike the idea of treating national belonging as a commodity. Yet a dozen or…
Will China’s shoppers cushion the Trumpian blow?
A real Armani polo shirt might cost 1,400 yuan ($190) if bought from the fashion house’s shop on JD.com, one of China’s biggest e-commerce platforms. But search for “Armani manufacturer” on the same app and similar shirts can be found…
What price cool? $31 a month, according to students
What is the price of cool? About $31 a month, according to new research by Leonardo Bursztyn of the University of Chicago and co-authors. That is how much college students had to be paid to have their iPhone messages appear…
Trump’s sovereign-wealth fund won’t make America richer
With $29trn in debt and a widening fiscal deficit, America hardly seems like a candidate for a sovereign-wealth fund. Such enormous, independently managed but state-directed pots of cash are, after all, normally established as a means of investing surpluses. That…
Asia has a trade problem of its own making
Although recent months have seen fewer Asian tourists in America, for a certain type of visitor it is peak season. Trade negotiators from India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam have been rushing to Washington in the hope of signing…
Should investors spend the trade war in India?
Fresh-faced financial reporters are swiftly disabused of the idea that there are “safe havens” in financial markets. With one eye on the word count, a grizzled sub-editor will cut the extraneous word and growl “all havens are safe”. Assets that…
Why American tech stocks are newly vulnerable
As the panic fades, investors’ nerves are still jangling. For the time being, stockmarkets have stopped convulsing and the prices of American Treasury bonds are no longer in freefall. Yet share indices across America, Asia and Europe have hardly recovered…
Unlike everyone else, Americans and Britons still shun the office
The backlash against remote work, when it came, was swift and fierce. After a post-pandemic honeymoon, when many companies flirted with the idea of letting staff work from home for ever, bosses began summoning employees back to the office. “I’ve…
Trump fires at the Fed. America’s economy is collateral damage
DONALD TRUMP can rarely resist the urge to engage in name-calling. Typically his barbs are more juvenile than consequential. But his designation of Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, as “Mr Too Late, a major loser” is no mere…
Unlike everyone else, Americans and Brits still shun the office
The backlash against remote work, when it came, was swift and fierce. After a post-pandemic honeymoon, when many companies flirted with the idea of letting staff work from home for ever, bosses began summoning employees back to the office. “I’ve…
Which countries most love working from home?
The backlash against remote work, when it came, was swift and fierce. After a post-pandemic honeymoon, when many companies flirted with the idea of letting staff work from home for ever, bosses began summoning employees back to the office. “I’ve…
Can the world’s free-traders withstand Trump’s attack?
The condemnation was quick to arrive. “There seems to be no order in the disorder. No clear path through the complexity and chaos that is being created,” said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, in response to…
The American government’s accidental private-credit subsidy
How a Depression-era lending scheme became a trillion-dollar wheeze
Trump takes America’s trade policies back to the 19th century
Few expected him to go so far. In a stunning shift in American economic policy, Donald Trump has yanked up tariffs across the board. On April 2nd, speaking from the Rose Garden of the White House, he declared that America…
How Trump might topple the dollar
Stocks down, yields down, dollar up. A reliable relationship between America’s listed companies, government bonds and the value of the currency has held, in moments of panic, for most of modern financial history. Until now.
Poor countries would miss King Dollar
A falling dollar is normally good for the developing world. Because poor countries borrow more in the greenback than rich ones, their debt bills become less burdensome. At the same time, imports become cheaper, providing a balm to foreign reserves…
Can the euro go global?
With the dollar faltering, European policymakers have an opportunity
America is turning away China’s goods. Where will they go instead?
Donald Trump’s sky-high tariffs are not a ban on trade with China, but they come close. Although it is hard to estimate quite how sharp the decline in business between the two countries will be, since firms will find new routes…
How Milei made Argentina deserving of an IMF bail-out
Javier Milei can barely contain his excitement. Since December, when the IMF’s last agreement with Argentina ran out, the country’s president has sought a fresh bail-out. Indeed, his efforts include an executive order to remove the need for Congress to…
Tin, an overlooked critical metal, is enjoying a boom
Prized and in short supply, its price is very volatile
Short-term pain will lead to long-term gain, says Trump. Really?
DONALD TRUMP has been adept at finding euphemisms for the chaos. When both stocks and bonds sold off last week, fuelling concerns about financial stability, Mr Trump said it was a case of people “getting a little bit yippy”. After…
A flight from the dollar could wreck America’s finances
In 1990s Japan the worst days of a market crisis brought about a “triple yasu” loss: a fall in stockmarkets, a rise in bond yields and a declining currency. It is now America that must stomach this noxious combination. Although…
Trump’s trade war threatens a global recession
IN ITS SCOPE and severity, the trade war took markets by surprise. On April 3rd, the day after President Donald Trump laid out an unprecedented array of tariffs, the Russell 3000, one of the broadest measures of the American stockmarket,…
A flight from the dollar could wreck America’s budget
In 1990s Japan the worst days of a market crisis brought about a “triple yasu” loss: a fall in stockmarkets, a rise in bond yields and a declining currency. It is now America that must stomach this noxious combination. Although…
Despite the pause, America’s tariffs are the worst ever trade shock
The announcement on April 9th that America would pause sky-high reciprocal tariffs sent stockmarkets soaring around the world. Countries that had faced crippling levies, such as Cambodia and Vietnam, celebrated. But do not lose sight of the bigger picture. The…
America’s financial system came close to the brink
For a good few hours on April 9th, disaster beckoned. Share prices had been falling for weeks. Then the market for American Treasury bonds—normally among the safest assets available—started convulsing, too. The yield on ten-year Treasuries leapt to 4.5% (see…
China has a weapon that could hurt America: rare-earth exports
TO WIN A game of Scrabble, start at the bottom of the periodic table. The 17 “rare earths” that reside there have longish names, such as dysprosium and praseodymium, which are replete with point-worthy letters. They share other traits, too….
Investors realise Trump’s pause was not the salvation it appeared
SO FAR THIS year China has imported ten American films, including the zany “A Minecraft Movie”. But there is a limit to how much American drama anyone can stand. After President Donald Trump’s latest plot-twist—lowering the “reciprocal” tariff on most…
The tariff madness of King Donald, explained
As his policy turns on a dime, pity those tasked with justifying his actions
Can China fight America alone?
The world’s two biggest economies begin an almighty trade clash
Trump’s tariff pause brings investors relief—but worries remain
DONALD TRUMP has blinked. Little more than 12 hours after his radical regime of “reciprocal” tariffs took effect, he has put most of them on pause for 90 days. Mr Trump said this was in recognition of the fact that…
Bond-market convulsions look extremely dangerous
Treasury yields and other signs of stress are flashing red
The world flatters the tariff king
In hopes of dodging tariffs, countries are offering gifts to Donald Trump
Why China thinks it might win a trade war with Trump
THE TRADE WAR is escalating, and fast. On April 8th Chinese officials vowed to “fight to the end” in the face of new threats from Donald Trump, made just hours earlier. Having at first promised levies of 34% on Chinese…
Where real danger might lurk in chaotic markets
Plunging markets are normally unnerving because they reveal how quickly sober-minded investors can give in to terror. Just now the scariest thing is how rational those scrambling to sell appear. Share prices around the world have been cratering since Donald…
Market carnage goes global
DURING HIS inaugural address eight years ago, Donald Trump spoke of “American carnage”. In recent days he has spread something similar across the world economy: a problem he alone could fix, in his words, has become something he alone has…
Will Trump’s trade war cause a global recession?
IN ITS SCOPE and severity, the trade war took markets by surprise. On April 3rd, the day after President Donald Trump laid out an unprecedented array of tariffs, the Russell 3000, one of the broadest measures of the American stockmarket,…
How worrying is the weakening dollar?
In times of trouble, the greenback normally strengthens
Trump has exposed America’s world-leading firms to retaliation
IN DONALD TRUMP’S view of global trade, America has been “looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far”. Ironically enough, customers near and far who avail themselves of the services of America’s banking, consulting and tech giants sometimes…
Five crazy Trump tariffs you wouldn’t believe
DONALD TRUMP’S tariff announcement on April 2nd has drawn mockery for its spurious maths. Any bilateral trade deficit is treated as gross unfairness; the tariffs are set by taking the measure as a share of goods imported from each country,…
China’s retaliation against Trump’s tariffs is an act of self-harm
NEVER INTERRUPT your enemy when he is making a mistake. That sounds like Sun Tzu, a renowned Chinese strategist, but the adage, attributable to Napoleon Bonaparte, originated on the other side of the world. Perhaps that explains why China’s leader,…
What a refugee camp reveals about economics
It is Malawi’s rainy season and smartly dressed worshippers are spilling out from church. Couples, arm-in-arm, dodge potholes as they progress down the street. The migration moves past clothes shops and bars, losing stragglers to afternoon drinking, until it meets…
Financial markets flail in the face of America’s tariffs
On a grey afternoon outside the White House, President Donald Trump promised that his tariff plan would “Make America Wealthy Again”. The world’s financial markets took a different view. Investors were shocked by the height and breadth of the new…
Trump’s “Liberation Day” is set to whack America’s economy
A rush of new tariffs will hurt growth, raise prices and worsen inequality
Live music seems recession-proof. Thank ticket scalpers
The mood music on Wall Street is downbeat, as America’s government throttles trade and consumers seem poised to trim spending. Yet one corner of the entertainment industry is partying on regardless. Live Nation, a concert promoter, has said it expects…
Nubank has conquered Brazil. Now it is expanding overseas
Brazil may not be an obvious place to look for the future of retail banking. Yet in just over a decade Nubank, based in São Paulo, has transformed its home market by offering cheap, branchless banking to millions of customers…