Married couples can often claim twice the retirement savings tax breaks of single people. Couples can also strategically save in their respective workplace retirement accounts to get the best possible employer contributions and investment options. Here's how to maximize the...
In a surprise move, the Bank of Japan has introduced a negative interest rate. The benchmark rate of -0.1% means that commercial banks will be charged by the central bank for some deposits. It is designed to encourage them to...
It was once taboo to say that China could be a deflationary force, dragging the world into a slowdown as its own economy modernized. Serious economists and investors pooh-poohed the idea, saying that China's economy just didn't have that kind...
Along with bank runs and market crashes, oil shocks have rare power to set monsters loose. Starting with the Arab oil embargo of 1973, people have learnt that sudden surges in the price of oil cause economic havoc. Conversely, when...
Karen Chou, a 32-year-old bank worker in Beijing, had a New Year’s resolution: sell yuan, buy dollars. “I’m not optimistic about China’s economy,” she said, after rushing to exchange some of her savings for U.S. currency as part of heightened demand...
Pressured by plunging oil prices and costly wars in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia moved to stamp out speculation that it might be forced to break the link between its currency and the dollar. Authorities this week ordered banks to...
A high-profile Bitcoin developer has said the crypto-currency has failed and he will no longer take part in its development. Mike Hearn, a Zurich-based developer and long-time proponent of Bitcoin, surprised many this weekend when he published a blog calling...
Are equities always the best investment for the long run? It is the message that is usually sold to individual investors. The message is based on theory; equities are riskier than government bonds so should offer a higher return (the...
Worries about the Chinese economy continue to dog global markets. Famous economists and investors are making grim predictions. Is 2016 the year of doom and gloom? Having trouble? Click here » The Economist
...Many investors blame the escalating weakness in corporate credit on falling commodity prices. But that’s only one piece of the story, one that ignores a collapsing credit cycle amid a much broader global slowdown. Standard & Poor’ said on Tuesday...
ONE of the many oddities of the topsy-turvy world of Chinese finance is that red is green and green is red. In most countries “going into the red” means losing money; stocks that are falling are often depicted in red...
The Paris agreement will not stabilise the climate; but the efforts it makes possible could still achieve a lot. “The test of a first-rate intelligence”, F. Scott Fitzgerald, a sometime Parisian, once wrote, “is the ability to hold two opposing...
Elizabeth Holmes’s blood-testing ambition has long collided with technological problems. The night before a big meeting with a Swiss drug company in 2008, Theranos Inc. founder Elizabeth Holmes and a colleague sat in a Zurich hotel, sticking their fingers with...
For decades, the word “market” has been a misnomer for global trade in oil. Not only has the business been manipulated by an international cartel, OPEC, with varying degrees of success. Since 1975 America has also distorted it by banning...
Our favorite work of the year — so far. Bloomberg Business
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