Investing

The first US presidential debate of 2020 degenerated into an ugly spectacle on Tuesday night as Donald Trump repeatedly interrupted Joe Biden and the Democratic challenger responded by calling the president a racist and telling him to “shut up”. In a series of acrimonious exchanges, Mr Trump declined to condemn white supremacist groups, suggested he

Overall, it is much easier to invest in a publicly traded firm than a privately-held company. Public companies, especially larger ones, can easily be bought and sold on the stock market and, therefore, have superior liquidity and a quote market value. Conversely, it can be years before a private firm can again be sold and prices

An indoor farming start-up that heralds itself as the future of agriculture and has Martha Stewart on its board announced Tuesday it is going public through a reverse merger, the latest in a series of blank-check deals during the coronavirus pandemic.   Kentucky-based AppHarvest is merging with special purpose acquisition company Novus Capital Corp., while picking up $475 million

Germany is to impose strict restrictions on social gatherings, as chancellor Angela Merkel warned that Germany could be facing more than 19,000 new infections a day by Christmas unless more efforts were made to curtail the spread of coronavirus. Authorities also imposed a minimum fine of €50 for anyone giving false contact details in bars

Peter Spiegel, US Managing Editor This is how I’ve been preparing for tonight’s event: re-watching old Saturday Night Live parodies of previous presidential debates. Here are my top five: — Chevy Chase as Jerry Ford — He did nothing to try to look like the president, but Chase’s depiction of Ford did as much to

When most people challenge deeply ingrained wisdom about finances, they’re greeted with eye rolls. When one of the world’s most successful financial gurus is the contrarian, people listen. Such was the case with Warren Buffett’s 2013 letter to Berkshire Hathaway investors, which seemed to challenge one of the longstanding axioms about retirement planning. Buffett noted

EY was warned in 2016 by one of its own employees that senior managers at Wirecard may have committed fraud and one had attempted to bribe an auditor. The revelation that an EY employee identified suspicious activity at Wirecard four years before the payments group imploded in Germany’s largest postwar corporate fraud will increase the

Britain and Canada have imposed sanctions against Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarus president, and other high-profile regime figures. The sanctions are due to come into force from Tuesday and include a travel ban and asset freeze. It is the first time the UK has targeted a national leader with its own sanctions. Belarus has been besieged

Why Should You Care? Donald Trump, the nation’s 45th chief executive, is unique in his connection to the business world among U.S. presidents. Certainly, there have been presidents before him who were businessmen: both Bushes were in the oil business, Herbert Hoover was in mining, and Warren G. Harding was in the newspaper business. The

B&M, the variety discounter that entered the FTSE 100 index this month, has upgraded profit forecasts for the second time this year as customers spent more on each visit. Group revenue in the six months to September 26 was up 25.3 per cent and in the UK, its most important market, it was still up

The steam went out of a shortlived global equity rally early on Tuesday as a month of choppy trading nears its end. Shares across Europe slipped shortly after the market opened, with the region-wide Stoxx 600 losing 0.4 per cent, London’s FTSE 100 falling 0.5 per cent and Germany’s Dax down 0.7 per cent. That

Kickstarter makes money by taking 5% of the total amount of money that is funded on the site. It uses this money to turn a profit that pays for the costs of running the site, including advertisement and employee payment. Those who use Kickstarter to raise money earn their profits differently, however. Those who want

After Hadi Yousef began to invest in stocks, he soon learned the value of listening to a company’s earnings call. It didn’t take long for the then-Indiana University student to realize that tracking them down for a range of companies was a challenge.  “Around that time, five years ago, I had really gotten into podcasts,

Senior Chinese Communist party officials have been sending an ominous message to private sector entrepreneurs in recent weeks. In a series of policy announcements and meetings, they have emphasised that private companies have an important role to play in “United Front work” — a euphemism for efforts aimed at ensuring that non-party organisations and entities

Peter Wells in New York The US had its smallest one-day rise in coronavirus fatalities in three weeks on Monday, as summer hotspot states like California, Florida and Texas reported slower increases in their death tolls. States attributed a further 260 deaths to the disease, according to Covid Tracking Project data, down from 307 on

The marijuana industry’s exponential growth in the last several years created numerous opportunities in the mainstream economy. But kinks in the industry, including regulatory ones, are still being worked out. To that extent, it is still nascent and needs a professionally-trained workforce to firm up its contours. Currently, there are relatively few colleges or universities

Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate, painted Donald Trump as a tax dodger after the revelation that the president paid no federal income taxes for many of the last 20 years and only $750 in his first year in the White House. Hours after the New York Times reported that Mr Trump had often avoided

Wharton School professor Jeremy Siegel told CNBC on Monday the stock market is likely primed for strong gains next year, regardless of whether President Donald Trump or Joe Biden occupy the White House.  Siegel, who has been mostly bullish over the years, cited a number of reasons, including the increased money supply as a result of

European capitals have clashed over proposals to make payments from the EU’s forthcoming budget conditional on respect for the rule of law, triggering concerns about possible delays to the region’s €750bn recovery fund. The German presidency of the EU on Monday put forward proposals that would, under some circumstances, permit the suspension of disbursements of

People can own real estate for their primary residence or to hold as an investment rental property, and their ownership is determined through what’s known as a title. There are different kinds of real estate title as well as less common methods of holding title to a real estate property. It’s important to know about

HSBC’s Hong Kong-listed stock rose as much as 11 per cent on Monday after its largest shareholder, China’s Ping An Asset Management, increased its stake despite rising tensions between Washington and Beijing. Ping An revealed in an exchange filing late on Friday that it had raised its holding in HSBC to 8 per cent, up

European equities rebounded on Monday after the worst week since June with beaten-down financial stocks leading the way higher. The region-wide Stoxx 600 rallied 1.5 per cent, while London’s FTSE 100 climbed 1.6 per cent and the German Dax jumped 1.9 per cent. Financials in Europe led gains following a sell-off last week that triggered

Thomson Reuters (TRI) is the worldwide market leader in financial data with a broad service range that includes publishing and expert professional advice. Its largest competitors in the publishing and information sector are Dow Jones, Bloomberg, and Pearson. About Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters relies on industry expertise and innovative technology to deliver financial and business

Bar-owners and restaurateurs in Marseille took to the streets in protest against a two-week hospitality ban which came into effect on Saturday. The southern city’s first deputy mayor, Benoît Payan, called the curbs “an affront” but French health minister Olivier Véran said the “health situation in Marseille has badly deteriorated”. Spain’s response to the worst

Donald Trump paid just $750 a year in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017, the New York Times reported on Sunday, after obtaining tax-return data the US president has refused to release in defiance of decades of presidential tradition. In 11 of the 18 years of taxes examined by the New York Times, Mr

Sears Holdings (SHLD) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Oct. 15, 2018. A wave of store closures and deals in desperate attempts to stay afloat failed to save the struggling retailer, which listed $6.9 billion in assets and $11.3 billion in liabilities in the filing. The company announced in a statement that CEO, Edward Lampert, would step down, with day-to-day operations managed by

A man wearing a face mask walks past a Nike store in Central Business District, Beijing, China on February 17, 2020. Andrea Verdelli | Getty Images The market is looking treacherous right now to end September, but top analysts still believe there are compelling stocks out there with robust upside ahead. Even in challenging economic

After 17 years, this will be my final column for this newspaper. Instead of ruminating about the past and repeating what has been said before, I think this is a moment to bring a unifying perspective to the issues that informed my writing in the later years. This column never quite fitted into the categories

Swiss voters have defeated a nationalist initiative to tear up their free-movement agreement with Brussels, deciding by a large majority to maintain existing ties with the EU. A referendum proposal from the rightwing populist Swiss People’s party (SVP) to end free movement for EU citizens was comfortably rejected, preliminary results showed, with about 62 per

A debate rages on in the financial community among professionals and academics about whether insider trading is good or bad for markets. Insider trading refers to the purchase or sale of securities by someone with information that is material and not in the public realm. Insider trading is not limited to company management, directors, and