When consumer prices began soaring last year, a trade union representing staff at the European Central Bank demanded their wages increase in lockstep with inflation. This grassroots effort to index pay to price increases was ultimately unsuccessful, but it was incendiary stuff coming from the…

The brilliant thing about technology is how it tends to become smaller (and cheaper) over time. One glaring exception has been the most expensive piece of kit many of us buy: the automobile. Due to the popularity of bulbous, gizmo-laden SUVs and pickup trucks — some driven no further than a…

The year 2021 will be remembered as one in which markets tumbled down a rabbit hole and entered financial wonderland: A once-elite undertaking became more populist, tribal, anarchic and often downright bizarre. Retail investors upstaged hedge funds, crypto squared up against fiat currencies and…

A year ago analysts thought steelmaker ArcelorMittal SA would be lucky to make $2 billion of net profit in 2021. Their estimates turned out to be more than a little pessimistic: the Luxembourg-based corporation should report about $14.5 billion of earnings, higher than the past 13 years combined. …

Within the next fortnight two of the Earth’s wealthiest individuals will attempt to fly into space. Richard Branson’s flight on Sunday aboard a Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. spaceship will be followed by Jeff Bezos’s rocket trip with Blue Origin LLC on July 20. In a summer not lacking in awe…

SPACs are striking in their herd mentality. Once one decides to take a new type of business public, then a whole bunch of similar firms do the same. This happened with electric vehicles and related technology, and now it’s the turn of flying taxis. This week Vertical Aerospace Group Ltd., a…

A gust of wind was all it took to bring global container flows and oil shipments to a halt. The errant container ship that blocked the Suez canal this week has cut off a route that handles more than 10% of international trade. Part of this situation was simply unfortunate: Egypt has expanded…

Hug the grandparents, celebrate with friends and hit the beach: Whatever your plans once you’ve been vaccinated for Covid-19, there’s a good chance it involves getting on a plane. More than half of Americans and Europeans may have been vaccinated by mid-2021, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs…

The chief executive officer of Volkswagen AG, Herbert Diess, has predicted that within five to 10 years the world’s most valuable company will be a carmaker. Given how much investors have been bidding up the shares of Tesla Inc. and other electric vehicle stocks, it might happen sooner. Tesla’s…

When Wirecard AG’s former boss Markus Braun was taken from his Bavarian prison last week to give testimony to a German parliamentary enquiry, he declined to answer almost all questions about the payment-processing group’s sudden collapse. Dressed in his trademark black turtleneck sweater, he did…