Part of the Recovery Issue of The Highlight, our home for ambitious stories that explain our world. Cassie Norris is stuck in what can feel like an inescapable poverty trap. Her family hasn’t been able to afford child care, so she watches the kids — ages 1, 2, 5, and 9 — during the day...Read More

Tomorrow is looming as crunch day for the beleaguered debt-burdened Chinese property developer Evergrande when interest payments on two bonds fall due. Evergrande is up for a payment of $83.5 million in interest on an 8.25 percent five-year bond and a $36 million payment on another debt on the same day. China Evergrande Centre [Wikimedia...Read More

Oil ended modestly higher after a choppy session as concerns over growing tight supply outweighed fears over the state of China’s economy.  Futures in New York closed 0.4% higher, posting the first gain in nearly a week as traders focused on growing supply constraints in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico following lasting damage from Hurricane...Read More

Gold futures headed higher for a second straight session on Tuesday, as the U.S. dollar edged back, helping to extend gains for the precious metal which has been partially supported by worries stemming from a downturn in China’s property market. Traders also are positioning ahead of a Federal Reserve policy statement and interest-rate projections at...Read More

Economic activity next year in Malaysia and India, two of the countries most affected by Covid-19 outbreaks in recent months, is expected to recover faster than earlier forecast, latest surveys show. Malaysia’s growth outlook was upgraded by the most in the region — 85 basis points to an expansion of 5.65% next year, according to...Read More

CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Monday he believes beleaguered Chinese property developer Evergrande does not present a major risk to the U.S. economy and financial system. “Evergrande’s stock has been obliterated and that pain is spreading to the rest of the Chinese real estate industry, to the Chinese financial sector and to foreign banks with lots...Read More

For a long time, analysts chalked Chinese President Xi Jinping’s homages to Mao Zedong to “political stagecraft,” but a Wall Street Journal examination of Xi’s recent writings and speeches suggests they should be taking him much more seriously. It now appears Xi is “forcefully” trying to get China back to Mao’s socialist vision, the Journal...Read More

The dollar index was trading 0.27% higher at 93.44. The Indian rupee fell by 26 paise to close at 73.74 (provisional) against the U.S. dollar on Monday, tracking a strong American currency in the overseas market and muted trend in domestic equities. At the interbank foreign exchange market, the local currency opened at 73.82 and...Read More

NEW YORK: Some investors are playing this year’s tug of war between so-called growth and value stocks by owning companies that straddle the line between the two categories, as uncertainties mount over the United States economy’s trajectory in the months ahead. Value stocks, which trade at comparatively cheap multiples of their fundamentals, surged in early...Read More

2008 Taught Us Nothing We have experienced (and some of us grew up) during a very interesting blip within history, starting with the events that transpired in 2008 when the tools of our “innovations” in financialization proved to be the swords upon which we fell. Like the Romans of olde, through mechanisms of sheer greed...Read More