Tag Archives: Featured

Contemporary businesses use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to assist with operations and compete in the marketplace. AI enables firms and entrepreneurs to make data-driven decisions and to quicken the data-gathering process. When creating strategy, buying, selling, and increasing marketplace discovery, firms need to ask: What is better, artificial or human intelligence? A recent article from the Harvard Business Review, “Can AI Help You Sell?,” stated, “Better...

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Overview:  A series of strong US high-frequency data points after a poor finish to last year has spurred a dramatic shift in market expectations. And talk among a couple of (non-voting) FOMC members of a 50 bp hike has provided added fodder. The greenback is extending its recovery today against all the major currencies, with the Australian and New Zealand dollars hit the hardest. Emerging market currencies have also been knocked back. This is part of a larger risk...

Age-related macular degeneration is an eye disease that can blur your central vision. It happens when aging causes damage to the macula — the part of the eye that controls sharp, straight-ahead vision. (Symbolic photo) Keystone / Martin Ruetschi An appeals court in France has overturned a record fine imposed by the French competition authority against the Swiss pharmaceutical companies Novartis and Roche. The verdict was announced by a court in Paris on Thursday....

As former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chairman Timothy J. Muris has recently noted, “President Biden rejects the economics-driven antitrust policies of the past 40 years.” In contrast, President Joe Biden “promised to return to earlier antitrust traditions.” Unfortunately, “those traditions were abandoned for good reason: they harmed consumers.” An important illustration Muris uses is the 1936 Robinson-Patman Act (RPA), which used to be a lynchpin of antitrust...

With all due respect to Niall Ferguson, whom I’ve heard of, and Huw van Steenis, whom I’ve not, this tweet is quite preposterous.  I’ve personally met more than five people who understand money just in my own circles. What they mean is “monetary policy,” which is in fact very difficult to understand—given it effectively operates as a political program within the muddled field of macroeconomics. Monetary policy, unlike money per se, is ad hoc, highly technical,...

Overview:  On the heels of a dramatic jump in US job creation and firmer than expected year-over-year CPI, the US reported a larger than expected jump in retail sales and a strong recovery in manufacturing output. Few think that economic momentum that the recent data implies can be repeated, the "no landing" camp has gained adherents. We suspect that says more about psychology than the economy. The US two-year note is threatening to snap a five-day 20 bp advance...

The Swiss National Bank has named Markus K. Brunnermeier as the next speaker for its Karl Brunner Distinguished Lecture Series. Markus K. Brunnermeier is Professor of Economics at Princeton University and also Director of the Bendheim Center for Finance. His research focuses on the interaction between financial markets and the macroeconomy. His work on price bubbles in stock and real estate markets, systemic risks, liquidity crises and digital currencies is of great...

Coal piled up at a thermal power plant in Berlin. Glencore says it benefited from large coal price moves last year. Keystone / Clemens Bilan Profits at Swiss mining and trading group Glencore last year were boosted by the explosion in commodity prices. Thanks to a more than threefold increase in net profit, the Zug-based giant wants to double its shareholders’ remuneration, in particular through a share buyback. “The unprecedented developments in global energy...

India is currently the seventh-largest country in the world with the largest youth population. There are many elements that make this country unique, the foremost being diversity—diversity of culture, race, ethnicity, and linguistics. India faced an era of colonialism under the British, who would take raw material from India at cheaper rates and import the finished products. India and Nigeria are both countries that gained independence from Britain in the same...