BUSINESS
Bitcoin’s wild ride leaves traditional money managers queasy
Bitcoin, the most actively-traded cryptocurrency, has endured its worst bout of tumult since the global market ructions in March
BUSINESS
Jack Ma vs Xi Jinping: the future of private business in China
Taken together, the regulatory measures amount to an unprecedented squeeze on a business empire whose ubiquitous services are central to the functioning of China’s pioneering online economy
BUSINESS
Twitter vs Trump: Has Big Tech gone too far?
The moves have added fuel to the debate on a tech company’s right to censor users who breach their content policies and an individual’s right to freedom of expression
BUSINESS
Blue sweep of Congress will add pressure to weak dollar, analysts say
The US currency has been on a losing streak since the unprecedented actions taken by the Federal Reserve last year to limit the turmoil caused by the coronavirus crisis
POLITICS
The nightmarish end to Donald Trump’s presidency
The scenes of ransacking the Congress will go down in infamy in American democracy
BUSINESS
Facebook’s push into Asia-Pacific runs into political hurdles
After refusing to kowtow to Beijing’s demands to censor its users, among other requests, the social media giant has been locked out of the country ever since
BUSINESS
Distressed debt specialist Howard Marks warns on corporate borrowing burden
While stimulus measures and borrowed money could help keep companies stay afloat, it would not secure their futures if they struggled to return to profitability, says Marks
BUSINESS
Rational bubble puts markets on high starting point for 2021
While investors appear bullish, some wobbles in equity markets should be expected in the year ahead
BUSINESS
America’s dangerous reliance on the Fed
Easy money and fiscal gridlock in Washington lead to populism
BUSINESS
The big questions for Big Tech in 2021
Regulation and retention will determine whether Facebook, Google, Alibaba and their peers continue to clean up
TRENDS
Forecasting the world in 2021
FT writers share their predictions for the New Year, from the availability and take-up of Covid-19 vaccines to the fortunes of the S&P 500
BUSINESS
Why obituaries for the bull market in bonds might be premature
A net 76 per cent of fund managers surveyed recently by Bank of America expect a steeper yield curve of long-term rates rising above those for short-term debt
BUSINESS
A theory of (almost) everything for financial markets
Finance has a tendency to take all trends too far, and passive investing will undoubtedly prove no different
BUSINESS
What can go wrong? Investors’ views on the big risks to markets in 2021
The virus mutation in the UK underlines the fact that how it is not always a smooth sailing
BUSINESS
How UK-EU trade deal will change relations between Britain and Brussels
The trade agreement between London and Brussels will offer UK and EU companies preferential access to each other’s markets
BUSINESS
COVID crisis opens chasm between hedge fund winners and losers
The gap between the top and bottom deciles widened to 68.9 percentage points, marking the biggest difference in 11 years
BUSINESS
‘Regulation can get it wrong’: Google’s Sundar Pichai on AI and antitrust
Pichai’s strategy is clear: to publicly welcome new forms of regulation, while at the same time trying to head off its most onerous effects
BUSINESS
Fed backstop masks rising risks in America’s corporate debt market
The borrowing binge has driven leverage — a ratio that measures debt compared with earnings — to an all-time peak for higher-rated, investment grade companies
BUSINESS
US options traders bet Wall Street stocks will build on record highs
Purchases of call options, which confer the right to buy a stock at an agreed price, have surged since November’s US election and Covid-19 vaccine breakthroughs, according to exchange operator Cboe. The daily trading volumes of call contracts, which are effectively a bet on rising prices, have far outpaced put options, which give the buyer a right to sell shares at a set level.
BUSINESS
Foreign investors dash into emerging markets at swiftest pace since 2013
Money is expected to continue pouring into the asset class in 2021, with several analysts forecasting a bumper year of inflows
BUSINESS
Why it is foolish to bet on a dollar crash
There is a school of thought which believes that the dollar is poised to fall 20 per cent or more in 2021. But at least history doesn’t suggest so
BUSINESS
Martin Wolf writes: There is no stock market bubble
Given the interest rates, stock markets are not overvalued. The big questions are whether real interest rates will jump, and how soon
BUSINESS
Global investors place Rmb1tn bet on China breakthrough
The $150bn-worth of inflows, which came through Hong Kong programmes that connect investors to the mainland, mark a contrast with January, when Chinese stocks were the first in the world to feel the heat from the pandemic
BUSINESS
As COVID optimism grows, investors seek to hedge against inflation risk
US inflation expectations are rising and huge increases in public debt and central bank balance sheets are causing many investors to think seriously about how to protect their portfolios from inflationary risks
