Gwynn Guilford

Every year, thousands of Americans face the same weighty decision. With cash piling up in a no-yield bank account, they determine it’s time to entrust their wealth to a pro. But how do they ensure they’re not handing over their hard-earned savings—and their hopes of paying for college, perhaps, or enjoying a financially secure retirement—to the next Jordan Belfort or Bernie Madoff?

Climate change is a unique economic problem with catastrophic consequences, the worst of which are still far away. It’s a “tragedy of the horizon,” as Mark Carney, Bank of England governor, memorably dubbed it.

2019 was a dramatic year, full of manufacturing slumps, yield-curve inversions, and other possible harbingers of impending recession. And yet the curtain closed on 2019 with the global economy seeming, somewhat improbably, pretty much okay. Will 2020 be equally dramatic? Will it, too, have an upbeat ending?

Interest rates sure are weird these days. Five central banks currently hold policy rates negative; several are dabbling with unconventional bond-buying. The one bank that tried to raise them, the Federal Reserve, found itself back cutting rates within a year. Meanwhile, some $11 trillion worth of bonds have negative rates—guaranteeing losses for buyers that hold those to maturity.

After years of battling the US trade deficit, Donald Trump is suddenly pushing for peace. His administration’s updated accord with Canada and Mexico is poised to replace what Trump once called the “worst trade deal ever made.” And the White House says it will ink a “phase one” trade deal with China within the next couple weeks.

The numbers tell one story. Unemployment in the US is the lowest it’s been in 50 years. More Americans have jobs than ever before. Wage growth keeps climbing.

As US business spending tanks and residential investment fizzles, one bulwark against recession remains: the American consumer. That’s why economists are glued to data on hiring, wages, and interest rates—they’re traditional gauges of consumer wellbeing.

Nokia’s share price tanked by nearly 25% at one point today—the biggest daily drop since at least 1991—after the Finnish telecom equipment vendor announced a sudden and acute shrinking of its network business’ profit in its latest quarter. Slashing its profit outlook through 2020, Nokia said it would suspend its dividend for the next six months.

Sound the alarm! China’s economy grew by 6% in the third quarter, the slowest annual rate in 30 years. This was down from 6.4% in the first quarter and 6.2% in the second. The main culprits include sputtering factory output and sagging infrastructure investments.

The name “Maple Fire” doesn’t quite do it justice. In August 2018, a wildfire razed 3,300 acres of ancient forest in Washington state—burying Seattle in smoke and costing taxpayers $4.5 million before firefighters were able to extinguish the flames.

A deadly virus has wiped out as much as half of China’s pig population. That’s a big problem for a country whose default meat is pork. As prices soar, the government is trying to induce farmers to raise more swine.

America’s unemployment rate is brushing historical lows once again, as the United States’ closely-watched jobs data report revealed on Friday. Hiring continues to steam ahead. Given all that, you’d expect wages to continue on a steady upswing.

Simply put, 5G will make the ability to analyze colossal volumes of data cheaper and more accessible—at a scale of magnitude that turns what now sounds like a futuristic fantasy into a Main Street reality. It will also cost up to $1 trillion to build.

Even if you’ve absorbed nothing else about 5G, you almost certainly know these three things: There’s a race to build it. China is winning. And that should make you afraid. (Or if you’re in China, thrilled.)

This much is clear: 5G is here. What exactly that means is somewhat hazier. Does it mean you should hold off on upgrading your phone? Switch to a new carrier? Change your data plan?

In this conference call, senior reporter Gwynn Guilford and finance editor Jason Karaian took your questions about the potential for a round of competitive devaluation, the nature of the financial relationship between the US and China, and the outlook for the global economy if a currency war broke out on top of the trade war.

The Federal Reserve just cut rates for the first time in a decade—and landed itself in a dilemma.

Global growth seems to be weakening fast, and the world’s central bankers are preparing their monetary arsenal for a rate cut.

For the last two months Huawei, China’s top global tech company, has been facing down what some call a “death sentence” imposed by the Trump administration, which in mid-May banned US firms from selling it the American technology it needs to make its core products.

The once-fringe fantasy of a return to the gold standard is creeping back into the mainstream.

Even by his own rhetorical standards, Donald Trump’s trade war policies don’t make a ton of sense. The president says his confrontation with China is about trade (see: his repeated complaints about the US-China trade deficit and his use of punitive trade barriers). But the core of the conflict isn’t really about trade at all. It’s about technology.

Foreign invaders have conquered China. An all-out battle is looming. But the attackers are a far cry from the northern barbarian hordes of yore. Rather, they are mud-colored grubs from the Americas, whose deadliest weapon is their appetite.

The seemingly unexpected collapse of trade negotiations between the US and China last month hinted that existing Sino-US tariffs may now be the new normal. But recent data reveal that, well before talks broke down in May, China-based companies had already begun bracing for the worst-case scenario. The latest trade numbers suggest that China has been selling Americans fewer goods like computers and auto parts—and that other countries are benefitting from taking up the slack.

For decades, the burgeoning power of China’s middle-class has been promised as a cure-all for many of the global economy’s troubles (not to mention its own). Enriched by three decades of rapidly rising wages, Chinese consumers should have long ago begun turbo-charging sluggish economies everywhere.