Last year at this time, RWE, one of Germany’s largest power producers, announced a surprise annual loss for 2015 and scrapped its dividend for the first time in decades.
Almost exactly 48 hours after Kraft Heinz’s blockbuster $143 billion bid for Unilever went public, the company changed its mind. Yesterday, Kraft Heinz issued a statement that it “has amicably agreed to withdraw its proposal for a combination of the two companies.”
The last time General Motors made a profit in Europe was the 20th century.
The European Union is facing its biggest crisis since… well, since its last big crisis. The perpetually problematic union is threatening to come undone, with Britain in the process of quitting the bloc and numerous populist movements elsewhere also threatening to sever ties.
If you are a fan of large, round numbers, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has one for you: The benchmark US stock index hit 20,000 for the first time during early trading today. That’s good for a gain of around 20% over the past year, with the rally really picking up steam since the Nov. 8 US election. (The index is up nearly 10% since election day.)
Like so many others, Stefan Löfven is familiar with the wrenching experience of losing a factory job as globalization, automation, and other forces relentlessly reduce manufacturing employment across the West. The Swede, who trained as a welder after high school, had to develop new skills and pursue another career path after his plant closed.
For nearly 20 years, communications group Edelman has been gauging the public’s trust in key institutions like business, government, and the media. You don’t need a survey of more than 33,000 people in 28 countries to know that there is an anti-establishment mood sweeping the globe, but the numbers are even more stark.
The World Economic Forum begins next week in Davos, where politicians, CEOs, celebrities meet to establish the conventional wisdom over fondue, cocktails, and high-minded debates.
There are very few policy ideas that attract support from all sides of the political spectrum these days. Universal basic income is one of them.
In the wake of the global financial crisis, the US Federal Reserve was faster than most of its counterparts to slash interest rates to historically low levels. For nearly a decade, the Fed kept its benchmark rate just above zero, until December of last year, when it finally hiked by a quarter of a percentage point. Today, a year later, it has hiked again.
It’s more than a month after the US election and most—but not all—of the votes have been counted. Although it only took a few hours of tallying to tell that Donald Trump had prevailed, sifting through the provisional, absentee, and contested ballots can take weeks.
Italy is about to get its sixth prime minister in 10 years, as Matteo Renzi will tender his resignation on Monday (Dec. 5) following a big defeat in a referendum on constitutional changes the day before.
In many countries, retail sales follow a predictable pattern. Things start off slow, steadily pick up steam, and then, at the end of the year, shoppers go totally berserk:
It’s hard to consider a club with 48 million members as exclusive, but this one is. That’s how many people make up the richest 1% of humanity, who together collectively control half of the world’s total wealth, according to Credit Suisse. The other 7.3 billion or so make do with the other half.
Since Donald Trump won the US presidential election, stocks have been soaring on the assumption that his administration will boost spending, cut taxes, and reduce regulation. The Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq indexes are on track to set simultaneous record highs today, which doesn’t happen very often.
In the final few weeks of the US presidential campaign, Donald Trump warned that his rival, Hillary Clinton, “meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of US sovereignty.” Out on the trail, he suggested everyone from Goldman Sachs to the Federal Reserve were in on a conspiracy to keep America down.
Hungary’s next general election isn’t until 2018, but you wouldn’t know it from the goodies that prime minister Viktor Orbán is giving away. His government previously hinted at sweeping tax cuts, but the details revealed today were much more aggressive than expected.
Nov. 14, 2016
In the long-running battle at the ballot box between liberalism and populism, the world map for the populists hasn’t looked this good for some time. They have taken a decisive lead in the global electoral college, and are confident about their chances in swing states where polls haven’t yet closed.
Following the election of Donald Trump to US president, shares in the country’s two major private-prison companies soared, presumably banking on a hike in immigration detentions under a Trump administration, and a better climate for privatizing criminal justice.
Editor’s note: When a Quartz reporter recently updated his computer’s operating system, a curious error message appeared, pointing to a text file that had mysteriously materialized on the hard disk. The file looks remarkably like a newswire dispatch filed from an unnamed reporter in Vancouver, Canada.
For retailers, the Christmas shopping season can never start early enough. Long before December, companies try to get shoppers in the mood with elaborate displays, enticing discounts, and other special events.
Wallonia was once an economic powerhouse. Its vast coal reserves fueled one of the earliest industrialized regions in continental Europe. But the French-speaking part of Belgium has since fallen on hard times.
