Though the Federal Reserve did give a nod to growing optimism among the business community and consumers, it held the line on interest rates at its meeting this week.   Its benchmark overnight lending rate target was kept at a range of 0.5 percent to 0.75 percent by the Federal Open Market...

Some executives of the U.S. airline and online booking agency have begun speaking out against the Trump administration's ban on travel from seven majority Muslim nations as the shares of such companies slumped for the second consecutive day on Tuesday.   Since Friday when President Donald...

Toyota Motor Corp sent an urgent message to its U.S. dealers - tell the politicians the tax would seriously hurt car buyers, days before a group of Republican lawmakers were due to discuss their party's controversial proposal to tax all imports.   According to people familiar with the...

As sectors beyond finance seek to benefit from bitcoin’s underlying technology and in an attempt to secure and improve "internet of things", Cisco Systems Inc, Bosch Ltd and several other companies, have set up a consortium to work on how blockchain can be applied to use.   From washing...

In China, single people are often subjected to tough lectures from relatives keen on reinforcing the importance of marriage and securing the family blood line and some are busy answering messages on a mobile app from desperate men looking to hire an instant girlfriend whom they can present to mom...

Fitch Ratings warned that new asset-quality risks for its banking system could be created by China's expansive overseas infrastructure lending through the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative.   Aimed at strengthening Chinese ties with more than 60 countries across Asia, Europe and East...

Analysts say that Apple’s perception that regulators are unlikely to put an end to what it considers the chip maker, Qualcomm's, unfair business practices is reflected by Apple's new legal assault on Qualcomm in the United States and China.   Qualcomm demands for a license fee based on the...

The U.S. based Environmental Protection Agency is of the view that a "very strong deterrent" to cheating by all automakers ha sbeen provided by the massive fines that were paid by Volkswagen AG and the criminal indictment of seven of its executives.   The penalties have had a big impact,...

Global crude markets will be brought into balance early this year as it is most likely that OPEC and other oil producers will comply fully with a deal to reduce supply, said Essam Al-Marzouk, the Kuwaiti Oil Minister.   Al-Marzouk said Wednesday at a conference in Kuwait City that some...

The U.S. Federal Reserve’s holdings are stuck at $4.5 trillion, and the question of when to let them shrink is beginning to simmer eight years after it launched the first of three controversial bond-buying campaigns to help save the U.S. economy.   To get the debate started, several policy...

One of the many gifts of globalization: when deals were still mainly national, twenty years ago, common markets, such as the NAFTA area or the Eurozone, have made bidding for deals across borders very common practices, even for relatively modest companies. But beware, selling to companies abroad...