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South Korean Do Kwon presided over one of the biggest busts ever in the volatile crypto sector. His Terraform Labs Pte created the TerraUSD stablecoin, which was meant to have a constant $1 value via a complex mix of algorithms and trader incentives involving a sister token, Luna. Their combined value soared past $60 billion until confidence in the system evaporated in May 2022, prompting investors to flee and denuding the tokens of value. With Kwon’s whereabouts unclear, South Korea issued an a

Need a loan for a new factory or a buyout deal, but don’t like the terms your bank is offering? There’s a $1.7 trillion industry that’s ready to help. Private credit came of age after the 2008 financial crisis as an alternative to banks at a time when regulators were clamping down on risky lending by deposit-taking institutions. Today it’s become a serious rival to mainstream lending for all kinds of businesses, from real estate firms to tech startups. Money has been pouring into private credit

For years, the world’s biggest technology companies were largely able to resist government oversight. That’s changing fast.

The yen continues to languish near its lowest level against the dollar since 1986, mainly because interest rates in Japan remain much lower than those in the US and elsewhere, diminishing the currency’s relative allure. After several failed efforts by Japanese officials to talk the yen higher, the government moved more decisively as the yen breached the 160 level versus the dollar in late April, conducting its biggest ever intervention. Without specifying the precise timing, the finance ministry

It’s almost certainly the most closely scrutinized scatter chart in world financial markets. Every three months since January 2012, the Federal Reserve has sent analysts scurrying by updating its “dot plot,” which has become the de facto monetary policy forecast of the US central bank — whether the Fed wants it to be or not. It’s also an important source of clues to dissent within the Fed’s policymaking committee, even if it can be as cryptic as it is crucial.

New York City’s transit system had planned to start charging motorists a fee to drive into crowded midtown Manhattan starting on June 30. But just a few weeks before implementation, Governor Kathy Hochul said that New York state would “indefinitely pause” the start of the program, citing the effects of inflation on the finances of New Yorkers.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has shown new signs he’s girding for battle by saying the time is over for peaceful reunification with South Korea and he has the right to annihilate his neighbor. To back up his threats, Kim has been ramping up strike capabilities with a blistering pace of tests for his newest ballistic missiles — making them bigger, deadlier and better able to strike the US and its allies in Asia. Washington has accused him of sending munitions to Russia in return for aid that b

The UK’s pension “triple lock” commits the government to providing minimum yearly increases in retirement payouts. The policy is placing a growing burden on strained public finances, making it the subject of intense debate as the country prepares for a general election in July. The governing Conservatives have committed to maintaining it and have even offered an extra tax cut on top. While the Labour opposition has also voiced support for the triple lock, doing away with it could free up money f

Obesity is among the world’s most common health conditions, but for years medicine had few effective approaches to offer short of surgery. That’s why there’s been so much excitement about a new class of drugs that’s helping patients shed dozens of pounds at far lower risk — and generating billions in revenue for pharmaceutical companies.

After a steady rise over two years, the price of cocoa beans skyrocketed in early 2024, with futures contracts more than doubling in three months to reach a level in March twice as high as the previous record. It’s a progression that has its literal roots in small West African farms but also involves climate change and the intricacies of the futures market. The latest surge has been driven in part by the kind of financial turmoil that can happen when commodity prices rise so fast that they overw

The US Federal Reserve has begun the process of phasing out its effort to remove trillions of dollars of excess cash from the financial system – a leftover of its injection of emergency economic support during the pandemic. The effort, known as quantitative tightening, has been under way for two years, and officials want to make sure to stop it before they cause the kind of financial disruptions caused by the last round of QT, in 2017-2019. There’s no specific timeline yet, however, and market p

(Bloomberg) -- Germany’s national postal carrier Deutsche Post AG has stopped using aeroplanes to transport letters domestically, a step that will reduce CO2 emissions as use of letter mail dwindles.

Israel’s military has been poised for months for an offensive on the southern Gazan city of Rafah, part of its campaign to eradicate Hamas — the Iran-backed militant group behind the Oct. 7 attack on Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 kidnapped. The prospect of another major assault on the territory has drawn criticism from the US, Egypt and other countries that are concerned about civilians in the enclave’s one remaining safe haven, including more than 1 million displaced people.

Singapore sentenced another person involved in the country’s largest-ever money laundering case to a 14-month jail term, and forfeited more than S$165 million ($121 million) of assets from him, his wife and his companies.

The incredibly complex, high-stakes business of making semiconductors has always been a battle of corporate giants. Now it’s also a race among governments. These critical bits of technology — also known as integrated circuits or, more commonly, just chips — may be the tiniest yet most exacting products ever manufactured. And because they’re so difficult and costly to produce, there’s a worldwide reliance on just a handful of companies, a dependence that was brought into stark relief by shortages