archiveEconomic Conditions and Trends

The governor of China’s central bank outlined a plan on Wednesday for a global financial system that relies on several major currencies, not just the dollar, as Beijing steps up its campaign to weaken the U.S. dollar’s primacy.Pan Gongsheng, the governor of the People’s Bank of China, did not mention the dollar by name but gave an extended critique of the potential dangers of international reliance on a single country’s currency.In a coded reference to the United States, Mr. Pan cited the dangers posed by fiscal and regulatory problems in...

Investors watching the S&P 500’s plunge this week are processing a mix of signals. Will the threat of tariffs push the economy into a recession or is this simply a retrenchment from the highly valued technology companies that some analysts and investors argued were due for a pullback?There is a different stock index that is flashing a clearer warning sign.The Russell 2000 includes smaller companies that are more sensitive to the whims of the economy. These companies tend to run thinner profit margins that can be more easily eroded in...