Taiwanese Leader Tsai Says Beijing Reverting to Coercive Tactics

Relations with China are becoming more fraught as Beijing increasingly reverts to threatening and intimidating its neighbor, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said while vowing not to return to “the old path of confrontation.” Tsai’s frank comments during a New Year’s Eve address in Taipei come at a sensitive time, weeks after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump angered Beijing by accepting a protocol-breaking phone call from the Taiwanese president.

California aims to take lead in giving marijuana industry access to financial services

In this Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2016 photo, Rolie Gonzalez III displays a branch of marijuana buds taken for a plant on the farm of grower Laura Costa, near Garberville. California hopes to take the lead in giving the cannabis industry access to banking services in 2017, with a new working group focused on finding a solution to ongoing conflicts between state and federal laws that force marijuana businesses to operate largely in cash.

Whitney Shefte

Whitney Shefte is a Peabody, Emmy and Pictures of the Year International Award-winning senior video journalist at The Washington Post, where she has worked since 2006. Whitney is also visuals editor for Storyline.

Investors Are Betting Big Against Fitbit Inc. — Are They Right?

But investors seem to think that the stock could continue falling — over 30% of its outstanding shares were still being shorted as of Dec. 27. Let’s take a closer look at Fitbit’s headwinds and tailwinds to see if those bearish bets are justified. The bears believe that since fitness trackers are cheap to manufacture, Fitbit’s core market will be commoditized and its brand will lose its premium appeal.

Pope Francis Urges Action on Youth Unemployment in Year-End Address

Pope Francis in his year-end message urged leaders on Saturday to do more to tackle youth unemployment, saying a generation was being lost to desperation, migration and joblessness. At his last public event of 2016, an evening vespers service in St. Peter’s Basilica, the 80-year-old Francis said doors had to be opened for young people “so that they can be capable of dreaming and fighting for their dreams”.

The Worst Cable Stocks of 2016

As more consumers cut the cord, competition in the pay-TV industry is growing increasingly fierce. That’s led some companies to seek consolidating acquisitions like AT&T did last year by buying DIRECTV.

Charting the Good and the Bad for the Year in Technology: Gadfly

The combined market value of tech’s Five Fab — Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc. — was $2.4 trillion as of Dec. 27, or more than 11 percent of the S&P 500’s value. That means tech superpowers are inching toward the 16 percent share of the S&P 500 they held at the peak of the tech bubble in March 2000.

U.S. Hasn’t Benefited From Globalization

President-elect Trump is on record as stating that one of the first executive actions he’ll take following the inauguration is to declare China to be a currency manipulator. We’ll have to wait and see whether he follows through, and I’ll discuss the ramifications of such as more information is available and the decisions being made about trade by other nations.

5 Biggest Oil and Gas Acquisitions of 2016

In some ways, 2016 was the best of times and the worst of times for M&A in the oil patch. On the downside, the sector saw two notable deals fall apart , and it lacked a headline-grabbing megamerger such as Royal Dutch Shell ‘s 2015 decision to pay $53 billion for BG Group.

10 Highest Dividend Yielding Stocks

One sound long-term investing strategy is to buy stocks that offer up high dividend yields.This strategy has become particularly enticing in today’s low interest rateenvironment, since it offers investors a chance to generate a lot of income from their portfolio. However, justbecausea stock offers up a high yield doesn’t make it an automatic buy, especially because sky-high yields are often accompanied by sky-high risks.

Trump focuses New Year’s tweet on ‘many enemies’ and everyone…

On the final day of 2016, President-elect Donald Trump sent a New Year’s message of “love!” on Twitter, including to his “many enemies” and everyone who has “lost so badly.” The tweet came after another that praised Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday for not launching a tit-for-tat sanctions to respond to those issued by US President Barack Obama’s administration this week in retaliation for Russia’s suspected election-related hacking.

Before-and-after photos show how dramatically presidents have…

The inaugural portrait of President Obama captures a still youthful man; his face and forehead are free from wrinkles as the new leader stares confidently into the camera. The inaugural portrait of President Obama captures a still youthful man; his face and forehead are free from wrinkles as the new leader stares confidently into the camera.

5 books Richard Branson thinks you should read

Richard Branson, the Virgin Group Founder and self-described tie-loathing billionaire, still finds time in his busy schedule to read. As part of Facebook’s recent #ReadToLead hashtag , Branson offered up the handful of titles that kept his attention in 2016.

article

Can the memory chip specialist build on this success with another fantastic performance in 2017? First, I have already taken a look at the potential downside for us Micron investors. In short, the risks involved in owning Micron next year are significant but also limited.

3 Reasons Why I Just Bought More Macy’s, Inc. Stock

While the retailer posted weak earnings for the third quarter, it offered upbeat earnings guidance for Q4 and made significant progress in conjunction with its strategy to monetize underutilized real estate. Yet in the month following Thanksgiving, Macy’s stock gave back virtually all of its gains.

1 Worsening Problem That Obamacare Simply Can’t Cure

Despite its many criticisms, the Affordable Care Act has arguably been the closest thing to universal healthcare that Americans have ever seen. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the uninsured rate in the U.S. fell from 16% in the quarter immediately preceding the implementation of the ACA, which is more affably known as Obamacare, to just 8.9% by mid-2016.

Mexico’s Minimum Wage Set to Rise Nearly 10%

Mexico’s minimum wage will rise almost 10% on Sunday, in a jolt to the system meant to stoke the poorest workers’ buying power, which has been eroded by recessions and past bouts of high inflation. But the prospect of higher earnings is doing little to dent pessimism among consumers, who head into 2017 facing rising fuel costs, higher interest rates and a weakening peso that closed 2016 near record lows against the U.S. dollar.

Best & Worst ETF Performers of 2016

After a remarkable surge since Donald Trump’s presidential election win that has helped the markets extend into the 9th year of its bull rally, U.S. equities and stock exchange traded funds are ending 2016 with a whimper. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 13.4% year-to-date.