Ernest Werlin

Over the past six weeks, U.S. crude oil prices have dropped from close to $75 a barrel to below $50, the lowest since October 2017. It is almost inconceivable that just a few weeks [...]

Last week, Amazon chose New York City and Northern Virginia as the locations for the company’s second and third headquarters. To attract Amazon, New York offered a package of nearly $3 billion, while Virginia [...]

In recent weeks, significant attention has been paid to the possibility of a stock market correction. By contrast, few have focused on the challenges developing in the corporate bond market. The bond market is [...]

The completion of the U.S.–Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) alleviates the concerns of businesses and investors who for months worried about our trade relationships with Canada and Mexico. Investors seem generally relieved that important components of [...]

Ten years after the global financial crisis, the combined debt of sovereign governments, nonfinancial corporations and households has grown by $72 trillion to a total of $169 trillion, according to a briefing note from [...]

Our economy is robust but we need to remember that capitalism is inherently unstable and undergoes cycles of boom and bust. In 2008, our financial institutions were overleveraged and held too many toxic assets. [...]

Ten years ago, the Federal Housing Finance Agency seized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, placing them in conservatorship. The federal agency did this because the mortgage giants’ $5 trillion loan portfolios were in danger [...]

What a difference a year makes. In 2017, the U.S. dollar was weak and the prices of commodities, metals and oil were strong. Now the strength of the U.S dollar has wreaked havoc on [...]

This past week, Apple Inc. became the first publically traded U.S. company to have a market value in excess of $1 trillion. Apple has succeeded because it dominates the smartphone market and is cultivating [...]

Sadly, our polarized political atmosphere prevents the country from dealing with important issues such as immigration, infrastructure spending and coming up with appropriate trade policies. The United States is the world’s wealthiest country, with [...]

The General Electric Co. has a storied, 110-year history as one of a handful of companies that were at the center of American capitalism and industrial innovation. GE created the first incandescent light bulb, [...]

For the first time since such record-keeping began in 2000, the number of job openings has exceeded the number of jobless. U.S. job openings rose to 6.7 million, the Labor Department reported on June [...]

The May labor report showed that the American economy is booming. Strong hiring indicated that economic growth is likely to accelerate this year, after increasing at a modest 2.2 percent annual pace in the [...]

Over dinner the other night, a good friend asked me about my outlook on the stock market. Having been a corporate bond trader for most of my Wall Street career, I have learned that [...]

The United States has advocated free trade policies of unrestricted imports and exports since the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944. This principle of refraining from imposing tariffs or quotas remained the case even after [...]

Last Tuesday, Spotify, a superstar in the music-streaming sector, went public employing a very unusual initial public offering. Spotify listed existing shares directly on the New York Stock Exchange without relying on investment bankers [...]

The pension funds of state and local governments and corporations are facing a total shortfall of up to $6 trillion. Some 200 multi-employer pension plan companies face bankruptcy. And unless this fiscal shortfall is [...]

On Wednesday, Apple said it would spend approximately $350 billion in the U.S. over five years on domestic jobs, manufacturing and data centers. The impetus for Apple’s decision was the Tax Cuts and Jobs [...]

Where have all the public companies gone? According to the Center for Research in Security Prices, the number of companies that sell stock to the public on the exchanges has shrunk since 1996 by [...]

Workers in the tightest American labor markets are finally receiving pay packages that are growing faster than inflation. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 1, in cities such as [...]