Finance

One of Japan’s most storied trading houses says it’s lost $320 million in a series of unauthorized transactions by a rogue trader. Mitsubishi Corp. said Friday that the employee in its Petro-Diamond unit in Singapore disguised the trades to look like legitimate hedges. Derivatives are contracts that give a fixed price to hedge against volatility […]

South Korea said Friday that it is investigating more suspected cases of African swine fever in farms near its border with North Korea, as fears grow over the spread of the illness that has decimated pig herds across Asia. South Korea’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the Gyeonggi provincial government said officials

Financial planners also say inheritors must resist entreaties from friends and relatives seeking loans or gifts. Tyrone Phillippi, a certified financial planner in Dayton, Ohio, said one client, against his advice, gave money to a relative to open a bar. “It did not go well — the money was basically gone,” he said. Teri Alexander,

When California lawmakers passed a worker-protection bill essentially requiring Uber and Lyft to treat drivers as employees, it was thanks in part to a little-known group called Rideshare Drivers United. Uber and Lyft had hoped for a deal with organized labor exempting them from the measure, and the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union

World shares were mixed on Friday, while India’s benchmark jumped more than 5% after the government announced plans to cut corporate taxes. Germany’s DAX fell 0.1% to 12,440.12 and the CAC 40 in France lost 2.9 points to 5,656.24. Britain’s FTSE 100 gave up 0.3% to 7,334.05. Wall Street looked set for gains, however, with

U.S. long-term mortgage rates shot up this week, yet they stayed close to the historic lows that appear to be helping the real estate market. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac says the average rate on the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage increased to 3.73% from 3.56% last week. The rate averaged 4.65% a year ago, when the higher

Amazon, which delivers more than 10 billion items a year on fuel-guzzling planes, vans and trucks, vowed Thursday to cut the amount of damage it does to the environment and report its greenhouse gas emissions regularly. The online shopping giant has been facing pressure from its own employees to do more to combat climate change

FedEx says one of its pilots was detained in China after an item was found in his luggage before he boarded a commercial flight. The company said Thursday the pilot was later released, and it is working with Chinese authorities to understand what happened at the airport in Guangzhou, in southern China. The Wall Street

A peculiar thing is happening in financial markets this week: an oft-overlooked corner of Wall Street where banks and others go for billions of dollars in short-term loans is suddenly in need of cash. To that end, the Federal Reserve has stepped in to inject about $200 billion over the past three days, with plans

A General Motors offer to invest $7 billion in U.S. facilities includes $2 billion from joint ventures and suppliers for new plants that would pay workers less than the top union wage, a person briefed on the matter said. The offer is a major issue that could get in the way of a deal between