Monty Guild's Contributions

Readers are likely familiar with optical fibers, which transmit data by means of light rather than electrical signals. The use of optics in data transmission is widespread because it allows many more data to be transmitted...

We reported earlier this year on China’s new foray into development banking: the announcement of the foundation of a new multilateral financial institution under Chinese leadership. The Asian Infrastructure Investment...

Oil analysts were mostly caught flat-footed by the price decline that began to unfold in June of last year, which has become one of six such drops of greater than 30 percent over the past three decades. Oil price forecasting

Technological change is one of the key drivers of economic growth for nations, and of success for individual companies that can harness it. The economic growth it creates has been the fundamental support of the...

Since a global stock market correction began to unfold about two weeks ago, financial headlines have brought forward a number of causes—seasonal weakness, fears surrounding the impending Fed rate rise...

For first worlders, weather is often just an annoyance or a pleasure; Californians have started to become more attuned to the weather’s economic influence during the ongoing drought. However, weather influences...

In 2002, addressing Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman on his 90th birthday, former Fed chair Ben Bernanke acknowledged the role of the Federal Reserve in worsening the financial crisis of the Great Depression...

No one expects a company to live forever, but the rate of attrition of top companies is accelerating. From 1955 to 1975, the roster of the U.S.’ top 500 companies churned an average of 11 per year. From 1976 to 1995...

In April, first-time homebuyers made up nearly 40 percent of home purchases, marking a new high since a special tax credit for first-time buyers expired in 2010. First-time buyers represent one of the real signs of housing-market health, since...

So far this year, the biotech sector is once again outperforming the broad market. The equally-weighted SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (NYSE: XBI) is up more than the S&P 500 as of this writing. If the year closes in...

Bonds had quite a ride over the past week. European bond yields, in particular, lifted off from their all-time lows; but the move’s speed and magnitude surprised investors. As readers are aware, the values of bonds move inversely...

Federal debt periodically raises its head as a political issue for Americans. In 2011 and 2013, lawmakers tangled over the raising of the Federal government’s debt ceiling; but deficits have not galvanized the American political imagination for some time.

Chinese markets have soared from last year at the same time their economy experiences a major slowdown. We explain why this is happening and why it is likely to continue...

For the time being, prices of many raw materials and finished goods are not rising. Supply gluts in energy markets, a series of bumper crops in agriculture, and improved manufacturing efficiencies are conspiring with sluggish global demand to keep a lid on prices...

Drugs fall broadly into two categories: small-molecule drugs and large-molecule drugs. Small molecule drugs are relatively simple to manufacture, and include all the over-the-counter remedies you’d recognize...

Last week, Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) director Mel Watt announced two measures designed to spur U.S. mortgage lending, as the U.S. housing market continues to lag.

Thus far, the European Central Bank (ECB) remains the only one of the world’s major central banks that has resisted QE in the wake of the global financial crisis. That hasn’t been a matter of prudence— it has been a matter of policy paralysis in the European Union...

Technological, social, geopolitical, and economic forces are driving radical changes in higher education. These changes will affect universities, as some prosper and strengthen, others fall by the wayside, and new, experimental structures for the delivery of education arise.

All of the money created by the world’s central banks is looking for a home where it will earn a return — without being eroded by inflation. And right now, its best option is to buy assets denominated in U.S. Dollars.

As part of our ongoing emphasis on tech innovations, we’ll mention a few stories that have caught our eye recently. Some are obviously tech-related, others less so. We continue to believe that such innovations — and the entrepreneurs who bring them from concept to reality...