Goldman’s new consumer bank, which operates under the brand Marcus, has lost $1.3 billion since launching in 2016. It spent heavily to buy startups and cloud-storage space, hire hundreds of techies, and build call centers in Utah and Texas. Loans have gone bad at a higher rate than that of rivals.

Marcus launched without a collections team to chase down delinquent borrowers, resulting in early loan losses, people familiar with the matter said. A credit card developed with Apple Inc. was a coup, but a costly one: Thousands of engineers across Goldman were diverted to finish it in time for an August debut, delaying other projects. Apple ads for the card carried the phrase: “Designed by Apple, not a bank”—a line that didn’t appear in a giant banner ad in Goldman’s lobby this fall.

It’s still early days, but Goldman has a lot riding on getting this right. The firm brings in less revenue than it did in 2010. Its stock trades below that of rivals with big consumer...

KABUL—Despite threats of attacks by Taliban insurgents, Afghans came forward slowly early Saturday to vote in the country’s fourth presidential election since a U.S.-led invasion toppled the hard-line Islamist movement from power 18 years ago.

The polling station at the Khwaja Ali Mouafaq Herawi mosque in central Kabul, one of 5,373 posts in schools and mosques across the country, was empty of when the gate opened for voters at 7 a.m. local time. Many of the election workers, mostly schoolteachers hired temporarily from their...

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia—Saudi Arabia is opening the ultraconservative kingdom to tourists for the first time, easing restrictions for foreign visitors as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s initiative to diversify the oil-dependent economy.

Visas had been restricted to Muslim pilgrims and business and diplomatic visitors, but on Friday the kingdom said its new online visa portal would be open to visitors from 49 countries, including the U.S. and major European and Asian countries.

In a lounge at the Sundance Film Festival last year, Juul Labs Inc. doled out $1 bundles of e-cigarettes to guests passing through. A-listers, including Elijah Wood, Nicolas Cage and Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am, stopped in front of a Juul-branded backdrop and posed for photographs.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV agreed to pay $40 million to settle claims by U.S. securities regulators that it misled investors by inflating its monthly sales figures.

In a filing Friday, the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission said it found that Fiat Chrysler “inflated monthly vehicle sales to customers by paying dealers to report fake sales, which were later ‘unwound’ or reversed.”

The...

BEIJING—Four months before Xi Jinping became China’s leader in late 2012, he issued a Communist Party edict on Hong Kong that reverberates today.

As head of a party committee overseeing the former British colony, Mr. Xi ordered officials to wage combat against what he saw as a growing separatist movement, according to a retired senior official responsible for Hong Kong affairs. “We must dare to struggle and be good at fighting,” the retired official said in describing Mr. Xi’s approach.

WASHINGTON—Three House committees demanded that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo turn over State Department documents regarding contacts between U.S. and Ukrainian officials, part of impeachment proceedings against President Trump.

The Democratic chairmen of the House foreign affairs, intelligence and oversight committees issued a subpoena, giving Mr. Pompeo an Oct. 4 deadline to produce the documents.

The...

For several days in September, a private investigator hired by Credit Suisse Group AG trailed the bank’s former wealth management head Iqbal Khan through Zurich, snapping photos along the way. The mandate: find out whether he was trying to recruit colleagues to his new employer, UBS Group AG.

On Sept. 17, Mr. Khan spotted the investigator, people briefed on the events said, triggering a scandal that followed months of tensions between the banker and his former mentor, Credit Suisse Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam.

National Rifle Association funds paid for lodging and travel of Russian nationals throughout 2015 and 2016, as part of a relationship that allowed foreign actors looking to influence the U.S. election, including now-convicted Maria Butina, to infiltrate the gun-rights group, a new report asserts.

The report, released Friday by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, also says NRA leaders traveled to Moscow in December 2015 partly on the NRA’s dime, even though some went there to pursue their own personal business opportunities....

WASHINGTON—President Trump attacked the lawmaker heading up the House’s impeachment efforts, saying the chairman of the Intelligence Committee misrepresented the president’s conversation with Ukraine’s leader and calling on the Democrat to resign.

Mr. Trump tweeted Friday morning that Rep. Adam Schiff of California on Thursday had “fraudulently read to Congress” a version of a July 25 call with Ukraine’s president that is at the center of the growing crisis for the Trump administration. Mr. Trump said he “was supposedly reading...

WASHINGTON—Car makers facing a federal antitrust probe for their auto emissions deal with California will begin meeting with the Justice Department next week, according to people familiar with the matter, as the department is facing questions about its decision to investigate an issue with high political stakes.

The meetings will mark the first substantive discussions between the two sides since the Justice Department sent an inquiry letter a month ago seeking information about a greenhouse gas emissions agreement that Ford...

U.S. stocks swung between small gains and losses Friday as a rally in shares of big banks and other financial companies was partially offset by losses in technology stocks.

The S&P 500 rose shortly after the opening bell before paring gains, moving around the flatline in recent trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 62 points, or 0.2%. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.2%.

Harvard University’s endowment posted a 6.5% return in fiscal 2019, reflecting a tough year for many U.S. colleges.

Harvard’s return beat the average for large school endowments but, like many universities, trailed the U.S. stock market. The muted showing of the typical endowment is the lowest yearly return since 2016 and bodes new challenges for universities at a time of ultralow interest rates.

Universities...

WASHINGTON—U.S. consumer spending slowed more than expected in August, signaling a key pillar of the economy could be losing momentum as the global economy wobbles and trade tensions remain high.

Personal-consumption expenditures, or household spending, nudged up a seasonally adjusted 0.1% in August from July, the Commerce Department said Friday. The modest growth marked a sharp pullback from July, when spending rose 0.5%, and was the weakest performance since February.

LONDON—Strikes on Saudi oil facilities that knocked out 5% of global supply earlier this month have done little to shift sentiment among investment banks about the prospects for oil markets.

Futures for Brent crude, the global benchmark, are expected to trade around an average of $64.31 a barrel in the fourth quarter, according to a poll of 13 major banks conducted by The Wall Street Journal. The commodity closed at $62.74 a barrel on Thursday. The estimated price level is almost unchanged from last month’s forecast, and is more than 10% below projections made about a year ago.

Pfizer Inc. on Friday said Ian Read will retire as executive chairman of the drugmaker at the end of the year, adding Chief Executive Albert Bourla will assume the additional post of chairman, effective Jan.  1.

Mr. Read, who joined Pfizer in 1978 as an operational auditor, has been chairman since 2011 and served as CEO of the New York company from 2010 through 2018.

The schism between President Trump and the U.S. intelligence community widened this week after a whistleblower accused the president of using the power of his office to solicit help from a foreign government for his re-election effort.

Mr. Trump has clashed with members of the intelligence community over a number of issues including the pursuit of nuclear weapons by Iran and North Korea, the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He has often accused them...

Even as General Motors Co. and the United Auto Workers union come closer to resolving their biggest work confrontation in decades, a larger, unsettled issue is the inevitable pain for U.S. workers from GM’s long-range bet on electric cars.

GM’s need to free up cash to invest in electrics has led it to make deep costs in its core business, including its decision to close four U.S. factories —a main point of friction in the longest walkout at GM since 1970.

Apple Inc. is looking to make a splash in Hollywood by bringing feature-length films to theaters before releasing them on its streaming TV service, according to people familiar with the plans.

The company has made overtures to cinema chains and consulted with an entertainment executive as it pursues a traditional theatrical-release plan that would keep its movies in theaters for weeks before becoming available on Apple TV+, these people said.

Wells Fargo & Co. named Bank of New York Mellon Corp. Chief Executive Charles Scharf as its new CEO, ending a six-month search for a leader capable of restoring the bank’s battered reputation and improving its standing with regulators.

Wells Fargo said Mr. Scharf will join the bank as president and CEO on Oct. 21. He succeeds C. Allen Parker, Wells Fargo’s general counsel, who has been serving as interim chief since Timothy Sloan resigned in late March.

BEIRUT—Saudi Arabia has moved to impose a partial cease-fire in Yemen, say people familiar with the plans, as Riyadh and the Houthi militants the kingdom is fighting try to bring an end to the four-year war that has become a front line in the broader regional clash with Iran.

Saudi Arabia’s decision follows a surprise move by Houthi forces to declare a unilateral cease-fire in Yemen last week, just days after claiming responsibility for the Sept. 14 drone and cruise missile strike on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry. While the...

We Co. is a New York company that subleases office space, and Juul Labs Inc. is a San Francisco based-seller of vaping products. But the resignations this week of the CEOs running two of the most valuable U.S. startups share common roots: a Silicon Valley ethos bent on disrupting existing industries and pursuing torrid growth.

On Wednesday, Juul Chief Executive Kevin Burns was replaced as regulators plan to pull most vaping products from the market, citing concerns about rising teen use.

A phone conversation between President Trump and the president of Ukraine threatens to strain support for Kyiv in Western Europe and play into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The July 25 exchange has prompted Democrats to call for an impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump’s request for Ukraine’s help in investigating the activities there of presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son. But the rough transcript released this week also quotes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreeing with Mr. Trump’s criticism that European leaders aren’t doing enough to support Ukraine.

WASHINGTON—The U.S. military will send an antimissile battery, radar systems and just over 200 additional U.S. service members to Saudi Arabia in response to the suspected Iranian attack this month against Saudi oil facilities, the Pentagon said.

The deployment will include a Patriot antimissile battery and four Sentinel radars, along with the 200 service members as support staff, Jonathan Hoffman, chief Pentagon spokesman, said on Thursday.

Two large shareholders have sent a letter to Marathon Petroleum Corp. calling for the ouster of the fuel maker’s chief executive.

Paul Foster and Jeff Stevens, former board members of refiner Andeavor, which Marathon acquired last year, back a proposal by hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. to split the company into three units.

But Messrs....