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The writer is a former global head of asset allocation at a fund manager Governments have been in thrall to bond markets for centuries. But the term “bond vigilante” was coined just 40 years ago when the economist and Wall Street analyst Ed Yardeni argued that if policymakers failed to regulate the US economy, bond

If this is indeed the end of Boris Johnson’s political career, it is at least a fitting one. There is no precedent for a prime minister, or a former one, having been found guilty of deliberately misleading the Commons. Understanding that he had been caught and was about to be punished, Johnson resorted to his

The House of Commons privileges committee has delivered a blistering verdict on Boris Johnson’s conduct in the partygate scandal. The seven-member, cross-party committee published a 108-page report on Thursday following a 14-month investigation into the former prime minister.  The committee has been probing whether Johnson deliberately misled parliament after stating, while premier, that Covid-19 rules

Boris Johnson, Britain’s former prime minister, has been condemned for lying to parliament over the Covid “partygate” scandal, in a damning report that casts doubt on whether he can ever stage a political comeback. The report by a cross-party committee of MPs published on Thursday is a searing indictment of Johnson’s conduct in high office,

Odey Asset Management is being dismantled, with the group saying it is in “advanced discussions” to transfer funds and staff to rival firms in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against its founder. In a statement to clients on Thursday, the group said it was in “advanced discussions” to rehouse its funds and shift staff

Good morning. Boris Johnson has been found to have made “deliberate” attempts to mislead the House of Commons and the parliamentary committee investigating him — to no one’s particular surprise. The committee, which has a Conservative majority, unanimously voted for a 90-day suspension, well clear of the threshold for a recall. Johnson jumped before he

China’s central bank has cut its main policy rate for the first time in 10 months as new data reinforced concerns over a stalling post-Covid recovery in the world’s second-largest economy. The People’s Bank of China trimmed its medium-term lending facility rate, a one-year rate that influences bank funding costs, from 2.75 per cent to

Stock markets in 2023 are not quite what they seem. At first glance, the pessimists are taking a beating. Investors and influential analysts had entered the year expecting 2022’s aggressive series of interest rate rises to bite. The consensus was for an economic recession to hit the US, dragging stocks down. That has not happened,

The Federal Reserve’s first reprieve in its aggressive 15- month-long campaign of interest rate rises on Wednesday had a sting in the tail. As widely expected, the US central bank held its benchmark rate steady after 10 consecutive interest rate increases. But it also signalled it would need to squeeze the world’s largest economy much

Russia is to adopt powers to seize assets of “naughty” western companies and will make it harder for them to exit the country, as Vladimir Putin seeks ways to retaliate against US and European sanctions. The Kremlin last week secretly ordered legislation to enable western assets to be appropriated at knockdown prices and is discussing

Stocks rallied in Asia after the People’s Bank of China cut its medium-term policy rate in the face of slowing economic growth and the US Federal Reserve held interest rates steady. The Hang Seng China Enterprises index, which tracks mainland Chinese companies listed in Hong Kong, rose 1.4 per cent and the CSI 300 of

Every Monday for the past 30 years, Marina Berlusconi and her brother Pier Silvio discussed business and politics over supper with their father and his closest entourage at his residence outside Milan. This week, there was no such dinner at Villa San Martino, an 18th-century estate. Instead, Marina, the eldest of Silvio Berlusconi’s five children,

For all the tedium, anxiety and misery of the Covid lockdowns, some of us experienced a strange sort of excitement too. Being banned from leaving the house or from seeing loved ones might have been agonising, but we could at least console ourselves with the idea we were living through A Major Event in history.