Successive interest rate rises by the Bank of England are starting to take effect, cooling the labour market and easing inflationary pressures, the central bank’s chief economist said on Friday. Speaking a day after the BoE raised interest rates to a fresh 15-year high of 5.25 per cent, Huw Pill said headline inflation had started
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Donald Trump stepped out of his SUV on Thursday afternoon on to the tarmac of Washington’s Reagan National Airport following a short appearance in federal court. Holding a black umbrella to shield against the summer drizzle, the former president delivered a sharp jab at America’s justice system. “If you can’t beat him, you persecute him or you
The US and China are opening new lines of communication to tackle contentious issues, in one of the first signs of progress towards stabilising relations since secretary of state Antony Blinken visited Beijing in June. According to three people familiar with the situation, Washington and Beijing will create two working groups to focus on Asia-Pacific
“The elites are talking about the end of the world, while we are talking about the end of the month.” So lamented one gilet jaune protester in France in 2018 after President Emmanuel Macron tried to raise fuel taxes. Citizens in multiple countries are now expressing similar sentiments as governments strive to accelerate climate change
Well-off home buyers with mortgages are cutting their purchasing budgets while cash buyers are taking advantage of their financial resources to stick to their plans, according to research underlining the impact of higher rates on the UK’s prime property market. Researchers at estate agent Savills found a growing division between those buying with a mortgage
The writer is senior research fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank and has worked extensively in Ukraine during Russia’s full-scale invasion For two months, Ukrainian forces have been on the offensive, trying to break through Russian defence lines to begin the liberation of the occupied territories. The fighting has been
Joyce Carol Oates is stunned to find me at the restaurant. Just minutes before, she was told that all the trains between New York and Princeton, New Jersey, had been cancelled. I found this out the hard way, and spent a woozy 90 minutes in a taxi instead. “I really didn’t think that you’d be
Ukraine attacked the oil export infrastructure that helps fund Moscow’s invasion for the first time on Friday, using a drone strike to damage a Russian naval vessel outside the port of Novorossiysk. Ukraine’s security services, in collaboration with the country’s navy, carried out the sea drone strikes outside the port, according to two Ukrainian sources with knowledge
European stocks edged higher on Friday, as a sell-off in bond markets abated and investors welcomed forecast-beating results from Amazon, before turning attention to the closely watched US jobs report for clues on how the world’s largest economy held up under rising borrowing costs. Europe’s region-wide Stoxx 600 Europe index was up 0.1 per cent
AP Møller-Maersk has warned that a contraction in global trade will prove longer and deeper than the container shipping giant had feared, as companies cut their inventories in the face of recession risks in Europe and the US. The Danish shipping and logistics group said on Friday that global container demand — regarded as a
This article is an on-site version of our Unhedged newsletter. Sign up here to get the newsletter sent straight to your inbox every weekday. At 10:30 yesterday morning I thought, for a shining moment, that I had at last managed to write a perfectly timed column. After warning in the morning’s letter that rising bond
The writer was US deputy attorney-general under George HW Bush. Norman Eisen, White House special counsel in the Barack Obama administration, also contributed Tuesday’s indictment of Donald Trump is a turning point of enormous importance for the US — and for the global community of democracies. On January 6 2021, we witnessed the appalling culmination
The writer is a former chief investment officer at Bridgewater Associates After outperforming peers for 12 out of the last 13 calendar years, could US equities dominate for another decade? At first glance, another 10 years with the US on top seem unlikely. History shows relative equity performance alternating between US and non-US equities. High
Hedge funds have lost more than $6bn this year betting against cruise lines and hotels after underestimating the resilience of US consumers. Cruise lines Royal Caribbean and Carnival are two of the 10 most heavily shorted companies in the S&P 500 but have confounded short sellers’ expectations by more than doubling in value so far
For tech investors, generative artificial intelligence has fuelled a powerful rally this year, helping pull the entire US stock market higher. While the sector’s companies have been only too willing to predict great things from the technology, one thing has been notably lacking: precise forecasts of exactly when generative AI will have an impact on
Russia’s defence minister used a recent visit to Pyongyang to request an increase in North Korean arms supplies, the White House said on Thursday. Sergei Shoigu vowed to strengthen military ties with North Korea on a visit to mark the 70th anniversary of the Korean war armistice last week, during which he attended a military
Japan abuse probe: A UN working group is to publish findings on Friday of an investigation into human rights abuses in Japanese workplaces. It is to include sexual harassment claims against the late Johnny Kitagawa, founder of country’s largest male talent agency, who denied such allegations. Julie Fujishima, president of the company and Kitigawa’s niece,
KKR is in advanced talks to buy US book publisher Simon & Schuster from Paramount for more than $1.6bn, said people familiar with the matter, which would settle the fate of the storied company after years of uncertainty. US regulators last year blocked a proposed merger of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster that
Donald Trump pleaded not guilty on Thursday during a first court appearance in the latest criminal case brought against him, in which the former US president is accused of attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The hearing at federal court in downtown Washington came two days after the Department of Justice charged
Apple proved resilient in its latest quarter as the number of paying subscribers for its array of digital services crossed 1bn users worldwide, helping to lift profits from a year ago even as total revenue declined. The world’s largest company by market value said on Thursday that total revenue fell 1 per cent to $81.8bn
Stronger-than-expected online sales and signs that the slowdown in its cloud computing division had bottomed out lifted Amazon’s sales and earnings well above Wall Street predictions in the latest quarter. The revenue acceleration, along with cost-cutting that included large-scale lay-offs earlier this year, also boosted Amazon’s profit margins and contributed to after-tax earnings that were