Energy stocks tumbled on Tuesday, falling in tandem with oil prices in response to cooling demand for fuel in the US and China. Shares in large oil companies including Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil each lost more than 3.5 per cent, while Houston-based Halliburton fell by more than 8 per cent. ExxonMobil closed almost 4
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The co-founders of Google DeepMind and LinkedIn have launched an artificial intelligence chatbot called Pi, adding to the flood of similar products rolled out publicly this year by the likes of OpenAI, Google and Snap. The first product from the year-old AI start-up behind Pi, Inflection AI, comes as the growing hype around generative AI
The rescue of First Republic this week has failed to arrest a sell-off in regional bank shares, which plunged on Tuesday morning as investors digested JPMorgan’s takeover of the troubled Californian lender. Trading in PacWest, seen as one of the weakest of the midsized regional banks, was briefly halted for volatility and was down 25
Last month, Fox, a business controlled by Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan, agreed to pay $787.5mn to Dominion Voting Systems to settle the latter’s $1.6bn defamation case against it. Justin Nelson, Dominion’s lawyer, insisted in response to this settlement that it shows that “the truth matters” and “lies have consequences”. This is true, but
The writer is international policy director at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center and serves as special adviser to Margrethe Vestager The rapid release of generative AI tools has been a moment of reckoning. Just this week Geoffrey Hinton, a celebrated developer of AI, announced his resignation from Google, saying he regretted his work and wants to
Artificial intelligence pioneer Geoffrey Hinton has left Google after more than a decade at the US search giant, citing fears about the rapid development of generative AI. Hinton, a part-time professor at the University of Toronto who is widely viewed as the godfather of modern artificial intelligence, said he quit to speak freely about the
Shares in online learning service Chegg have plummeted by almost half after it became one of the first companies to admit that artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT had affected its finances. The news sent ripples through the sector, with shares in London-listed Pearson falling more than 13.8 per cent on Tuesday. Shares in US-listed education companies
European stocks were lower on Tuesday as rising eurozone inflation data raised investors’ concerns that the European Central Bank will increase interest rates this week. The pan-European Stoxx 600 was down 0.2 per cent, with weakness in energy stocks and financials ahead of policy meetings at two of the world’s biggest central banks. Germany’s Dax
Eurozone inflation rose slightly to 7 per cent in April, complicating the picture for rate-setters at the European Central Bank when they meet on Thursday to set borrowing costs. The figure for consumer prices was worse than the flat reading — from 6.9 per cent the previous month — that economists polled by Reuters had
UK house prices unexpectedly rose between March and April, according to data from mortgage provider Nationwide that suggests the property market is stabilising as borrowing costs ease. Prices increased 0.5 per cent last month, ending seven consecutive months of decline and beating analysts’ forecasts of a 0.4 per cent fall. Robert Gardner, Nationwide’s chief economist,
BP’s first-quarter earnings beat market expectations but eased off the record levels set in 2022, prompting a drop in the pace of planned share buybacks. The UK energy group left its quarterly dividend unchanged after raising it 10 per cent in February but pared back share repurchases, announcing $1.75bn in buybacks to be completed in
I have a confession to make: I hate big numbers. Or rather, I hate it when big numbers are used to impress or bamboozle rather than to make sense of the world. The annual Budget speech by the UK’s chancellor, for instance, always involves a dizzying parade of large price tags. This year’s included an
Chinese initial public offerings have raised more than five times as much money as those in the US this year as a crop of fresh listings in the world’s biggest economy failed to appear after a dire 2022. Rising interest rates, stubbornly high inflation and the recent turmoil in the US banking sector have dashed
In China, foreign consultants are learning to expect a knock on the door. First, police raided the Beijing office of US due diligence group Mintz in March. Weeks later, there was a similar visit to the Shanghai premises of Bain, the blue-chip US consultancy. Police have also visited one of the China offices of expert
The banking crisis of 2023 has claimed its largest US victim to date: First Republic Bank. The deal regulators orchestrated in the early hours of Monday for JPMorgan Chase to acquire the California lender’s assets and deposits is perhaps the best outcome that might have been expected in the circumstances. Sharing First Republic’s loan losses
In the shadow of Bolton’s ornate Victorian town hall voters in Thursday’s local elections seemed broadly unenthusiastic about their electoral options. The Conservative-run town has declined in recent times, said IT worker Michael Gill, despite benefiting more recently from central government regeneration cash. “It feels like the town has gone downhill a bit,” said the
Morgan Stanley is making plans to eliminate another 3,000 jobs by the end of June, as the Wall Street bank hunkers down to survive an extended slump in dealmaking. People familiar with the discussions say senior managers are aiming to eliminate roughly 5 per cent of staff, excluding the customer-facing financial advisers in Morgan Stanley’s
5/1/2023, 11:10:12 PM What to watch in Asia today FT reporters Events: The Reserve Bank of Australia’s monetary policy rate-setting meeting begins. The Asian Development Bank’s annual gathering starts in Incheon, South Korea. Finance ministers and central bank governors of Asean Plus Three countries hold a news conference on the event’s sidelines. Data: South Korea
The US government risks running out of money as soon as June 1, Treasury secretary Janet Yellen warned in a letter to congressional leaders on Monday, as US President Joe Biden invited Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy to the White House next week amid growing concerns that Washington is careening towards a debt
Top investors attending the annual Milken conference have warned against complacency following the rescue of First Republic, arguing the third seizure of a bank by US regulators since March threatens to constrain credit and worsen an economic slowdown. The seizure of First Republic and the rapid sale of the remains of the bank to JPMorgan
Deloitte and PwC are giving extra coaching to their youngest UK staff after noticing recruits whose education was disrupted by lockdowns have weaker teamwork and communication skills than previous cohorts. Junior employees who spent part of their school or university years isolated from their peers have found it harder to adapt to the work environment,