In theory, this is a perfect time for stockpickers. The rising tide of monetary easing after the financial crisis of 2008 lifted all boats. Setting aside even blow-ups as significant as the eurozone debt crisis, the following decade-and-a-bit provided a smooth descent in bond yields and a more than 300 per cent rise in global
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As a historic price crash in crude brought turmoil to the global economy three years ago, Donald Trump led a broad effort by western countries to cajole Saudi Arabia and Russia to slash output and prop up the oil market. The Opec+ cuts that emerged spared the US shale sector from collapse. Trump praised Riyadh
The writer is an FT contributing editor Brace yourselves. It seems more likely than ever that Donald Trump will be the Republican party’s nominee for the presidency in next year’s election. But not because Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, just in time for Easter, has likened his arrest to that of Jesus Christ. The “base” was
The writer was chief British government negotiator in Northern Ireland from 1997-2007 Twenty-five years ago, the Good Friday Agreement was signed in Castle Buildings, a shabby government office on the Stormont estate in Northern Ireland, ending 30 years of civil war. More than 3,700 people lost their lives in the Troubles. Many hundreds are alive
US jobs growth slowed in March but not enough to deter the Federal Reserve from considering another interest rate increase as the central bank battles high inflation. The world’s largest economy added 236,000 positions last month, according to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics published on Friday. This was a step down from
The auditors to the pro-independence Scottish National Party have resigned amid a police investigation into its finances, deepening questions about SNP governance as Scotland’s dominant political force reels from a highly divisive leadership contest. A person familiar with the situation said auditors Johnston Carmichael resigned before police on Wednesday arrested former SNP chief executive Peter
French president Emmanuel Macron rounded off his state visit to China on Friday by taking tea with counterpart Xi Jinping in Guangzhou, the manufacturing megacity at the heart of China’s export-led economy. The choice of Guangzhou, where Xi’s father was a senior official, conveyed a personal touch by the Chinese leader towards Macron. But it
The writer is editorial director and a columnist at Le Monde The mystery remains. None of the five European leaders who have visited Beijing since China ended its zero-Covid policy has managed to lift the cloud of ambiguity on Xi Jinping’s real intentions over Russia and Ukraine. Not even Emmanuel Macron, president of France, who
Labour was accused of “gutter politics” on Friday as it refused to retract an advertisement claiming Rishi Sunak opposed the imprisonment of adults convicted of sexual crimes against children. The Labour ad posted on Thursday on Twitter stated 4,500 people convicted of sexually assaulting someone under the age of 16 in England and Wales since
The leak of classified US and Nato documents on Ukraine’s military and its much-anticipated spring counter-offensive is part of a Russian information operation and does not reveal Kyiv’s actual operational plans, a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said. The documents, seen by the Financial Times, are around five weeks old and appear to
If you’re a food lover in the UK, you can’t really escape Yotam Ottolenghi. If you’ve been to a dinner party at any point since his eponymous cookbook debuted in 2008, you’ll probably have eaten his food. You would have asked your host what was being served, and you’d have received a single-word answer: “Ottolenghi”.
Northern Ireland’s police have warned of the risk of terror attacks on their officers as US president Joe Biden and UK prime minister Rishi Sunak prepare to visit Belfast to mark the 25th anniversary of the region’s landmark peace deal. Biden and Sunak are expected to celebrate the Good Friday Agreement, which was signed on
A British business registered to a terraced house in a north London suburb appears to have arranged the sale of about $1.2bn of electronics into Russia since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine at the start of 2022. Mykines Corporation LLP, a company based in the London borough of Enfield, is listed in Russian records
The writer is an FT contributing editor and writes the Chartbook newsletter In response to America’s Inflation Reduction Act, Europe is scrambling to accelerate its own green industrial policy. Some, like Pascal Lamy, former director-general of the World Trade Organization and associate of Emmanuel Macron, would like to see Europe leading a green free-trading bloc
Israeli jets bombed targets linked to the Palestinian militant group Hamas in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, after militants in the two territories fired a volley of rockets at Israel. Israel’s military said it hit several targets, including tunnels and weapons manufacturing sites, in the blockaded coastal strip in the early hours of Friday
LetterOne, the investment group backed by Russian oligarchs who are under sanctions, has launched a legal challenge to overturn the decision taken by the UK government on national security grounds to force the sale of its broadband business Upp. The claim for a judicial review will be a test for the UK’s National Security and
An army marches on its stomach, Napoleon is supposed to have said, and to ensure that some of Ukraine’s finest soldiers can do just that, Zhenya Mykhailenko is cooking up a storm. At a clandestine kitchen near the front line, five special forces soldiers gathered around a fridge packed with freshly prepared meals. They wore
When we lose God, what should we do? Go shopping? Easter seems like a good time to ponder this question. The decline of organised religion in the west is one of the most striking trends of our age. But it leaves a gap. I will be going to church this Sunday, despite not believing in
Mention “fabulous Fab” in markets circles these days, and you’ll show your age. Probably only those on the far side of their mid-30s recall the Goldman Sachs banker whose jokey email came to epitomise Wall Street’s poor behaviour in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis. Fab is back — or rather, the regulations inspired
BlackRock has started paying back investors stuck in its £3.5bn UK Property fund since early last year, even as outflows from commercial real estate funds continue and regulators warn that some funds may struggle to meet redemption requests. The US-based fund group has begun partially repaying institutional investors who made withdrawal requests as far back
Auditors who think robust regulation of their sector is disproportionate deserve “the world’s smallest violin,” the head of the UK accounting watchdog has said. Sir Jon Thompson, chief executive of the Financial Reporting Council, told a private industry meeting earlier this year that close scrutiny was appropriate for auditors who earn hundreds of thousands of