UK retail investors have been piling into gilts and other fixed-income products in search of higher returns and lower risk despite a sharp sell-off in gilts, according to investment platform AJ Bell. Michael Summersgill, who took over as AJ Bell’s chief executive last October, said that customers on the platform had increased their investments in
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Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sought to reassure the public he had a grip on migration after official figures on Thursday showed net long-term arrivals in the UK reached an all-time high of 606,000 in 2022. But the Office for National Statistics’ figures suggest measures announced this week to stop overseas students bringing family members with
Often in politics, a bad idea turns up when its time has finally come. The current contender in the UK is the belief that a few tweaks to pension rules will flood dynamic companies with much-needed funds, save the troubled stock market, improve returns for future pensioners and resolve the longstanding weakness in business investment.
Nvidia’s blowout earnings have set the Silicon Valley company on course to become the first chipmaker to be valued at more than $1tn, as booming demand for its artificial intelligence processors drove semiconductor stocks higher on Thursday. Shares in Nvidia were up 25 per cent in pre-market trading after its $11bn sales forecast for the
While the Russian ship Lady R docked at the South African port Simon’s Town last December, it was loaded with arms intended to kill Ukrainians, says the US. For Europeans, the news was as baffling and upsetting as India guzzling Russian oil, or Brazil’s president Lula blaming Russia and Ukraine equally for the war. We’re right
Kevin McCarthy, the Republican Speaker of the House, has a tendency to liken himself to Babe Ruth, the American baseball legend. In a speech at the New York Stock Exchange last month, he quoted the sports hero, saying: “You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.” McCarthy, 58, made history in January when
Blowout earnings from chipmaker Nvidia helped push US stock futures higher on Thursday, after global markets had fallen in recent days on concerns about the possibility of US government default. Contracts tracking Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 rose 0.6 per cent and those tracking the Nasdaq 100 rose 2 per cent ahead of the New
Net immigration to the UK rose to a record high of 606,000 in 2022, driven by rising numbers of people from outside the EU, including from Ukraine and Hong Kong. The figures fell short of estimates of about 700,000 but remain far above the Conservative government’s 2010 pledge to reduce net immigration to the “tens
Good morning. Sometimes the obvious conclusion is the right one. The UK’s persistently high inflation is bad news for households, bad news for businesses and as a result it is bad news for the government’s hopes of getting re-elected. But some things are less obvious: just in this morning, the UK’s record net migration figure
Turkey’s presidential election run-off takes place this Sunday with the incumbent, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, likely to win the election. He has not left victory to chance, practising monetary and regulatory manipulation right up to polling day to delay an all-too-possible financial crisis till after his return to office. Erdoğan has subverted monetary policy for more
When private equity investors put nearly half a billion dollars into Vice Media in 2017, co-founder Shane Smith hinted that the cash would help his digital media company achieve a public listing that “would look very sexy”. Speaking at an advertising festival in Cannes, with sunglasses on and the French Riviera behind him, the blustering
I was once, as an intern, told by a veteran reporter that if I was ever asked the classic “What do you think makes a good journalist?” question in a job interview, there was only one correct answer: paranoia. I confess to having been somewhat perplexed at the time, but 10 years later, I get
Over an Italian dinner at Elio’s on New York’s Upper East Side two years ago, Ted Pick and Andy Saperstein promised each other that a brewing succession battle at Morgan Stanley would not devolve into the kind of back-stabbing common at other banks. Colleagues for 15 years, they had just been promoted to co-presidents, marking them out
Artificial intelligence is more of an opportunity than a threat for creative industries, the head of Europe’s biggest media group has said in defiance of warnings about the dangers of generative AI. Thomas Rabe, chief executive of the German business that owns the book publisher Penguin Random House and the music label BMG, said that
UK losses to crypto fraud increased more than 40 per cent over the past year, surpassing £300mn for the first time, according to Britain’s fraud reporting agency. Law firms said the data, provided by Action Fraud, reflected the scale of cyber crime and the high-profile collapse of crypto exchange FTX last year that triggered a
Fitch, the credit rating agency, has placed the US’s triple A rating on watch for a possible downgrade as talks to resolve a looming fiscal crisis dragged on without a deal nearly a week before a possible default. In a statement on Wednesday evening, Fitch said the move reflected “increased political partisanship that is hindering
Microsoft has warned that a state-sponsored Chinese hacking group has compromised “critical” communications infrastructure in the US in order to disrupt transmissions in the event of any future conflict between the superpowers. In a rare announcement about a systems breach, the US technology giant said the hackers, codenamed “Volt Typhoon”, have operated since mid-2021. They
Soaring demand for the chips needed to train the latest wave of generative artificial intelligence systems such as ChatGPT led Nvidia to issue a revenue forecast far ahead of Wall Street expectations, prompting a surge in its stock price in after-market trading. The US chipmaker on Wednesday said it expected sales to reach $11bn in
The EU has discussed sending Ukraine the profits generated by billions of euros of Russian assets that are stuck inside the plumbing of global financial markets. Officials from member states and the European Commission met on Wednesday to explore options for siphoning off the interest generated by Russian assets held at Euroclear, the world’s biggest
UK gilt yields are heading towards the levels of last year’s “mini” Budget crisis, investors say, after worse-than-expected inflation data forced markets to increase their interest rate predictions. The yield on two-year gilts, which is highly sensitive to interest rate changes, hit 4.4 per cent on Wednesday following stronger than anticipated inflation. The yield moves
On the surface, UK inflation in 2023 is becoming similar to the problem in the 1970s, when people talked about a “British disease” making the country the “sick man” of Europe. Stubbornly high inflation that eclipses rates in other countries. Index-linked contracts amplifying price pressures. The authorities struggling to control household costs. And wages following