News

Goldman Sachs reported an 18 per cent year-on-year drop in net income for the first quarter, weighed down by a slowdown in dealmaking and underperformance in its trading business. The drop in profits comes after what chief executive David Solomon had described as a “disappointing” end to 2022, which prompted the bank to undertake a

In 1964, when recognising “red” China was still career-death for a US president, Charles de Gaulle did just that. He later took France out of Nato’s integrated military command. On an epic, almost Homeric tour of Latin America, he pledged to that region his solidarity against an unnamed but not hard-to-guess hegemon. If never quite

Chinese insurer Ping An said HSBC had “exaggerated” the “costs and risks” of spinning off its Asian operations, as the bank’s largest shareholder used a rare public statement to ramp up pressure on the lender to separate its business. Michael Huang, chair of Ping An Asset Management, said in a statement on Tuesday that although a

China’s first-quarter gross domestic product data showed an economy rebounding following one of its worst years for growth in decades after the country’s largest cities were locked down to stem a coronavirus outbreak and a global slowdown hit demand for exports. But while the figures indicated China was on track to meet or exceed its

Chinese commodities rallied but equities failed to hold on to early gains after China reported better than expected growth in the first quarter alongside mixed readings elsewhere in the economy. China’s gross domestic product grew 4.5 per cent year on year in the first quarter, coming in well above analysts’ expectations of a 4 per

Pressures in the UK labour market are starting to ease, but wage growth has not slowed as much as economists expected, according to official data released on Tuesday. Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed average wages in the private sector, excluding bonuses, were 6.9 per cent higher in the three months to February

China’s gross domestic product expanded 4.5 per cent year on year in the first quarter, as strong growth in exports and infrastructure investment as well as a rebound in retail consumption and property prices drove a recovery in the world’s second-largest economy. The official figure, which exceeded analyst expectations of a 4 per cent rise,

The barns and milking sheds of Takis Kazanas’s farm are dwarfed by the majestic mountains that overlook the Thessalian Plain. Cattle have been raised on this green expanse of land in northern Greece for millennia, but now regulators in Brussels are discussing rules that will lead to farms like his being treated as industrial plants,

When the word “migrant” hits the headlines, it is often accompanied by the word “crisis”. But another story about migration is playing out, too — one in which countries are increasingly vying with one another to draw skilled workers to their shores. There has always been a global competition to lure the top scientists, computer

Jeremy Clarkson has become an unlikely hero after his turn in Clarkson’s Farm, which follows his hapless attempts to work the land on his Cotswold property. And not just to petrolheads or even beleaguered farmers, but to everyone who simply cannot get anything done. The TV host’s battle to operate a shop and open a

The UK government is failing to protect workers against the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence systems that will increasingly determine hiring and firing, pay and promotion, the Trades Union Congress warned on Tuesday. Rapid advances in “generative” AI systems such as ChatGPT, a program that can create content indistinguishable from human output, have fuelled concern

Corporate defaults around the world reached their most elevated level since December 2020 last month, jerked higher by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. Fifteen Moody’s-rated corporate borrowers defaulted on their debt obligations in March, up from 12 in February and six in January, the agency said. That uptick took global defaults

EY has told staff it will cut 3,000 jobs in the US to eliminate “overcapacity”, with the axe falling mainly on the consulting side of the firm. The redundancies account for about 5 per cent of EY’s US workforce, although the percentage reductions will be higher in the affected businesses. The cuts were announced less

Charles Schwab has shown that it can ride out a deposit flight. That is both good news and bad for the leading US brokerage and bank, whose share price has taken a drubbing following the collapse of three regional banks last month. Client deposits stood at about $326bn at the end of the first quarter.

Shares in US bank State Street dropped 10 per cent in pre-market trading as quarterly profits missed expectations and fees were hit by subdued markets and reduced assets under management. The huge custody bank, which is also a large provider of index mutual funds and exchange traded funds, said assets under management in its investment

Policymakers need to abandon the illusion that they can use monetary and fiscal stimulus to engineer economic growth without stoking inflation or breeding financial instability, the head of the Bank for International Settlements has warned. Agustín Carstens, general manager of the BIS, an umbrella body for central banks, called on Monday for governments and central

Apple and Goldman Sachs are seeking to lure US depositors to a new savings account by offering to pay interest at more than 10 times the national average rate. The California tech giant and Wall Street bank on Monday launched a new savings account yielding 4.15 per cent a year, having first announced the product

The writer is a former senior adviser on AI at the Federal Trade Commission and managing director of the AI Now Institute. Amba Kak also contributed to this article If AI is poised to occupy an increasingly central place in our digital infrastructure, it’s time to think long and hard about who will control it.

‘Banking crisis!’ is back in the headlines, and with it a debate about what role banks should really play in an economy, and what should be left to markets. With that in mind, the New York Federal Reserve’s economists have trawled through the history books to find evidence of why they say a “narrow banking”

Chinese insurer Ping An will demand HSBC boost dividends to pre-Covid levels and commit to regularly reviewing its structure at its annual meeting next month, following calls to break off its Asian business. HSBC’s largest shareholder is planning to support resolutions proposed by a group of retail investors on dividends and structural reform, which includes

The UK parliament’s standards commissioner has opened an investigation into Prime Minister Rishi Sunak over allegations that he failed to declare a financial interest correctly. The investigation, which became public on Monday, comes after complaints that Sunak failed when discussing increased funding for childcare to mention that his wife, Akshata Murthy, held shares in Koru