A flood of gilt sales is driving up the UK government’s borrowing costs, investors say, as markets are asked to absorb record volumes of bonds without the Bank of England stepping in to hoover up supply. Bond yields in most large economies have shot up over the past 18 months as soaring inflation drove a
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Apple’s iPhone shipments bounced back from supply chain disruptions in the holiday period, though revenue still declined year-on-year for the second quarter in a row due to what it described as a “tougher” economic environment and currency headwinds. Finance chief Luca Maestri said Apple had seen “significant acceleration in iPhone revenue from December to March”.
In the US tech sell off, Apple was regarded as the safest pair of hands. It has more than 2bn active devices and nearly 1bn people paying for services. Unlike many of its peers it pays dividends as well as buying back shares. A drop in revenue and net income in the last quarter does
Travel groups Expedia and Booking Holdings said there was strong demand for accommodations in the first three months of 2023, with both companies notching record sales figures. Expedia reported $2.7bn in revenues, its highest for a first quarter and an 18 per cent improvement on the comparable period in 2022. Booking said its gross bookings
The executives leading the AI race that has transfixed the tech industry, including the CEOs of OpenAI, Google and Microsoft, met at the White House on Thursday for what a senior US official described as a “frank discussion” about their responsibilities to make sure their systems are safe. The meeting, which was attended by vice-president
UK ministers plan to widen the forms of photo identification that voters can present at polling stations in future, as concerns grow that the requirement to show an ID card may have reduced participation in Thursday’s local elections in England. Voters have for the first time been legally obliged to produce proof of identity in
The World Economic Forum’s latest Chief Economists Outlook highlighted the uncertain backdrop to the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank’s meetings this week. While 45 per cent of economists thought a global recession was likely this year, the same proportion considered it unlikely. A lack of clarity on the trajectory of the US and
This month, global investors face a peculiar paradox. A mantra of modern finance is that Treasuries are “risk-free” assets, implying that it is inconceivable that the US government might default. But in January, the Treasury breached the $31.4tn debt limit, capping bond issuance, and warned of a crisis unless Congress raises this — something Republicans
Western Alliance shares pulled back from their session lows after the Arizona-based bank denied it was exploring a potential sale. The Arizona bank described a report in the Financial Times that it was considering a potential sale of all or part of its business as “categorically false in all respects”, adding: “Western Alliance is not
The European Central Bank has raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point — less than previous increases — in a sign that eurozone borrowing costs may soon reach their peak. The ECB’s decision on Thursday, which mirrors the US Federal Reserve’s quarter-point rate rise the previous day, takes the benchmark deposit rate
Activist investor Nelson Peltz has warned that First Republic may not be the last regional US bank to fail as he renewed calls for deposit insurance to be extended to safeguard regional lenders. Peltz, the co-founder and chief executive of Trian Fund Management, told the Financial Times that depositors with more than $250,000 in a
Shares in several US regional banks tumbled in pre-market trading on Thursday as the industry’s worst crisis since 2008 rumbled on, overshadowing a suggestion from the Federal Reserve that it could soon pause its policy of interest rate increases. California’s PacWest was more than 45 per cent lower ahead of the Wall Street open after
The writer is founder of Sifted, an FT-backed site about European start-ups When IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeated the world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, some reckoned it was checkmate for humanity, as well as for the ancient sport itself. Newsweek magazine had billed the contest between the calculating machine and the then strongest
Canada’s TD Bank is scrapping its planned $13.4bn acquisition of US lender First Horizon, the companies said on Thursday. The deal, which was first announced in February 2022, had been in regulatory limbo for months, with the closing repeatedly delayed. US politicians had raised concerns about TD, which is Canada’s second-largest bank, becoming too big
Cities aren’t merely back. The biggest are now more sought-after than ever before. Manhattan and even crime-hit downtown Chicago have exceeded their pre-pandemic populations. London now probably has more than nine million inhabitants, its highest number ever. Greater Paris has a record 12.4 million. Cities such as Miami, Singapore and Berlin are becoming unaffordable. At
The crowning of Charles III will be as close as the new King comes to receiving public acclamation in the absence of a ballot. Saturday’s coronation, and the scale of public participation outside Westminster Abbey, will be the first popular marker of King Charles’s reign. With people camping out days ahead to secure positions where
Shell has announced record first-quarter profits and another $4bn of share buybacks after higher trading earnings and liquefied natural gas production helped offset lower oil and gas prices. The energy major reported adjusted earnings of $9.6bn, easily surpassing average analysts’ estimates of $8bn. These were the first quarterly results under chief executive Wael Sawan, a
PacWest shares plummeted 50 per cent in after-hours trading on Wednesday as the teetering California lender became the latest US midsized bank to seek a financial life line amid the worst industry turmoil since 2008. The bank has instructed boutique investment bank Piper Sandler to help it explore strategic options including a sale, two people
Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell made no promise to pause a forceful campaign to rein in inflation after the US central bank lifted its benchmark interest rate above 5 per cent for the first time since 2007. But for anyone listening to his nearly hour-long press conference on Wednesday, it was abundantly clear which way
A former regulator credited with stabilising the US banking system during the 1980s crisis has hit out at the decision to sell First Republic to JPMorgan Chase as he warned of “more problems” to come for regional lenders. After San Francisco-based First Republic suffered a $100bn deposit run, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation solicited bids
From the rundown Neptune Magnet Mall in Mumbai, a giant of international oil shipping has emerged over the past 18 months, seemingly from nowhere. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the company has bought more oil tankers than anyone else, elevating itself from an unknown Indian shipping business into one of the world’s largest vessel owners. Gatik