The Federal Reserve’s dilemma over whether to press ahead with its campaign of raising interest rates after bank failures has been further complicated by the release of strong inflation data. Officials of the US central bank are set to gather next week for a two-day policy meeting at which they will decide how substantially to
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Equities in Asia rose on Wednesday following a rebound in US banking stocks, as measures from regulators boosted confidence in the financial sector after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Japan’s Topix added 0.8 per cent, South Korea’s Kospi added 1.5 per cent and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.7 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng
Jeremy Hunt will on Wednesday announce billions of pounds to boost business investment and measures to bolster Britain’s workforce, including a big expansion in free childcare, in a “Budget for growth”. The chancellor has pledged that business will be the main beneficiary of any tax cuts in his Budget, but he is constrained by a
China’s economy showed signs of recovery in the first two months of the year, with consumer spending rising after Covid restrictions were lifted. Retail sales grew 3.5 per cent year-on-year in the first two months of the year, compared to declines in both December and November. Consumption remained weak throughout China’s three-year zero-Covid regime, which
US prosecutors are investigating the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank after a dramatic outflow of customer deposits from the Californian tech lender led to the biggest US bank failure since the global financial crisis, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Securities and Exchange Commission has also launched an investigation into the lender’s
Parents of one and two-year-olds in England will be entitled to 30 hours of free childcare a week, under a £4bn giveaway expected to be announced in Wednesday’s Budget. The significant expansion of early years entitlements is part of a series of childcare measures to be announced by chancellor Jeremy Hunt. He is also likely
Rishi Sunak was on Tuesday warned not to weaken City of London regulation, including plans to relax rules for smaller banks, following the collapse of the UK arm of Silicon Valley Bank. The prime minister and chancellor Jeremy Hunt have pushed for looser post-Brexit regulation of the City under the so-called Edinburgh reforms, but the
The world’s largest private investment firms are exploring the purchase of loans from the remains of Silicon Valley Bank after the collapse of the tech-focused lender last week. Blackstone Group, Apollo Global Management, KKR, Ares Management and Carlyle Group are among the buyout groups examining SVB’s $74bn loan book for pieces that might fit into
The leader of Northern Ireland’s main unionist party has called for “further clarification, reworking and change” to the new post-Brexit trade deal for the region agreed by London and Brussels after months of wrangling. In his most detailed assessment of the Windsor framework since it was unveiled last month, Democratic Unionist Party head Sir Jeffrey
Banks fail. When they do, those who stand to lose scream for a state rescue. If the threatened costs are big enough, they will succeed. This is how, crisis by crisis, we have created a banking sector that is in theory private, but in practice a ward of the state. The latter in turn attempts
A violent move in government bond markets sparked by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has upended one of the most popular hedge fund trades of recent years. The bank’s failure on Friday sparked concerns that the US Federal Reserve may need to shy away from aggressive rises in interest rates to avoid putting the
The UK government is planning to eliminate import tariffs on palm oil from Malaysia, a product blamed for widespread deforestation, as the price of joining an Asia-Pacific trade deal, according to people involved in the talks, prompting outrage from green campaigners. Britain is finalising entry terms to the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), an
Britishvolt began planning for a possible insolvency as early as last summer, according to newly released documents that show the battery start-up owed up to £160mn to unsecured creditors when it collapsed in January. EY — which advised the battery group on its business strategy — said it expected to rack up £3.5mn in fees
The writer is a former chair of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and a senior fellow at the Center for Financial Stability Preventing “systemic risk” was repeatedly used as a rationale for bailing out Wall Street during the 2008 financial crisis. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act was supposed to have fixed all of that by strengthening
To south-east Asia, with its EU-dwarfing population, its aspirations beyond middle-income, its clout as a hinge region in the tussle between the US and China. How to explain to someone here the almost subatomic littleness of the main story in the UK? You see, we have this sports presenter. And he tweeted something noble but
Credit Suisse said it had identified “material weaknesses” in its internal controls over financial reporting, the latest blow to a bank battling to revive its fortunes. In its annual report on Tuesday, Credit Suisse said “management did not design and maintain an effective risk assessment process to identify and analyse the risk of material misstatements
US inflation is expected to remain hot enough to further complicate the path forward for the Federal Reserve as it contends with three bank failures and broader concerns about financial stability. The consumer price index is forecast to have risen 6 per cent year on year in February, according to a consensus estimate compiled by
Jeremy Hunt will use Wednesday’s Budget to lift pension allowances for higher earners in an effort to discourage early retirement and get them to extend their careers into later life. The UK chancellor is set to increase the £40,000 cap on tax-free annual pension contributions — frozen for the past nine years — to £60,000.
Academia isn’t exactly famous for churning out timely papers of practical value. But occasionally a gem emerges from the scholastic grind at the perfect moment. One such effort has landed in FTAV’s SVB-bloated inbox today. The abstract from five researchers at the University of Southern California, Northwestern University, Columbia University, Stanford University and NBER (our
Craig Coben is a former global head of equity capital markets at Bank of America and now a managing director at Seda Experts, an expert witness firm specialising in financial services. Bankocalypse postponed? While equity and unsecured creditors will lose their money and top management will lose their jobs, Silicon Valley Bank’s demise shows that
Shares of Japan’s biggest banks dropped sharply on Tuesday as global markets reacted to a US banking sector sell-off and uncertainty over interest rates in the wake of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Traders in Tokyo said they were expecting a second day of massive equity market support from the Bank of Japan to