Today In The Markets

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The young woman next to me buried her face in her hoodie while her two friends clutched each other, and their pints, with a nervous anticipation. Darts fever had gripped the UK — at least it

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Chinese business & finance myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Zhongzhi, the conglomerate at the centre of China’s $3tn shadow banking market, has filed for bankruptcy, saying that it was “severely insolvent”. A Beijing court accepted a bankruptcy and liquidation application from Zhongzhi

Jack’s Brasserie in Bern, founded in 1911, is the canteen of Swiss power. Here, between chandeliers and white tablecloths, five minutes’ walk from the federal parliament, corporate lobbyists schmooze politicians — insofar as it’s necessary to charm Swiss politicians into helping corporations. Giuliano da Empoli is an Italian whose bestselling debut novel about Russia’s political

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Last month the chief of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund struck the gong of the Hong Kong stock market. In doing so Yasir al-Rumayyan was not just marking the exchange’s opening that day, but also

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Economists believe the US jobs market weakened in December, bolstering the case for the Federal Reserve to consider cutting interest rates. A poll by Reuters showed economists, on average, predict data published on Friday will

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the US equities myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Stocks and bonds fell on Friday, deepening one of the worst starts to the year in the past decade for global markets as recent hopes that interest rates will soon be cut have dimmed in

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Eurozone inflation rose to 2.9 per cent in December, reversing six months of consecutive falls and raising questions over how soon the European Central Bank will start cutting interest rates. The annual rise of consumer

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Trade disputes myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. China has launched a new investigation into French brandy imports, escalating a trade spat between Beijing and Brussels. Officials at the commerce ministry said its anti-dumping probe into brandy imported from the European Union followed

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the EU energy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. EU imports of Russian liquefied natural gas dropped slightly last year after a surge in 2022, as confidence is growing that the bloc can finally rid itself of fossil fuel imports from Russia. Policymakers in

Rishi Sunak may have shunned the opportunity of a big speech to kick off an election year, but he nonetheless managed to eclipse Sir Keir Starmer’s set-piece January address this week.  The UK prime minister’s studiedly offhand remarks about the timing of a general election, made on the fringes of a visit to a youth

A day after a senior Hamas leader was killed in a suspected Israeli drone strike in Beirut, the influential Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah delivered a highly anticipated televised address. For most of the 80-minute speech on Wednesday, Nasrallah trod familiar ground, berating Israel for its ferocious bombardment of Gaza and the US for offering unbridled

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The industrial revolution was one of the most important events in human history. Over a handful of decades, technological breakthroughs kicked economic output off its centuries-long low plateau and sent populations, living standards and life

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. If you are reading this, congratulations, you have won a sort of lottery. About 700mn people around the world survive on less than $2.15 a day, the World Bank’s poverty line. That is less than

Forecasting the economic and financial outlook for the coming year is always difficult. In 2020, the surprise came in the form of a global pandemic; in 2022, it was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For 2024, the known unknowns come in two categories: economics and politics. The likely good news comes in the form of falling

Wang Ya-june didn’t think much of the town where she washed up in the autumn of 1949. When she stepped off a Chinese Nationalist warship laden with refugees and injured and dead soldiers in Keelung on that rainy day, the port on the northern tip of Taiwan was just another Chinese city to her, just

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Labour explored a move to impose sales tax retroactively on private school fees to stop parents avoiding the levy by paying for years of education upfront, according to people briefed on internal discussions. Some wealthier

© Reuters Israel’s defence minister said there should be “no Israeli civilian presence” in Gaza when its war with Hamas is over, as he set out his vision for the next phases of the conflict and its aftermath. In a document released on Thursday night, shortly before Israel’s war cabinet was due to discuss the

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Electric vehicles myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. The share of electric cars sold in the UK fell for the first time last year, casting doubt over whether manufacturers will meet binding new green targets and prompting industry calls for tax cuts. Electric