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Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the UK interest rates myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Rishi Sunak’s hopes of going into a general election on the back of lower taxes and cheaper mortgages suffered a blow on Thursday as traders scaled back expectations of interest rate cuts in 2024.

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the UK interest rates myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Cuts in UK interest rates “should still be a way off”, according to one Bank of England policymaker, arguing investors were underestimating the risk that high inflation would linger for longer in Britain than

Inflation has started to show signs of easing from the multi-decade highs reached in many countries following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The latest figures for most of the world’s largest economies still make for worrying reading, with price pressures remaining high as the war in Ukraine continues to keep energy and food prices elevated.

Big investors are selling US Treasuries and buying European government bonds, betting that cooler inflation in Europe will allow its central bank to start cutting interest rates sooner than the Federal Reserve. Money managers at Pimco, JPMorgan Asset Management and T Rowe Price have all increased their exposure to European government debt in recent weeks.

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. OpenAI and Meta are on the brink of releasing new artificial intelligence models that they say will be capable of reasoning and planning, key steps towards achieving superhuman cognition in machines. This week, executives at

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Labour will on Tuesday propose to toughen a planned crackdown on tax perks enjoyed by “non-doms” living in the UK, alongside a wider effort to tighten compliance, as the party seeks to plug a hole

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The US, UK and Australia on Monday said they were considering working with Japan on advanced technology projects in the trilateral Aukus security pact aimed at boosting deterrence against China. The Aukus defence ministers said

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the War in Ukraine myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. The US has warned of “significant consequences” if Chinese companies provide support for Moscow’s war against Ukraine in one of the sharpest messages it has yet delivered to Beijing. Following discussions in Guangzhou on

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. President Joe Biden will warn China about its increasingly aggressive activity in the South China Sea this week during summits with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Two senior US

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The US, UK and Australia are to begin talks on bringing new members into Aukus as Washington pushes for Japan to be involved in the security pact aimed as a deterrent against China.  The Aukus

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Joe Biden has almost $100mn more in his election war chest than Donald Trump, the president’s campaign has said, giving him a big money lead over his rival seven months ahead of the election. Biden

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. It was a grim irony that as new questions were swirling over the future of debt-laden Thames Water — Britain’s largest water utility — this weekend, the annual Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race had to go ahead

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Thames Water’s parent company has sent a formal notice to bondholders informing them that it has defaulted on its debt, firing the starting gun on a potentially messy restructuring at the owner of Britain’s largest

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Joe Biden has warned Benjamin Netanyahu that US support for Israel’s war in Gaza depended on its efforts to address the humanitarian suffering in the enclave, as he called for an “immediate ceasefire” in the

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Two Chinese state-owned banks hold a crucial role in the future of Thames Water, as part of a group of lenders involved in a stand-off over debt at the parent company of Britain’s largest water

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Google is working on the biggest shake-up of its search business by charging for new “premium” features powered by generative artificial intelligence, the first time it would put any of its core product behind a

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Jay Powell said the Federal Reserve’s job of bringing down inflation was “not yet done” and the US central bank needed “greater confidence” that price pressures were easing before cutting interest rates, striking a cautious

Blackstone’s flagship property fund failed to generate enough cash to cover its dividend last year, putting strain on a vehicle the private capital group views as a beachhead in the retail investor marketplace. The $60bn Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust generated $2.7bn in cash flows in 2023, mostly in rents from a portfolio spanning thousands

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the War in Ukraine myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Nato is drawing up plans to secure a five-year military aid package of up to $100bn, in a bid to shield Ukraine from “winds of political change” that could usher in a second Trump

Three senior members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were killed on Monday in an air strike on the consular section of Iran’s embassy in Damascus, an attack that Tehran has blamed on Israel.  The death of Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Zahedi, a prominent commander of the Revolutionary Guards, marks a significant escalation in hostilities that have engulfed

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Istanbul’s opposition mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was leading against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling party in Sunday’s pivotal municipal elections, according to preliminary returns. İmamoğlu was ahead of Erdoğan’s mayoral candidate Murat Kurum by 8 percentage

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Utilities myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Thames Water’s owners will start urgent restructuring talks in the coming days as parent company Kemble risks entering insolvency within weeks unless lenders agree to a debt-for-equity deal, according to people familiar with the matter. Alvarez

The surge of money flooding into artificial intelligence has resulted in some crypto-like hype that is obscuring the incredible scientific progress in the field, according to Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMind. The chief executive of Google’s AI research division told the Financial Times that the billions of dollars being poured into generative AI start-ups and

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Online fast-fashion giant Shein has more than doubled its profits as it awaits regulatory approval from Beijing to go ahead with its blockbuster listing in New York or London. Shein hit a record of more

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Organisers of the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race insist the event will go ahead as planned this weekend, despite warnings over high levels of “dangerous” pollution caused by sewage in the river Thames. Campaign group River Action

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Ministers have accepted that Thames Water bills will have to rise, as they seek to persuade investors to put more money into the troubled company and stop it sliding towards a politically disastrous nationalisation. Steve

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the US inflation myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. US inflation rose slightly to 2.5 per cent in February, according to the metric that the Federal Reserve uses for its target. The rise in headline Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation, from 2.4 per cent in

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Equities myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Global stock markets have recorded their best first-quarter performance in five years, buoyed by hopes of a soft economic landing in the US and enthusiasm about artificial intelligence. An MSCI index of worldwide stocks has gained

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Thames Water said its shareholders will no longer provide £500mn of fresh equity by the end of the month over fears that conditions imposed by the industry regulator make the company’s business plan “uninvestible”. The

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. A green energy tycoon who plans to donate £5mn to the UK’s Labour party has been ordered by the High Court to inform his wife before he hands over more cash. Lawyers acting for Dale