News

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the UK inflation myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. UK inflation slowed less than expected in March, fuelling the debate over how soon the Bank of England will start cutting interest rates. Consumer prices rose at an annual rate of 3.2 per cent, down

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has raised the possibility of further tax cuts before the next general election as he counts on recent reductions to national insurance and the prospect of lower interest rates to improve the

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Equities myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Global stock markets sank and Asian currencies were hit by a rising dollar on Tuesday, as investors’ hopes for rapid US interest rate cuts waned and fears grew over the conflict in the Middle East. Indices

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Oil and Asian equity markets were muted on Monday following Iran’s military strike on Israel as traders shrugged off fears the conflict could escalate into a full-blown war and curb supplies from the region. Brent

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Western leaders increased pressure on Israel on Monday to exercise restraint following Iran’s drone and missile attack, as Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet prepared to reconvene to discuss how it will respond. French President Emmanuel Macron

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Israel’s war cabinet met on Sunday afternoon to discuss possible responses to a massive overnight Iranian drone and missile attack, with US President Joe Biden urging restraint as the Middle East edged closer to full-blown

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Joe Biden condemned Iran’s “unprecedented” drone and missile attacks on Israel on Saturday night, as he called for a co-ordinated diplomatic response by the G7 to Tehran’s “brazen” assault. Biden said that the US military

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Iran has launched drones at Israel, an Israeli military spokesman said, following a suspected Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus that killed several senior Iranian officials. In a statement late on Saturday, Daniel

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Macquarie, the former owner of Thames Water criticised for loading the utility with debt, is a lender to its stricken parent company. Macquarie’s investors lent about £130mn to the utility’s holding company Kemble Water Finance

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Thames Water shareholders backed away from supporting the group after the UK regulator demanded they slash the company’s debt pile and make other structural changes they calculated would cost as much as £8bn. The backtracking

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The UK economy grew for the second month in a row in February, driven by expansion in manufacturing, raising hopes the UK may be emerging from a technical recession. Gross domestic product rose 0.1 per

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