The euro struck its lowest level in 16 months this week as traders bet that the European Central Bank will stick to its accommodative policies even though widespread inflation is prompting US and UK policymakers to raise interest rates. Traders are dialling up their wagers that the Federal Reserve and Bank of England will lift
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Three of Barclays’ top-20 shareholders have raised concerns over the terms of Jes Staley’s exit ahead of meetings between the bank and investors next week. Some investors have privately criticised the £2.4m in pay awarded to the departing chief executive, who resigned this month following a probe into his past ties to convicted sex offender
Joe Biden has signed his flagship $1.2tn bipartisan infrastructure bill into law in a big legislative victory for the US president at a time when his approval ratings have hit an all-time low. At an event at the White House on Monday, Biden said that the passing of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act would
Divisions, commutes, workloads — and bras — were some of the issues raised by worldwide respondents to an FT reader survey on the return to the office. More than 1,000 readers — from London to Qatar — shared their concerns and hopes. There was optimism about hybrid work, a blend of office and remote working,
The writer is the author of ‘How to Own the Room: Women and the Art of Brilliant Speaking’ It has become an unquestioned truism of the pandemic era to believe that more people than ever before are having a career wobble. They’re calling it The Great Resignation. Why not throw everything up in the air and
Saif al-Islam, a son of former Libyan dictator Muammer Gaddafi, has formally registered as a candidate in his country’s presidential elections due to be held on December 24. His entry into an unstable political scene divided between squabbling factions is expected to further complicate efforts to hold the election. The ballot is seen by the
Airbus has secured a multibillion-dollar order for 255 single-aisle jets from veteran airline investor Bill Franke, a deal that underlines the plane-maker’s forecast that the industry is poised to rebound strongly from the pandemic. The deal sealed at the Dubai Airshow on Sunday packages together A321neo aircraft for delivery across a stable of ultra-low-cost airlines
US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said controlling Covid-19 was key to taming inflation, as Joe Biden’s administration tries to stop rising prices derailing the US economic recovery and the president’s legislative agenda. “The pandemic has been calling the shots for the economy and for inflation,” Yellen said, speaking on CBS’s Face the Nation programme. “And
Are real estate prices today the equivalent of bread prices? It’s a question that was recently asked by a trade union leader in Germany, where there has been a push to seize corporate-owned rental units and put them in public ownership. Many Dutch cities want to ban investors from buying cheap homes to rent out.
After last-minute word changes insisted on by India and China, nearly 200 countries agreed to a climate deal that will help avoid the worst impacts of global warming, but stopped short of reaching the goals of the Paris climate accord. At a time of mounting public frustration over the warming planet — with protesters outside
Western intelligence suggests a “high probability of destabilisation” of Ukraine by Russia as soon as this winter after Moscow massed more than 90,000 troops at its border, according to Kyiv’s deputy defence minister. Hanna Maliar told the FT at the weekend that while interpretations of western intelligence “need further discussion”, they underlined “the high probability
The EU will tighten sanctions on the Belarus regime by targeting those closest to its authoritarian leader, the union’s top diplomat has said, as ministers prepare to step up their response to what Brussels terms a “hybrid attack” at its eastern border. Thousands of people have travelled from the Middle East via Minsk to Belarus’s
Business groups joined climate activists in expressing frustration that national governments were not moving aggressively enough to tackle climate change, after the COP26 agreement was watered down in the final minutes. Nearly 200 countries at the climate summit in Glasgow reached a deal late on Saturday night, and agreed on the rules for implementing the
China reported dozens of new local coronavirus infections on Saturday, a day after the government reaffirmed its commitment to strict measures designed to limit the pandemic’s spread within its borders. The country’s National Health Commission on Sunday reported 74 new cases for the previous day, of which 50 were locally transmitted. A wave of cases
Sue Y Nabi, the fifth chief executive of Coty since 2015, is betting the solution to finally fix the problem-plagued, heavily indebted cosmetics maker can be found in a tube of Gucci lipstick sold online in China. After a year in the job, the beauty industry veteran has set out a growth plan built on
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway reported a two-thirds decline in profits in the third quarter compared to the same period last year, while its cash pile hit a new record despite increased share buybacks. The sprawling conglomerate said on Saturday that its net earnings fell to $10.34bn, or $6,882 per class A share, in the third
Investors propelled US stocks to a record high last week, buoyed by declining unemployment and advancements in the treatment of Covid-19 giving hope to a resurgent economy. The S&P 500 index of blue-chip US stocks, seen as a benchmark for the health of corporate America, rose 2 per cent for the week to Friday, its
In China, there is no clearer sell-sign than when Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, starts personally attacking an industry. So when Xi complained in March that relentless home-schooling was a “stubborn disease” that was putting too much pressure on Chinese children and their parents, the heads of at least two Chinese tutoring companies started selling
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and Microsoft both posted strong revenue growth in the third quarter, while Twitter swung to a loss, as the three tech companies released results late on Tuesday. Alphabet Alphabet smashed Wall Street’s profit expectations in the third quarter, thanks to stronger-than-expected ad sales, though the Google parent fell short of expectations
The Financial Times has created a searchable dashboard of 193 countries’ historical emissions and future climate targets, as well as information on the energy mix that indicates their progress on renewable energy, using data from Climate Watch and the International Energy Agency. Countries that signed up to the Paris agreement were asked to submit improved
When Saudi Arabia abruptly amended its rules for imports from neighbouring Gulf states, executives at an UAE conglomerate were stunned into action. They ordered company trucks packed with everything from cardboard packaging to steel pallets to return to Dubai from the Saudi border, while officials urgently phoned clients in the kingdom to ask if they
Poland’s prime minister has accused the EU of making demands of Warsaw with a “gun to our head”, urging Brussels to withdraw threats of legal and financial sanctions if it wanted to resolve the country’s rule of law crisis. In a move to ease tensions in the long-running dispute, which has raised fears of a
US intelligence officials have launched a campaign to warn American companies about the risks of interacting with China in critical industries, in a push to make it harder for Beijing to obtain technology and data. The National Counterintelligence and Security Center wants to raise awareness about the links that Chinese companies have with the government,
The European Central Bank is pushing banks to add hundreds of extra staff and billions of extra capital to their post-Brexit operations in continental Europe. One of the big surprises of Brexit was how few jobs moved from the City to the EU, with Financial Times research showing only a minimal reduction of London bank
Jens Weidmann has decided to step down after a decade as head of Germany’s central bank in a move that comes weeks after the country’s general election and shortly before a crucial decision on the future of eurozone monetary policy. Since he joined the Bundesbank, Weidmann has been one of the most vocal critics of
Countering the security threat from the rise of China will be an important part of Nato’s future rationale, the alliance’s chief has said, marking a significant rethink of the western alliance’s objectives that reflects the US’s geostrategic pivot to Asia. In an interview with the Financial Times, Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said China was already
Goldman Sachs reported a 60 per cent rise in quarterly profits, capping a week of bank earnings in which Wall Street firms reaped billions of dollars from a record burst of dealmaking. On Friday, Goldman reported third quarter group earnings per share of $14.93 on total net income of $5.4bn, up from $3.4bn a year
From the top floors of a skyscraper that crowns the biggest New York office development since Rockefeller Center, a few hundred highly paid executives oversee one of the most pervasive enterprises that American capitalists have ever built. Less than half a century after it was started as a boutique investment vehicle run by two wealthy
Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz has resigned, just days after he was named as a suspect in an investigation by state prosecutors into grand corruption at the heart of the Austrian government. In a brief statement on Saturday evening at the Ballhausplatz — the seat of the chancellery in Vienna — Kurz said it had been
Holding a fistful of pungent beige pellets, Ed Towers warns that those averse to garlic should stand back. The scent hits anyone within a few feet of him but rather than seasoning for the dinner table, these small garlic-infused cylinders are being fed to dairy cows at the Brades family farm in the verdant hills