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Since the Federal Reserve in March embarked on what has become the fastest pace of interest rate rises since 1981, it has provided painstaking detail about its future plans to tighten monetary policy. On Wednesday, that changed, with chair Jay Powell announcing the US central bank would shy away from offering an official running commentary

Beijing is seeking to mobilise up to Rmb1tn ($148bn) of loans for stalled property developments, in its most ambitious attempt to revive the debt-stricken sector and mollify home buyers who are boycotting mortgage repayments after lengthy construction delays. China’s property sector accounts for about one-third of total output in the world’s second-largest economy. The industry’s

Ford overcame supply chain challenges to report higher vehicle sales and reaffirm its outlook for the year, but is “actively looking” to offset costs as inflationary pressures mount. The automaker reported revenue of $40.2bn in the second quarter, a 50 per cent jump from the same period last year, thanks to a 35 per cent

The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark policy rate by 0.75 percentage points for the second month in a row on Wednesday as it doubled down on its aggressive approach to taming soaring inflation despite early signs the US economy is starting to lose steam. At the end of its two-day policy meeting, the Federal Open

Gas and electricity bills for the most vulnerable households in Britain are predicted to soar to an average of £500 a month in January, stoking the cost of living crisis and increasing the pressure on the government to act to save millions of families from energy poverty. The warning from consultancy BFY Group came as

Wall Street equity markets rallied on Wednesday after reassuring earnings reports from tech titans Microsoft and Alphabet soothed markets ahead of a crucial US interest rate decision later in the day. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite US stock index gained 2.7 per cent, with the tech sector rising on relief that inflation and signs of an

Has the high price of food passed a peak? Even before the UN-brokered grain deal between Kyiv and Moscow gave the green light last week for shipments to leave Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, food commodity prices had been plummeting. Fears of recession, a bumper harvest in Russia and hopes of revived grain trade flows have

The writer is professor of corporate law at the University of Cambridge The Financial Reporting Council has announced a fresh review of the UK Corporate Governance Code, indicating that it will strengthen and expand it. The FRC, likely to be absorbed soon into a new, more powerful regulator — the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority

When two trains are heading for collision, the switch operator puts them on different tracks. Alas, in geopolitics it is up to the drivers to take evasive action. In the case of the US and China, each questions the other’s ability to drive trains. History offers us little hope that looming trainwrecks will organically resolve

The world’s biggest oil and gas companies are generating more money than ever while spending relatively little of it. European supermajors BP, Shell and TotalEnergies have each pledged to become green businesses over the next three decades but are still investing only a fraction of their capital on renewable energy. With each expected to report

Norway’s Equinor and Spain’s Iberdrola revealed bumper profits on Wednesday as the energy groups benefited from turmoil in commodity markets in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. State-controlled Equinor said it would return an additional $3bn to shareholders as it reported adjusted pre-tax earnings of $17.6bn in the three months to the end of

European gas prices jumped further on Wednesday after Russia followed through on its threat to make further cuts in gas supplies to the region. Gas prices rose 12 per cent early on Wednesday and have risen by more than a third this week from already extremely elevated levels as Europe struggles to fill gas storage

Lloyds Banking Group has beaten quarterly profit estimates and updated full-year guidance as interest rate rises and an increase in mortgages boosted the UK lender. Second-quarter pre-tax profit rose to £2.04bn, inching up from £2.01bn a year earlier but beating consensus of £1.6bn. Revenues for the three months to June rose 10 per cent to

Deutsche Bank has ditched an already reduced target for cost cuts this year as Germany’s largest lender warned that it was braced for “higher-than-expected bank levies, inflation, unforeseen costs related to the war in Ukraine and litigation matters”. The combination of factors has rendered its ambition of bringing costs down to 70 per cent of

Credit Suisse announced plans for a “comprehensive” review of its businesses as the troubled Swiss bank installed Ulrich Körner as chief executive and slumped to a far larger second-quarter loss than expected. Körner, who heads Credit Suisse’s asset management business, will take over from Thomas Gottstein, who is stepping down after leading the bank through

The Biden administration has bolstered efforts to sign big oil importers on to a plan to cap prices they offer for Russian crude, concerned that without it the world faces a damaging surge in fuel costs. Negotiations are under way between the US and China, India and other countries that have been buying up discounted

The old riverside customs and excise office in South Shields, once one of the world’s most important shipbuilding hubs, boasts a mosaic that tells the port’s maritime story. In the middle there is the River Tyne, before it was blackened by shipyards and coal, teeming with salmon. “There was a time when they used to

The writer is the founder of Sahm Consulting and a former Federal Reserve and White House economist Some commentators argue that the US needs a recession to bring inflation down. That thinking hinges on a simplistic model of the economy and a refusal to see Covid and the war in Ukraine as important sources of

Microsoft shrugged off worries about the effects of a weakening economy with a confident forecast for its latest fiscal year on Tuesday, sending its shares up more than 6 per cent in after-hours trading. The optimism came despite a sharp contraction in the personal computer market, the strength of the US dollar and signs of

Shares in US retailers led Wall Street lower on Tuesday after Walmart warned that higher inflation would hurt its profits. The broad S&P 500 share index shed 1.2 per cent, with consumer cyclical stocks suffering the sharpest declines. Walmart’s share price dropped 7.6 per cent after the big-box retailer issued its second profit warning in

Credit Suisse is set to appoint Ulrich Körner as its new chief executive, taking over from Thomas Gottstein, whose departure will bring an end to one of the most tumultuous periods in the Swiss bank’s 166-year history. The appointment of Körner, who is head of the bank’s asset management division, is expected to be announced on