Will Japan abandon its ultra-loose monetary policies now that Kazuo Ueda has replaced Haruhiko Kuroda as governor of the Bank of Japan? The answer, it seems, is “no”. The new governor, a well-known and respected academic economist, stressed that the two pillars of Japan’s current monetary policy — negative interest rates and yield curve control
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Corporate America is facing its sharpest drop in profits since the early stages of the Covid pandemic, according to Wall Street forecasts, as high inflation squeezes margins and fears of an impending recession hold back demand. Companies on the S&P 500 index are expected to report a 6.8 per cent decline in first-quarter earnings compared
Will US inflation continue to slow? US inflation has slowed consistently over the past year, although declines have moderated in recent months as price pressures in sectors like shelter — which includes rents — have remained high. On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its latest consumer price index report, which is forecast
Italian officials are racing to review a deal to sell the country’s largest refinery after the US government privately raised concerns about the sale of the Russian-owned site to a little-known fund in Cyprus. Russia’s Lukoil agreed in January to sell its Sicilian ISAB refinery to GOI Energy, a newly established branch of the Cypriot
Signs the US labour market is cooling have raised hopes that the worst inflation problem in decades is improving, but economists warn further action is still needed from the Federal Reserve to fully contain price pressures. Data released on Friday bolstered the view that the world’s largest economy, while still resilient, is gradually losing some
European stocks edged higher on Thursday while Wall Street futures slipped after a flurry of weaker than expected jobs data heightened investor concerns about a looming US recession. Europe’s region-wide Stoxx 600 added 0.2 per cent in early trading. Germany’s Dax was steady as industrial production in the eurozone’s biggest economy advanced 2 per cent
Kyiv is willing to discuss the future of Crimea with Moscow if its forces reach the border of the Russian-occupied peninsula, a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told the Financial Times. The comments by Andriy Sybiha, deputy head of Zelenskyy’s office, are the most explicit statement of Ukraine’s interest in negotiations since it
Donald Trump was set to fly to New York on Monday to face criminal charges in a Manhattan court, marking an ominous new chapter in American political and legal history surrounding the former US president. Trump said he would depart at noon from his estate at Mar-a-Lago, on the Atlantic coast of Florida, and head
China launched a review into US chip manufacturer Micron Technology on “national security” grounds, as Beijing retaliates against Washington’s increasing curbs on Chinese access to semiconductor technology. In a statement released late on Friday, the Cyberspace Administration of China said it would review imports of Micron’s products in order to maintain national security, ensure the
Donald Trump will turn himself in to New York prosecutors on Tuesday, his lawyer said, insisting the former president would “not be put in handcuffs”. Joe Tacopina added he expected the charges — the first criminal indictment in history of an ex-US president — to relate to payments to buy the silence of porn actress
Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, said on Monday that recent financial turmoil would not stand in the way of the central bank controlling inflation with high interest rates. In a speech at the London School of Economics, Bailey stressed that the UK financial system was “resilient, with robust capital and liquidity positions,
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Fidelity are the biggest winners from investors pouring cash into US money market funds over the past two weeks, as the collapse of two regional US banks and the rescue deal for Credit Suisse raised concerns about the safety of bank deposits. More than $286bn has flooded into money market
The demonstrators at Place de la République in Paris were chanting, weirdly, in Italian: “Siamo tutti antifascisti,” — “We are all antifascists.” In French, they targeted their chief enemy, the president: “We are here, even if Macron doesn’t want it.” Watching them were ranks of massed riot police, who, in the French policing tradition, made
Outside Zurich’s central station a statue of Alfred Escher looks proudly down Bahnhofstrasse, one of the world’s most expensive shopping streets, to Paradeplatz, the heart of the city’s financial district. Trains still trundle along the Swiss rail network that the 19th-century industrialist pioneered — but the bank he founded 167 years ago to finance its
China said it “firmly opposes” any forced sale of TikTok, denouncing Washington’s demand that the social media app cut ties with its home country ahead of a pivotal hearing in the US on Thursday. “Forcing the sale of TikTok will seriously damage the confidence of investors from all over the world, including from China, on
The Swiss government has banned Credit Suisse from paying deferred bonuses awarded before 2022 in a move that has sparked more upset from staff at the failed bank. The federal finance ministry said on Tuesday it had imposed “remuneration-related measures” on Credit Suisse as a result of the use of taxpayer funds to facilitate its
Credit Suisse bondholders were in uproar on Monday and the European Central Bank raised concerns after the rescue deal by rival UBS wiped out $17bn of the failed Swiss bank’s bonds, upending debt recovery norms and undermining financial market confidence. “In my eyes, this is against the law,” said Patrik Kauffman, a fund manager at
Vladimir Putin has made a surprise visit to Mariupol, the Ukrainian city all but destroyed by his invading army last year, in an apparent show of defiance after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant accusing the Russian president of war crimes. State television showed Putin arriving at the port city by helicopter in
US president Joe Biden is calling on Congress to make it easier for regulators to punish executives at failed banks, including by clawing back profits from share sales and banning them from working in the banking industry. Biden said he was “firmly committed to accountability for those responsible for this mess,” in a statement released on
The market volatility triggered by the failure of three banks in the past week has spooked traders in economically vital US mortgage-backed securities, leaving other lenders, usually important buyers, on the sidelines. The $11tn market for bundles of US home loans was already feeling the strain of last year’s soaring interest rates, which pushed up