Spring Statement highlights tough UK economy

Beijing has introduced environmental restrictions that would prevent Chinese companies from buying Nvidia’s bestselling processors, UK chancellor Rachel Reeves will update the country on Wednesday on the latest economic growth forecasts, and Shell has said it will cut costs and spending, especially in clean energy. Plus, individual investors have pumped almost $70bn into US stocks … Read more

Gold is the real ‘Trump put’

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world US equity investors were initially optimistic about the second presidency of Donald Trump. A so-called “Trump put” was one reason for this. The assumption was that the Republican leader would tweak his policies … Read more

Can Trump drive down bond yields?

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. President Donald Trump has been clear he wants lower interest rates. Cheaper money would goose the market and give the government room to spend. But interest rates haven’t exactly been co-operating. Today on the show, … Read more

Anatomy of a Chinese pump and dump

We’ve written a few times about some rather fishy price swings involving China-based, Nasdaq-listed stocks and US regulators’ seeming inability to get to the root of the problem. So credit where it’s due — on Friday, Chicago federal law enforcement seized $214mn in an alleged “pump and dump” fraud investigation. They indicted seven defendants in … Read more

Standard Chartered fails to narrow £1.5bn lawsuit over Iran sanction breaches

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Standard Chartered has failed in its attempt to narrow the scope of a £1.5bn lawsuit over claims that its breaches of sanctions against Iran were more widespread than it has acknowledged. The High Court in … Read more

Trafigura chief urges government ownership of smelters to compete with China

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Trafigura’s new chief executive, Richard Holtum, called for western governments to nationalise parts of the metals processing industry in order to compete with China as he placed the company’s struggling Nyrstar zinc smelter in Australia … Read more