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Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Sunday was trying to contain a revolt from rightwing lawmakers opposed to his debt agreement with President Joe Biden, as both sides moved to sell their parties on a deal to prevent a looming US default. McCarthy defended the pact ahead of a high-stakes vote expected on Wednesday in

Stronger than expected US inflation and a bump in consumer spending have fuelled worldwide expectations that interest rates will go higher, as predictions about future monetary policy rapidly shift. The Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation overshot expectations in April, data published on Friday showed, while US consumer spending rose last month and new orders

Jeremy Hunt has backed further interest rate rises to bring prices under control as figures showed only Argentina and South Sudan experienced bigger increases in underlying inflation last month. The UK chancellor signalled his support for Bank of England rate increases after a week when core inflation, which excludes energy and food, hit its highest

Net immigration to the UK rose to a record high of 606,000 in 2022, driven by rising numbers of people from outside the EU, including from Ukraine and Hong Kong. The figures fell short of estimates of about 700,000 but remain far above the Conservative government’s 2010 pledge to reduce net immigration to the “tens

UK inflation dropped to 8.7 per cent in April, a smaller fall than the Bank of England expected, raising pressure on the central bank to keep increasing interest rates.  The figure will come as a blow to ministers and the central bank because the fall in consumer price inflation from 10.1 per cent in March

The governor of the Bank of England has conceded there are “very big lessons to learn” in setting monetary policy after the central bank failed to forecast the recent rise and persistence of inflation. Along with other members of the BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee, Andrew Bailey told the House of Commons Treasury select committee on

Germany recorded its highest level of foreign direct investment last year, with a surge in UK companies setting up operations to keep a post-Brexit presence in the EU. FDI into Germany totalled €25.3bn last year, up 261 per cent from €7bn in Covid-hit 2021, according to official figures from Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI). The

China said that US chipmaker Micron Technology’s products posed “serious network security risks” as it banned operators of key infrastructure from buying them, in its first big measure against an American semiconductor group. The Cyberspace Administration of China on Sunday announced that the company, which is the biggest US maker of memory chips, “posed significant

The G7 has issued its strongest condemnation of China, as the world’s most advanced economies step up their response to what they say are rising military and economic security threats posed by Beijing. In broad criticism of China over everything from its militarisation of the South China Sea to its use of “economic coercion”, the

James Gorman plans to step down as chief executive of Morgan Stanley within the next year after more than a decade at the top of the Wall Street bank he turned into a wealth management juggernaut. Gorman, 64, told the bank’s annual shareholder meeting on Friday that the “specific timing of the CEO transition has

Carl Icahn has admitted he was wrong to make a huge bet that the market would crash after the ill-fated trade cost his firm nearly $9bn over roughly six years. According to a Financial Times analysis, the prominent activist investor lost about $1.8bn in 2017 on hedging positions that would have paid out if asset

Andrew Bailey has acknowledged for the first time the Bank of England is dealing with a UK wage price spiral as he pledged to raise interest rates as far “as necessary” to get inflation back to the bank’s 2 per cent target. Speaking to the British Chambers of Commerce annual conference in London, the BoE

Oxford university ended its relationship with the Sacklers on Monday after a Financial Times investigation into its continued ties with the wealthy family led academics and students to call for sweeping reforms. The decision to cut social ties and remove the Sackler name from buildings, spaces and staff positions comes at the end of a

Turkey’s veteran leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday led a hotly contested election to extend his rule into a third decade, defying polls to enter an expected run-off for the presidency with momentum on his side. After a hard-fought campaign that had raised hopes of an opposition breakthrough, Erdoğan won 49.3 per cent of votes

Howard Marks, the co-founder of $172bn investment group Oaktree Capital Management, has warned that the boom in private credit will soon be tested as higher interest rates and slower economic growth heap pressure on corporate America. The 77-year-old billionaire told the Financial Times that big asset managers had competed aggressively to lend to the largest

The shape of a possible US debt ceiling agreement between the White House and Republicans in Congress is emerging as they intensify talks in a bid to avoid an unprecedented national default. People familiar with the matter said that the issues on the table in the talks had narrowed, as senior Biden administration officials and

Russia’s defence ministry claimed a long-awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive had begun, pointing to intensifying attacks in eastern Ukraine over the past 48 hours. The ministry said on Friday that Ukraine had launched 26 assaults along a 60-mile stretch of the frontline near Bakhmut and the nearby town of Soledar, involving more than a thousand troops and

The Bank of England has raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point to 4.5 per cent, as it warned it would not hit its inflation target until 2025. A seven to two majority on the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee said the rise was needed to bring inflation back under control as

US inflation was slightly weaker than forecast in April, bolstering Treasuries and Wall Street stocks on hopes that the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes are bringing price rises under control. Consumer price inflation dipped to an annual rate of 4.9 per cent, its lowest level since April 2021. Economists had expected it to remain steady at

Investment banks are turning more bullish on sterling as it trades close to a one-year high against the dollar and a five-month high against the euro, on expectations that the UK economy is performing better than many had feared. The pound was trading at $1.2618 on Tuesday, close to the $1.2688 it hit on Monday,